Post by logan9a on Oct 11, 2018 20:24:59 GMT
ORGANIZATION OF RULE BOOK
THE BOOKS
This is a simple system, especially compared to other books whose publishing companies rely on coming up with more and more filler to sell. There is no separate GM’s guide and players guide. To make a character, all that is needed is the character sheet for experienced players. There are instructions and such for the new players.
So just this book.
Introduction to roleplay
If you don’t know what it is, your chances of picking this book up are almost nill. Since this is covered in literally every other rule book, I’m skipping it. If you picked up these rules by chance and have no idea what it is all about, good luck. And thanks for the money if we’re selling this.
ADVANCED ROLEPLAY
Be in character - always.
Bad: “My character does…”, “He heads out to the park.”, “I tell Bert’s character…”, “Look at that great roll!”
Good: “I shoot!”, “I head out to the park.”, “Hey, Ronnie (the character’s name) -…”, “You are kicking ass!”
METAGAMING
Don’t metagame. Metagaming is acting on knowledge your character doesn’t have.
Fred: “Do I know astrologically what the Maya think about this?”
GM: “Roll your astrology.”
Jim: (Rolling his astrology)
GM: “Jim, WTF are you doing? Just because Fred looks thoughtful doesn’t mean you suddenly get to roll your astrology skill.”
Metagamey: “I have a low sanity - let’s do some good guy shit so I can gain some sanity.”
Better RP: “I’ve been having second thoughts about some of my life choices. Who can we help today?”
WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR CHARACTER
Make someone who is not only fun to play but someone who is fun to play ‘with’. Be generous to your fellow players.
An article I read had an excellent comment: “Very quick rule of thumb: If a player has to utter the phrase "but it's what my character would do" more than once the PC (and quite likely the player) is probably an asshole.”
Here’s a rather long article on the subject if additional clarification is needed: tinyurl.com/ybj8e3bv
HOW THIS GAME IS DIFFERENT FROM D&D
Why is this section in here? Because most people who have done table top roleplaying games have done D&D. In fact it seems that there is a significant percentage of players who seem unaware that other games even exist. Hence, this section.
D&D is an adolescent power fantasy in which ‘killing solves everything’. If you still have a problem after killing, it is because you haven’t done enough killing. Your character becomes stronger and stronger from fighting.
In this game, enough fighting will drain your Hero Points (see below), leaving you weaker for future fights. Do this often enough and you will be totally drained and probably die in the next fight.
Also, many people play what I call ‘chess D&D’, moving minis around a grid and taking on ‘level appropriate’ opponents. Though I’ve heard many GM’s say they ‘don’t always run level appropriate encounters’ in my experience this is usually a defensive lie. Within most D&D, your character is meant to have the ‘strength of arms’ (or magic, whatever) to be able to power their way through a dungeon of monsters.
In this game, the characters are much much weaker. They cannot withstand prolonged combat. It will kill them. With a maximum hit points of twenty and a pistol able to do half of that on a hit, simple math should tell you that compared to many games.
Going at problems ‘head on’ is not desirable. Finding ways around combat helps players survive.
Generally, people seem poor at planning beyond ‘kick in door, kill everything’. Even those that make a better plan seem stumped when their plan falls apart. To paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Even fewer groups have a simple back up plan like “This is our fall back point.”
This game will help educate people to develop those skills.
GM’s who attempt to run this like a D&D campaign will probably find the characters dead, players frustrated and campaign in a shambles.
FOR NEW PLAYERS - HOW TO GET INVOLVED IN THE CAMPAIGN
For the TL;DR crowd: Lots of new players who attempt to get around doing these steps will often get told "RTFM" (read the fucking manual). This is it. There is no short cut. If you want to get in on the game, you're going to need to do all of these steps. Asking questions to see if there is a way around some of the steps or 'what kind of game is it' are not going to help. RTFM. I've had new players complete all of these steps within an hour so I don't consider them too difficult. If you can't spend an hour or two doing these things, chances of your committing to five hours at a time regularly are pretty low.
1. Watch at least some of the stuff that is on youtube. If you like that, you'll like the game. If you don't, this may not be the game for you. Link for a sample session is at: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0st04ylFfuYDLXRv1FakHGo1Yaillmmh
2. Make a character. See the post 'how to make a character'. (Note - this is the only moderately complicated part - and there are tools to help you. As you've watched the videos you know that - mechanics wise - the play is the easy part.) Don't worry about min/maxing - you'll get the ability to rewrite it after the first session. If you still have questions after reading the post, check out the video (also on this board). If you've watched the entire hour long video and still have more questions, post them in the general board. Making a character will tell you pretty much everything you will need to know about the system.
3. Sign up for one session. See the general board - sign up sheet. Figure out what time the start time is in your time zone. Post on the sign up thread sheet what date you'd like to play. Playing is really the easiest way to learn. As one of the new players said "Don't be intimidated by the game sign-up either, don't feel like you have to sign up more than you want to, Logan does a great job of making any session fun and interesting, even if you don't have a regular session/group." For new people, I recommend signing up on a day that has other people already signed up to play. Learn the ropes from experienced players. The most experienced players include Chris, Matt and Pete who have gamed with me for over a decade.
4. Post your character in the general section, ask experienced players what they think of it. Every campaign is different and the experienced players know the GM'ing styles. Get their advice. Sometimes, they can point out other strategies that fit better within this campaign. If you are very lucky, they may total up your character points and find you didn't give yourself enough or some such. Because it can take quite a while to get responses on your character (oddly, people do stuff aside from stalk this board) posting the characters as far in the future as possible is a great idea. If you post them up a couple days before you play it probably won't help you much.
5. Ask questions. If you want, they can even be on the newbie board. Or on the general board. Whichever. Remember, everyone was new at one point. People are happy to help out.
6. For now, ignore most of the stuff on this board (outside of the 'new players start here' board and the 'sign up sheet' - those please pay attention to). There is a lot of it and it can be intimidating trying to figure this all out. Best to just concentrate on getting a character made and doing a game. See if you have fun. After that, you can ease into things.
7. Before the game starts, be sure to friend 'Logan Horsford' (the old bastard, not the young one) on Facebook. I use this to send you information you will need - the roll20 site and the Google hangouts information. This will also get you access to the ATAW Facebook group. When sending Logan Horsford a friend request on Facebook, be sure to send a message saying 'hey, I'm joining ATAW'. Logan gets a lot of weird spam friend requests.
8. Have Chrome loaded. Google hangouts only seems to work with Chrome. Most people use Chrome any way but some do not.
9. 15 to 30 minutes before the game, send Logan a PM on Facebook. He will send you links to the roll20 room and the Google Hangouts. If you don't send him a PM, he assumes you are busy/have forgot today is game day, etc and will try to fill the slot with anyone else available. After you get these links, please log on so that you can double check your equipment (camera, mic) to make sure they are working properly.
10. You will need a webcam, mic and headphones to play. AND A QUIET PLACE TO PLAY IN where you won't get interrupted or need to move. Make sure they work days before your game time.
FOR NEW PLAYERS - HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER
Before messing about with stats, points and the calculator which is probably on your phone, it is a good idea to think about what kind of character you would like to play.
Keep in mind that they will have to be a people person in so far as they need get along well with the other PC's and have plenty of reasons to adventure with them. If you don't have those two things, try new character ideas until you do. Seriously. Loner characters won't work. Even if you don't start with a group, chances are good you may eventually be playing with others.
Also, everyone is 'human'.
The most basic thing is to figure out the time period the character comes from. The time periods can generally be broken down to ancient, cowboy to 1920's, modern, cyberpunk, space. These aren't exact but gives a decent idea of a break down. For new players, I strongly recommend 'modern'. That way, you can take all of the skills that seem logical to you. You don't have to spend most of the session hiding from a talking box that is too small to have people in it, you don't have to wonder why supposed futuristic science is such shit. Obviously the occupation and skills are limited by the time period if you take earlier times. While it is possible to take 'flint napping' with a space character, it is not possible to take computer programming with an ancient one.
Figure out some sort of basic occupation. This will tell you generally what kind of skills you will be taking. You don't have to - you could have someone who has trained in how to fly a jet fighter and fight with a spear - it really does not matter.
Ponder what your character's hobbies are.
Now, you're ready to start messing with the points.
LOGAN'S WONDERFUL SHEET OF HOW TO OPERATE PETE'S CALCULATING SHEET
This is a wonderful artistic model. It is important not to let the number of skills on the sheet overwhelm you. After actually playing the game a time or two I challenge you to find a simpler system with a nuanced of starting characters. Note that obviously the skills continue on past the bottom of the page and for the next couple of pages past that. Plus write in skills, languages, etc.

STATISTICS
There are four statistics you may divide a total of ten points among. The statistics all start at ten with the exception of sanity which starts at 50.
Those statistics are: Willpower, Learning, Essence and Sanity.
Note that for every point put into Sanity gives you five.
Example: If the player put 2 points into Willpower, 3 into Learning, 1 into Essence and 4 into Sanity, their stats would look like this:
Willpower: 12
Learning: 13
Essence: 11
Sanity: 70
What the stats mean:
Willpower: Mental fortitude, your drive to get things done, etc. This is important as it is also your hit points - the amount of damage you can take before dying.
Learning: This is your base for all skills unless the base printed on the character sheet is higher. Any time you learn a new skill it starts at your learning expressed in a percentage.
Essence: Your Essence is the amount of magic points you have. This stat is useful only for casting - and in some cases resisting - spells. This is also your starting HERO Points. Note that becoming a competent mage is a hard thing that takes awhile to do within the campaign. The main thing starting with a high Essence will do for you is to give you more starting Hero Points - which are important.
Sanity: The more sanity you have, the more difficult it is for you to lose sanity. Once you get under 50% or so, it starts a 'slippery slope'. You can gain sanity through various things including 'good guy' acts - helping people, destroying bad things and so on. You lose sanity from a variety of things such as a messy break up, severe stress and mind blasting eldritch horrors. Once a character's sanity has been reduced to zero they either become an NPC or die at the GM's discretion. Often both. Either way, you will be making a new character.
SKILLS
The player has 2000 points to distribute among their skills. For this campaign, the base of all the skills (unless the number in parenthesis listed behind the skill is greater) is equal to their 'Learning' statistic. [This applies to new character skills. Later, when picking up new skills, they start at LEARN.] Spend all your skill points and stat points - you cannot keep them to spend later.
Please note that as the game progresses these skills go up, you will pick up new skills and so on.
Example:
For the character above who has a Learning of 13, their base in Accounting (first skill, second sheet) would be 13%, not 10% listed. However, their base in Photography would still be 40% as that exceeds their Learning.
The most points (of the 2000) the character can put into any skill is enough to raise it to 60. If the player of this character wanted to raise both their Accounting and Photography to 60 it would take 47+20 = 67 total points. That would leave the player with 2000-67 = 1933 points.
It is not recommended to write your current Learning stat in blanks where that would become your new base as statistics can go up and down during the course of play.
Special rule - if someone wanted to put all of their starting statistic points into Sanity, rather than it being 100, it would be 99.
Note that the skills which are bold faced are the ones experienced players strongly recommend taking.
Another strategy I personally recommend is to take a skill which is not commonly taken nor will come up very often. A good example of this is ‘pilot: helicopter’. While many players will say (quite rightly) that having a 60% skill means you have a 40% chance of crashing every time you get in one, it is probably better than an 80% or higher chance of crashing if you didn’t. While it doesn’t come up often if it ever does you will be a 'big damned hero'.
There are also other skills it is wise to get as high as possible (60% for a starting character) as they are ‘all or nothing’ type of skills. Things like stealth, climb, SCUBA, swim, etc which can spell death for your character very easily if you don’t make the roll.
There are other strange skills (example: fly zeppelin or blimp, dog sledding) which rarely come up but when they do the players seem to grouse loudly about them.
Next, there are ‘write in skills’. These include any skill which you can think of including ‘lore - Dutch master painters’, ‘art - surreal, oil paint’, any thing you can think of. Just because it is not on the sheet does not mean it will not get called on. Consult with other players and the GM about your ideas for brand new skills until you are comfortable with the system and styles of GM’ing. Do not assume that the skill you have thought of is a good idea or will be allowed.
Lastly, there are your (the players' personal) skills. Many players who have skill in something in real life find it very frustrating if they cannot use at least some of that skill in the game. If you personally have a wide knowledge of 1980’s movies, buying some ‘1980’s movie trivia’ is probably a good idea. Otherwise, if you use your knowledge when your character doesn’t know anything about it, you are doing a crappy job of roleplaying.
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A COUPLE IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER
First,
If you wrote a character and have played one time and decided that you messed up how you put the character together, you may rewrite it.
This is a one time thing. If you play a session and say "Well, this group of skills is useless" be advised that in the current campaign literally any skill may become vital in various areas. If you decide to lose all of your (for example) knight skills because the characters are in a cyberpunk realm then later go to a medieval realm, you will be stuck with the skills you have.
So you don't need to create a perfect character - you need to make one that is 'good enough' to get you through your first session. That's it.
Second,
Your character may end up going a totally different way than you envisioned. Just because you started him/her as a retired cop does not mean that will end up mattering much in the future. They may end up doing something totally different later. This is not like a level based game where everyone goes along a pre-determined track and takes certain skills. You may end up crazy different - and that's OK.
Your character's skill may go up during the campaign. They may pick up new skills. They may learn things not even on the sheet. They could end up learning spells or other weird things. Nobody knows ahead of time - and that's OK.
Third,
Don't stress this - the character building appears to be the most intimidating thing. After you know what you are doing it will literally take a couple of minutes or less to make a character. Don't agonize over it - just slap something together that works for a session and just have fun. I often tell people if they don't know what to make, make an idealized 'you' and mess about with it. The important thing is to get in on a game to learn how the campaign and character work.
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NOTES FOR PLAYERS
Note that this campaign needs all characters to be 'good'. (If you are saying ‘but I want to play a cold blooded murderous psychopath who betrays the other PC’s’, I would recommend finding a different group as it saves us time from kicking you out later. In short, this is the wrong group for PVP.)
They don't have to be good all the time but if they don't care about other people, they are not right for this campaign.
The characters have to want to find out why. How do things work? Why do they work as they do?
This is a major part of the campaign. Mystery. If nobody is interested in finding out the mysteries, those character's won't fit into the campaign.
Even if your character doesn’t ‘know’ another PC, you know it is your ‘buddy’. Why that is you don’t know. (Welcome to more mysteries.)
You'll need to be able to be quickly integrated onto a team and be a good, useful member of it quickly.
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CHARACTER BACKGROUND
Unless you've played in three sessions or more of a campaign Logan has GM'ed before, do NOT worry about your character's background. Heck, if you want to come up with a name for your character that is OK. If not, that is OK as well.
You are going to be waking up missing large chunks of your memories in this campaign.
And honestly - a lot of the backgrounds I've heard from players make me think "WTF".
Seriously - wait to come up with any sort of background until you've played at least three sessions so you can get a feel for the campaign. Even then, I recommend talking to the other players and GM to find out if your background fits in. Once you are an experienced, regular player you will know what works.
You should still come up with at least a name. It doesn't have to be your character's real name - just something you are called. If it is silly ("Switchback", "Hoss", "Razor", etc) expect to be mocked often.
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Q&A
Below are questions about character creation I have been asked along with the answers. If I get more good questions, I will add those questions as well.
Q: What is base in primary language?
A: Write N in your native language - all others start at LEARN.
Q: What are starting Hero points?
A: Starting Hero Points equal your ESS. Use them carefully as you typically earn between 1 to 3 per adventure.
Q: What do Hero Points do?
A: They can either be used as a reroll or cause an attack directly against you (knife, gun, etc but not AoE stuff) to miss.
Q: I want to be able to use a mounted gun, like a 50 cal on the back of jeep. Heavy weapons? Is it for any mounted gun, or just a 50 cal?
A: Buy Heavy Weapon: MG. Different than say Heavy Weapon: Cannon. Or Heavy Weapon: MRL.
Q: Where does the "Tactics" skill come in, and what are the write-ins?
A: Generally, if you are doing an entry into a place with a team they are somewhat useful for not blocking each other's shots and such. Since we don't use maps and minis, the GM will often declare that other people are blocking your shot and such because untrained people plus guns are not a good mix. It also teaches you what 'slicing the pie' is, etc. Keep in mind that without this skill, your characters tactics are roughly equivilant to kids in horror movies. That being said, it doesn't get called on too often - possibly because the PC's aren't soldiers or cops, possibly because the GM forgets. There are various kinds of tactics, usually just taking SWAT tactics or Military tactics is fine. The descriptor is often a 'flavor' thing.
Q: What kind of skills can my character NOT start with?
A: Cthulhu Mythos (not really used in this campaign), spells. Anything else is pretty much OK however the more obscure it is, the less it gets called on during play. Also 'dreaming' and 'dream lore' are not being used in this campaign.
Q: What are the bold faced skills?
A: A long time ago, the experienced players got together and made a list of what skills they decided were the 'if you don't have this, you are dumb and will die'. I put them in boldface on the character sheet. It is recommended - though not required - to get them at the most you can. For starting characters, in this campaign, that number is 60% total.
Q: Starting gear?
A: Literally none.
Q: If I want to get in on a game at the last minute, how should I go about it?
A: You need to get my attention somehow. The best way is to probably send me a message on Facebook ("Logan Horsford" - the older one, not the kid) and keep an eye out for a reply. If you don't see one by 2:15PM (London time) that either means I did not see you or the group is full and I'm too busy with them to answer. Trying to get in on a game last minute is known by long time players as 'sharking'. I don't know why.
Q: What are the numbers with the darker back fill on sanity?
A: As your character loses sanity, they will eventually get to - or pass - one of those numbers. Currently, those numbers are 40,30,20. Once you have hit or passed one of those three numbers, your character has picked up a new insanity. Speak to the other players and GM about what sort of insanity would be a good one to take for your character long before getting there. Typically, those new players who try to pick out an insanity on their own end up needing to figure out a new one later. Seriously, talk to the other players and GM before your character gets that crazy.
THE STATISTICS
WHAT THEY REPRESENT
Willpower is how much strength of will or resolution you have. It also is used to determine the character’s ‘hit points’ or ‘how much damage the character can take before going unconscious or dying’.
Learning represents the starting level of all new skills. <If I get a skill at learn then later my ‘learn’ stat goes up, do I increase the skill I’d gotten at learn? No. Way too anal. Just use the skill a couple times and you should be easily able to get the skill over the max learn stat.>
Essence shows the character’s aptitude toward magic and other mystical things. Essence is also the starting level of the very important ‘hero points’.
Sanity gives a measurement of how far your character is from ‘barking mad’. Should your character’s sanity ever reach zero, you lose your character.
All of the statistics are important, there are no ‘dump stats’.
GETTING CHECKS IN THE STATS AND WHAT THAT MEANS
If you ‘have a check in a stat’, that means you have rolled a test against that stat that was difficult and you did it successfully. That means at the end of the adventure the statistic may go up or down.
The GM may call for a roll for one of the two ‘rollable’ stats - Willpower and Essence.
There are two types of rolls - ones where the GM gives a target multiplier and ones where he does not.
TARGET MULTIPLIER EXAMPLE (for these, the player has a 15 in the stat being asked for)
GM: "Give me a willpower x3."
Since the player has a 15 in willpower, that means that - for this roll - their skill is '45'. Hence, a critical would be a 4 or less, a fumble 94 or higher. Success 05-45 and failure 46-93.
If the target number was x3 or less of the stat, and you succeed, you get a check in the stat.
Example: GM says “Give me a Willpower x4 or better roll” and you roll an 01, you still don’t get a check in Willpower.
LOWER IS BETTER EXAMPLE
GM: "Give me a willpower roll."
Since the player has a 15 in willpower that means that - for this roll - if they roll a 01-15 they would say 'willpower x1'. A 16-30 is 'willpower x2', 31-45 is 'willpower x3', 46-60 is 'willpower x4', 61-75 is 'willpower x5'. A 76-96 would be a 'fail' and - since at willpower x5 (=75) a fumble would be 97-00.
If you get x3 or less in the stat on your roll, check with the GM to see if you get a check in the stat. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on how the GM is feeling about the task.
THE OTHER TWO STATISTICS
HOW DO WE GET CHECKS IN LEARNING?
If the player has found something that seems appropriate to try out a new skill with (example: A banjo and they are in the bayou and want to pick out the first few notes of the ‘creepy inbred song’) if they try and succeed in a learning roll, they get a check in learning as well as picking up the new ‘banjo’ skill.
To pick up a skill, the character needs to see something that deals specifically with that skill. In other words, to know how to fly a helicopter, they need to see the helicopter - not just be asked about the helicopter.
HOW DO WE GET CHECKS IN SANITY?
You don't. Sanity generally goes down for seeing scary stuff or doing bad things. Sanity goes up for doing 'good' things. If you enjoy going on killing sprees of the innocent and happily wipe out say a town of them, this won't get you sanity even though you'd accomplished your goal. If you save a town of innocents from some horrible monster, you might gain sanity. It decreases through seeing anything ‘troubling’ or through doing things which the average mentally healthy person would consider ‘bad’ or ‘appalling’.
This is not a good campaign (or game system) for evil people. If the GM is purposefully making an ‘evil’ campaign, they may choose to give out less statistic points and just start everyone’s sanity at zero and ignore any sanity losses.
Note - if sanity losses cause a character to hit 0, that character then becomes a NPC. Usually, a very naughty one.
If the cyberware a character is recklessly installing cause sanity to hit zero, that character becomes an NPC and hits 'cyber psychosis' - usually a 'let's kill everyone' thing.
STAT DECREASES AND INCREASES
If you get a check in your stat, roll 2d6.
If you roll a 2 (snake eyes) the stat decreases by one. (Note, if someone uses a ‘hero point’ they can reroll this hence having statistics go down is actually quite rare. See the section on ‘hero points’ below.)
If you roll a 7, the stat may increase.
If you have rolled a 7, attempt to fail your STAT x5 - if you do, congratulations, your stat increases by one point.
Hero Points (and any remaining cards from the session) may be used to influence these rolls but generally it is a poor use of HERO Points - unless you rolled ‘snake eyes’.
STAT LOSSES
Because of various things (death, drugs, limb loss, etc) both skills and statistics may be 'permanently' lost.
For example:
Someone has an 14 in learning.
Some bastard cuts out part of their brain.
The GM gives the character a -2 permanent to learning.
This does not mean that the character's learning is now limited to 12. They can build it back up. Hopefully, they will get some sort of high tech cyber brain and then slowly learn to use it.
Or they might hop their way to victory. On their new brain.
Note, due to 'Logan’s rule 1' there are no temporary stat or skill negatives.
STATS
If any stat hits zero, your character dies permanently.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR CHARACTER
There are no classes, occupations or levels. Everyone starts out with the same number of points.
Before thinking about where to put your points, it is advisable to envision your character and their background. It is strongly recommended that everyone put lots of points into the bold faced things as they are considered (by the players) to be the ‘skills that no adventurer can live without’.
Talking to the group ahead of time about your character is strongly encouraged.
PICK SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CAMPAIGN
This is a generic system meaning that it can be used for literally any historical period. The GM may of course add skills appropriate to their game as well as having other skills not able to be purchased. Example: In a 1920’s game, computers would probably not be an appropriate skill.
Bold faced skills - if you don’t take them, you’ll either be unable to participate in certain things or be a huge drag on your team. Example: Stealth, for obvious reasons.
STARTING WITH SPELLS
In some campaigns, the GM may choose to let the players start with spells - ask the GM.
OTHER STRANGE SKILLS
Anything you can think of (”Painting lore: Dutch Masters”) can be a skill. Check with the GM before buying anything not on the character sheet. They may allow it, they may not.
FIRST CHARACTER
Too many choices can make some new player’s heads explode. To those people, I suggest making a souped up version of yourself, adjusted for whatever time period the campaign is taking place in.
For people who are more comfortable with choices, figure out what kind of role you want to do within the party and build accordingly.
WHAT IF YOU DON’T LIKE YOUR CHARACTER?
For brand new players, they are allowed to do a complete rewrite of their character after the first session they play.
For players who have played before, a bit of point shuffling is also allowed if they got dumb and forgot something obvious.
Generally speaking, this is a system that allows you to spend your points as you wish without any random rolls. Therefore, if you don’t ‘like’ your character, you shouldn’t have made them like that.
‘READY TO PLAY CHARACTERS’ AND WHY WE DON’T USE THEM
Seriously - once you’ve done it a time or two, making a character is a five or ten minute job. The hardest part for experienced players is often figuring out what kind of character they want to play.
If a new player does not want to spend a little time coming up with a new character, chances are good their heart really isn’t into playing.
THE CARD DECK
This is a deck of several hundred cards. Some have bad effects, many have either effects which are not useful or only useful in specific circumstances and most cards are useful.
One player gets eight cards. If there are two players, they each get six cards. For groups of three or more, four cards each. Note that this is the maximum amount of cards any of the players can have at any one time.
All players start with a number of cards based on how many players are present at the table. Should someone new join later, the players may have to discard some cards.
Example: Ted is playing solo and gets eight cards. Cindy joins the game. If Ted currently has more than six cards, he must reduce his hand immediately. If he does not, he need not discard any cards however his new maximum number of cards is six. If another player joins, everyone goes down to four cards and that is their new maximum.
Hence, if the player gets a card they wish to play at once, their remaining cards should be one under the maximum they can have after that is one less than the maximum they are allowed.
Example: Johnny has a great hand of four cards but pulls a ‘play when you want’ instant hero point card. He could trade that card to someone else discarding whatever he is given or discard one of his great cards in order to play the instant hero point card.
Drawing a ‘play immediately’ doesn’t cause any of your cards to automatically be removed from going over the number allowed, however the card itself may cause you to discard some or all of your cards.
Example: Johnny draws a card that causes everyone at the table to discard two cards. Johnny will have two cards remaining of his four.
The cards are set up in such a way that they are a small mini-game.
Players who want to hide their cards from others may do so but it will only hamper the team as a whole.
HOW TO GAIN CARDS
The GM’s can and should give cards for anything they consider praise worthy within the campaign. Good roleplay, being clever, being funny, helping to set the right mood, etc. In a normal session with three good players, going through 150+ cards is not at all unusual.
The reason for this is that it subtly gives an instant gratification reward to players who are doing things which the GM approves of.
Do not give out cards for things like ‘good rolls’.
Cards can also be given to subtly mislead a party. When someone begins to go in totally the wrong direction, the GM can begin giving that person cards to mess with the players.
It is also possible to get cards in combat - see below ‘preferred actions’.
When giving the players cards, it is recommended to do so in such a way that it does not break their flow. If they are in the midst of planning and being very clever, a good GM will simply add cards to players stacks.
At the end of a session (unless the GM is frustrated with their players sucking so badly) it is customary to give an ‘end of mission refill’.
TAKING AWAY CARDS
Although cards are given for positive things, it is not recommended to take them away for negative things. Players who come up with poor plans and such will simply not receive cards. If you have people who are humorless, poor roleplayers and destroy the mood you have been working on setting the question would be ‘why do you game with such people?’ Let them have a card drought.
The power level of the characters decreases without a constant influx of cards.
TRADING CARDS
Any time the characters are able to communicate they can trade cards. Hence, if all of the characters are together they can trade cards freely. Other examples include such things as being on the phone, psychic communication, possessing each other, etc.
Any time there is the ability to freely communicate, players can trade cards.
This is a great mechanic for incentivising ‘keep the party together’.
PREFERRED ACTIONS
Another time players (even the bad ones) can get cards is during combat.
Within most TTRPG’s, usually the only tactically sound thing to do within a round is ‘shoot’ or ‘move’. There are a few other rare things like ‘take out a different weapon’ or ‘reload’ but if the players are clever these don’t come up often.
The cards allow another thing to become tactically sound - the preferred action.
At the bottom of all of the cards is the ‘GM area’. This will read something like:
N: H V
H: V H
Falling down
Under initiative, we will explain the rest of the card however in this case ‘falling down’ is the preferred action. When reading off the round (see below) the GM tells the players ‘falling down is approved’.
Hence, if the players fall down rather than do any thing else during the combat round, they get a card.
Falling down - in that round - is a tactical action as it gets a card.
Some actions require successful rolls to be made to get cards and so forth.
There are lots of different preferred actions. Some are just silly but sometimes others may fit into what is going on during the combat. It is up to the players to decide whether gaining another card is worth giving up their full action.
See the section on combat below.
HELD ACTIONS
These do not come up often fortunately.
Instead of going on your round, you can hold your action till later. You don’t do anything in the meantime, you just wait.
Example: During a combat round, instead of going the person points their gun at the person and says ‘move and I shoot!’ (Speaking is the free action, they then hold their held action.)
This held action can take place within the same round or in a later round. Upon a simple contingent the person gets to go first.
Example: The hero had gone first and decided to say ‘move and I shoot’ and held action. On the villain’s turn, the villain decides to move - therefore the hero shoots first.
The held actions need to be super simple and able (of course) to be accomplished in one round. Some things don’t work well for a held action.
Example: “I shoot the first bad guy through the door” would not work as a held action because you have to first figure out if it is a bad guy coming through the door or not. That slows you down enough that the GM will rule you lose your held action and initiative is determined normally.
Example: “I shoot the first person or whatever that comes through the door” would work and possibly lead to hilarity for the GM if it is a friendly party through the door.
Either way, however, your held action takes up your action for the round that it takes place in.
Example: PC’s were going last in the round and the PC does the ‘move and I shoot’ thing and ‘holds their action’. On the next round, the GM draws a card showing villains are first, heroes are second. The villain begins to move and bang - the PC shoots. The villain (assuming they survive) then gets their normal action. The PC has already taken their action as a held action from last round. If the initiative order was reversed (heroes first then villains) holding action didn’t really do the PC any good.
CRITS AND FUMBLES (AKA 'rolling the dice)
Before discussing that, we must discuss what the ‘ones digit’ and the ‘tens digit’ are in numbers as many countries (like the USA) have many shitty school systems and people might not know what these are.
Example: 74.
The ‘7’ is the ‘tens’ digit. The ‘4’ is in the ‘ones’ digit place.
Example: 138.
The ‘3’ is in the ‘tens’ digit, the ‘8’ is in the ‘ones’ digit.
Criticals:
Take the tens digit from your skill and put a zero in front of it (unless your skill is 100% or higher, see below). That is your chance of rolling a critical.
Example: 61% (skill). The ‘6’ is the tens digit. Put a ‘0’ in front of it (lose the ones digit, nobody likes it any way) and that gives you a 06. If you roll a 6% or less, you have rolled a critical.
Example: 128% (skill). In this case (since over 100%) keep the ‘12’. We don’t need to put a zero in front of it. You would roll a critical on a 12% or less.
Fumbles:
Take the tens digit and stick a ‘9’ in front of it. If you have a 100% or higher skill, you always fumble on a 100.
Example: 61% skill. Put a ‘9’ in front of the tens digit ‘6’ and that gives you a ‘96’. Hence you fumble on a 96 or higher.
Example: 98% skill. You drop the 8 and you only fumble on a 99 or higher.
Example: 128% skill. You only fumble on a 00 (or 100).
Note that in both cases, modifiers can affect your critical and fumble range.
Example: 61% is the fist skill. The character is at a +10%. For purposes of crits and fumbles, the character is now at an effective skill this round of a 71%. Hence, they would critical on a 7 or less and fumble on a 97 or higher instead of their usual of critting on a 6 or less and fumbling on a 96 or higher.
Example: 61% is their fist skill but their opponent is stunned giving them a +30% for this round. Their new crit range is 9% or less, fumble range is 99 or higher.
Or - for those that know formulas, crits = (skill/10)rounddown, fumble = 90+(skill/10)rounddown
ROLL RESULTS
Only results from a roll the GM needs to hear:
Fumble
Failed it
Made it
Made it at -30%
Made it at -60%
Critical
SKILL MODIFIERS
If the GM thinks that whatever the players are doing is harder than normal, they can slap whatever skill negative they want onto them.
-30% or half (players choice): What you’re doing is pretty hard.
-60% or quarter (players choice): What you’re doing is crazy hard.
Give me a crit buddy: What you’re doing is not going to work.
Roll me an 01 (or several 01 in a row): No.
If the GM thinks whatever the players are doing is easier than normal, they can give bonuses. Note that the bonuses are intentionally smaller than the negatives.
+5%: Someone is helping you! (Also see ‘supporters’).
+10%: Pretty easy.
+20%: Super easy.
+30%: If you can’t make this, you suck.
MODIFIER EXAMPLES
These are not hard and fast modifiers - just ideas for the GM.
-30: stunned/light cover (including crowds)/additional attempts at same task/bad lighting/long range.
-60: heavy cover (including crowds)/horrible lighting (aka 'I fire at the muzzle flash')/excessive range.
Note, all this stuff is cumulative. In other words, if you are stunned and doing a called shot (for some reason) you are at a -60.
If you shoot into a crowd and miss due to the negative modifier, you hit a random member of the crowd.
Firing into a crowd indiscriminately (IE you don't care who gets hit at all) the GM may give a bonus, depending on how tightly packed people are.
SUPPORTERS
Sometimes, the players will all attempt to help each other in order to spread the blame for failure more evenly. This is called ‘supporting’.
How it works:
One person is designated as the ‘primary’. Let’s say the players are working on defusing the bomb. Unfortunately, the only person with demolitions skill doesn’t have it high - 30% so he is a bit nervous. The other two players have some strange aversion to being blown up and wish to help defuse the bomb.
The other players (who do not have demolitions skill) ask the GM if they can try to support with other skills. One has electronics which the GM agrees would help. The other has nothing applicable and decides this might be a way to attempt to build up their demolitions skill by using that (at base, in this case the character’s learn skill) as their supporting skill.
The primary must announce whether he is accepting their advice or aid or ignoring them and doing it himself. Despite heavy misgivings, he decides to accept both other people’s aid.
The lady with electronics rolls hers successfully - that gives a temporary bonus of +5% to the primaries ‘demolitions skill’. Had she rolled a critical on her electronics, she would have given the primary a temporary +10% instead. If she had failed her electronics, no bonus.
So the primary is currently sitting at (for this roll) a 35% demolitions skill. Then the other guy who has no demolitions rolls his and of course it is a fumble. This gives the primary a -10% to his chance knocking him down to a total 35-10=25% chance. He should have refused this person’s help but since he accepted and they rolled (do not roll until it is accepted or you’ll just have to roll again) he is going to have a rough day.
HIT POINTS (’how much abuse you can withstand before unconsciousness or death’)
There are three different kinds of damage.
Real, stun and half and half. Half and half is half real, half stun - round to stun.
Example: Mikey takes a club to the head doing 5 points of half and half. Mikey takes 2 real and 3 stun.
Unlike real life, there are only two times when you are affected by missing HP.
When you have only one or less HP remaining you are either dead or unconscious. Either way, you are knocked down and lying on the ground.
If you have zero left and none of the damage is stun, you are dead.
If you have zero left and some of the damage you have taken is stun, you will wake up when the stun is healed - unless further damaged.
Stun damage generally comes back after a good night of sleep.
To find out how ‘real’ damage comes back, see the section on ‘damage and healing’ below.
DAMAGE AND HEALING
HEALING - CURRENT CAMPAIGN
Every night the PC's sleep, the PC can call for a willpower roll. (If they do not, they stay wounded but need not roll - their choice).
Fumble: You stay wounded this week - try again seven days from now. Also, you are back at 'residual self image'. Any sort of implants, plastic surgery, etc - gone.
Fail: You stay wounded - try again tomorrow night.
WILLPOWER ROLL
x5: Heal 1 real HP.
x4: Heal 2 real HP.
x3: Heal 3 real HP.
x2: Heal 4 real HP.
x1 OR CRIT: You're fine. Total heal. Also, you are back at 'residual self image'. Any sort of implants, plastic surgery, etc - gone.
(Not sure if these are system or just the current campaign but they do seem to work well - note that NPC’s heal hella slower.)
Note that within the current campaign, usually the above is used. There may be times when ‘regular healing’ is used instead - consult GM.
HEALING - REGULAR (AKA ‘just lying around hoping to get better’)
You heal d3 per week.
If first aid is done regularly during that week, bump up one place. AKA having someone look after you.
If medicine is done regularly during that week, bump up one place. AKA being in a doctor’s care.
First aid and medicine stack. Additional things (magic, etc) may also stack, see GM.
HEALING - MEDICALLY
Note that you can use neither ‘first aid’ nor ‘medicine’ skills on yourself. Because this is not a ‘crunchy’ game where we have figured out the exact hit locations, just assume it is somewhere you can’t reach or see. Either have a PC or an NPC attempt it.
For first aid, there are some wounds (only given to NPC’s as the PC’s are basically a bag of HP) that cannot be helped at all. Example - being gut shot with your intestines and stomach draining into each other. For this, they probably won’t even survive in a hospital.
The HP regained from first aid/medicine are HOT (healing over time) not instantaneous. Generally the GM can choose between 1HP/hour up to 1HP/round, whatever the story needs.
First aid can be used once successfully. If successful, it regains d3 real HP to the target. Required materials include simple first aid supplies. The GM may allow for ‘ripping up someone’s clothing because the so called doctor is too inept to carry a small lightweight first aid kit with them’.
Note that if someone tries first aid and fails, the next person is at a -30% to succeed. The next person at a -60%. Better to have the person who is best at first aid actually attempt it.
Medicine has the exact same effect as first aid however requires 'doctor' skill and a lot more props. You need at minimum a ‘home operating theater’.
Successive tries in medicine work in the same way.
Because life is unfair, a fumble in either first aid or medicine will not heal any damage but will in fact reduce the target's HP by d6, possibly killing them. If both first aid and medicine are fumbled, 2d6 damage will be done to the unfortunate. At the GM's whim, he may also have them accidentally amputate a limb.
Because life is hard.
Example: Billy has been shot. He has taken 7 real of his 10 HP and is in a bad way with three HP left.
Phil attempts first aid, fumbles and inflicts another 2 HP of real damage. Billy is now sad. Rather than have someone else attempt first aid on the now critical patient, they take him to a doctor who also fumbles, killing Billy. This is what happens if you let NPC's do the work.
Example 2: Phil has been brutally clubbed by Fred for helping kill Billy. Phil normally has 12 HP. He took 12 points of half and half damage. That means that unless someone messes with him, he will lie there in a pool of his own blood for eight hours. When he eventually comes around, he will be at 6 HP, leaving him with 6 real HP of damage.
Bob decides to punish Phil by attempting first aid while Phil is still unconscious at 0 HP. Strangely, Bob succeeds, causing Phil to regain d3 HP. Bob rolls a 3. Phil is now awake and still has 6 stun and 3 real damage but at positive 3 HP.
After a screaming match between Fred and Bob, it is decided to take Phil to the same doctor that helped kill Billy. The stars align and the drunken doctor succeeds his medicine and rolls a 3 (for HP regained). All of Phil's real HP of damage are gone. His stun damage will go away at one per hour. After six hours of rest, he is again at full (12) HP and ready for a new savage beating.
Note that even the ‘laying around’ healing rate is much faster than real life.
COMBAT OVERVIEW AND PHILOSOPHY
Combat - how does it work?
Well, first you roll initiative, then you do the different phases of the -
No. Fuck that.
Nearly every roleplaying game out there drags out combat. Yes, it is more realistic but I'd rather do story than war gaming - which is what most RPG's are thin veneer for.
In this system, the GM points at the player and says "What do you do?"
If the player says "uh" or looks confused, the GM moves on. That character spends their time panicking during the round. Perfectly normal, perfectly natural.
[Note - does this discriminate against people who like to ponderously think and come up with ideas slowly? Yes. Combat does too. Those will be the guys standing there with a stupid look on their face getting filled with bullets while everyone diving for cover makes 'loot the dead guy' plans. Generally these kind of people don't last long in my groups. Yes, I've had people get stressed out during combat; imagine how their character feels. If ponderous person says "But I'm roleplaying someone who is cool under fire and great at combat" I respond "Obviously not well."]
If the player asks "How far is it to..." Great - they get to spend their round looking around, trying to figure out where they are and other things in relation to them. Combat rounds are fast.
Answering "Fire pistol at Captain Slash!" (possibly with 'bang bang' noises) while rolling dice is a fast (possibly correct) answer.
While in many RPG's you have the time to look around leisurely, maybe go through a list of possible weapons, maybe take out a weapon, examine it, take out poison, maybe apply it to the weapon then put back the poison via, gauge distances, maybe run through some scenarios in your head (IE discuss with the GM) - this is not that game. That is chess for people who kind of like RPG's.
If you want to say something, you get three words - choose them wisely. Other characters may or may not hear over explosions, gunfire and the GM yelling. There is no time to discuss plans. Common sense says if you need to discuss plans during combat, you have fucked up badly and should probably retreat and learn to plan better.
Combat may be entirely over before you have managed to take off your backpack, open it and rummage around inside of it to find an item. Round one - take off backpack, free action drop backpack on floor. Round two - open backpack. Round d6 or more later - find item you were looking for. [For those who say 'but my backpack is arranged' - I was a backpacker for seven years. Fuck off, shit never stays where you want it to and you have the added stress of being in combat.]
Combat rounds are fast and often deadly. Know what is in your character's hands. If you want to jump and grab the rope with both hands, stuff held in those hands is now lying on the floor where you dropped it.
Although it would be neat to say ‘long enough to pull a trigger or stab someone’, if you need to compute time it’s generally around five seconds.
WHAT YOU CAN DO DURING A COMBAT ROUND (types of actions)
During a round, the player may do one full action, one simple action and one free action at maximum.
Free actions: These are actions which don't take up any actions. You can generally do one of these and a normal action within the round.
Examples of free actions: Say your three words for the round, drop (not throw) something. At the GM's discretion, perhaps a spot hidden at a negative, etc.
A simple action is exclusively movement - see ‘movement speed’ below.
Actions: These are things which take up the entire round. Example: looking around - is the guy you are getting ready to shoot in the doorway your buddy or a bad guy? Taking a weapon out of a holster. Taking the pin out of a grenade. Not throwing it - just removing the pin. Pushing the large red button marked 'self destruct lair'. Honestly, if you are freaked out and don't know what to do 'taking cover' is often a fantastic idea. In this game, one way to spot the amateurs is to see at the beginning of combat who takes cover and who stands there, pulls out a weapon and starts shooting. I blame D&D for that sort of thinking. Though it is known you can shoot or stab someone a lot more during five seconds, you only get one try during a round.
Example of what someone can do in a combat round: Drop spent pistol, walk forward three meters and pull out a new pistol. This assumes they do not have ‘quick draw’ skill - see section ‘skills’ below.
WHY IS THE COMBAT ROUND AS IT IS?
Just like combat in real life, you have to make shitty decisions based on partial or no information.
Reasons why combat is simple, brutal and short: There are things TTRPG's do well and things they do horribly. Combat is always done horribly. If you want good fast combat that is remarkably detailed, play computer games. If you want detailed, individualized plot TTRPG's offer an experience a mass produced computer game cannot.
So I'm attempting to focus on the strengths of the medium (table top gaming) as I see them while skipping past the weaknesses.
Unlike in most TTRPG's I've seen in the last four decades, within this campaign it is quite possible to skip nearly all combat if you're clever enough. Having said that, sometimes the players enjoy getting their blood fix - take some combat skills for those times.
The limit on three words is because some players (wargamers or those who think they are wargamers) often try to make each brief round into a long tactical conversation in order to squeeze the most out of each round. Combat isn’t like that - it is short, scary and messy.
Also (in my personal game) I don’t use miniatures and maps during combat for reasons:
1. It gives a huge unfair tactical advantage to the players while stripping away the much more realistic ‘fog of war’.
2. Your game flow is completely destroyed while setting up miniatures maps and assorted paraphernalia.
3. It leads inevitably to people wanting more ‘crunch’.
4. The amount of time spent with combat in these sort of games (to me) is both ridiculous and completely unacceptable. If you want good combat, try a computer game.
INITIATIVE
With rare exception, figuring out who goes first is completely unnecessary. The only important thing is who goes first - the PC’s (and their allies) or their foes?
Figuring out the order of PC’s going is unnecessary and slows combat to a drag. If someone has in mind some special action that will affect the entire round and other PC’s actions, they can inject a quick ‘anyone mind if I go first this round?’
Example: Jarvis is going to set off a bomb. As the last round is brought to a close he says to his fellow PC’s “Anyone mind if I go first next round?” They agree and he does. This is - and should be - rare.
The best way to keep the combat speedy is for the GM to simply go around the table, point at each player and say ‘What do you do’. If they hesitate for more than five seconds, the answer is ‘nothing’ - they freeze up and stand there. That happens often in real combat. If the player has questions about the field of battle (”How far am I away from the crane?”) they spend their time piercing the fog of war - nothing else. The player must declare quickly what they are doing and preferably already have their dice results done.
Example:
“I shoot the nearest bad guy for eight points of damage.”
Many people (especially war gamers) will find this rapid fire combat style stressful. This is realistic as combat is highly stressful. It also allows huge combats to be resolved within minutes rather than hours.
RANGES OF FIREARMS
These are simplified rules to avoid 'gun porn' that so many rule books fall into. Also, if you have someone claim that 'a pistol range is much further', that is technically true but also shows that person hasn't spent much time at the gun range or in combat. These ranges are the 'normal effective ranges'. Just because some guy does a 1000m shot with a pistol does not mean your character can ever hope to do that.
Bow range - 30m
Pistol range - 10m
Rifle range - 100m
Shotgun range - 40m
After consulting with a lieutenant on the police force (I figure he should know) about fire arm ranges for someone 'with less than 10 hours of training', 'able to hit a man sized target half the time', he said these ranges (aside from bow, which he didn't know but I Googled) were on the money.
Don't fucking talk to me about scopes on a pistol - it's mostly a gimmick that people use or Hollywood to make the gun look bigger - plus it can't be holstered.
If you go beyond those ranges, your skill drops by half. Beyond double and you're at half again. Shotguns won't do much beyond 40m with bird-shot (personal experience here - do not try this at home kids!) and slugs suffer from lack of rifling hence accuracy. Pretty much don't bother with a shotgun beyond that range.
Also, it is possible that different weapons have different ranges but it is completely unimportant and slips into ‘gun porn’ territory. If you want to spend hours coming up with extra rules that will destroy your pacing and give a table to consult during combat, have at it. I don’t. 10 and 100 (pistol, rifle) are easy to remember and people who are into shotguns and bows can remember 30/40.
LONG RANGE SHOOTING (assumes scope, much slower rate of fire, professional spotter, high caliber sniper rifle). All snipers know that the spotter (buy skill ‘sniper spotter’ (write in) is essential. In fact, on sniper teams the senior sniper (the better guy) generally fills this spot.
These ranges are when you have to start taking into account things like the Coriolis effect, air pressure, wind, etc.
Assuming you have all of the things listed above, your damage (assuming you have high dex) will probably be about 2d10. Everyone is surprised when a bullet from this far away strikes them on the first shot. Subsequent shots, much less effective as they know a sniper is out there. You cannot effectively silence that large of caliber.
You will get one shot every three rounds in the perfect world with a scoped weapon. (Steady from recoil, reacquire target, fire). One shot every four rounds if the rifle is a bolt action - most sniper rifles are in ‘modern’ - if futuristic you might find one that isn’t. This isn’t a good ‘get lots of bullets’ weapon. More of a ‘surprise, mutherfucker’ weapon.
600m to 1000m long range -30% to hit
1000m to 1600m extreme long range -60% to hit
Above this is possible in real life (up to 2400m world record) but is beyond the scope of this game.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_range_shooting Actual serving police officers and military service.
FULL AUTO RULES
Full Auto on multiple targets (expending at least ten rounds of ammo - most clips have 20 or 30 rounds so you can do this two or three times).
One target +2 bump on damage track.
Two targets if the GM deems they are reasonably close, +1 bump damage track - roll separately for each target.
Three targets if the GM deems they are reasonably close, NO bump damage track - roll separately for each target.
MOVEMENT
On foot, humans go at 3m/10m.
That means they can ‘simple action’ forward at 3m per round or if they successfully sprint forward (sprinting skill) they go ten meters per round. If they attempt to sprint forward and fail their roll, they move only at simple action speed (3m/round) despite using a round to try to move forward.
Example: Melissa ‘simple actions’ toward her target and attacks. She does not need to roll to move, only to attack and moves 3m toward her target.
Other movement speeds: Running speed /10 = combat speed (m/rnd). Sprint = combat speed x3 approx.
Example: According to Google, the running speed of a cheetah is 100-120 KPH. Let’s call it 100 KPH. Hence, in this game, they would move at 10m/30m per round.
Also, sometimes the person does not need to do anything active while traveling forward at a great velocity.
Example: Guy riding a horse. The ‘ride horse’ skill doesn’t make the horse sprint faster or slower - the horses ‘sprint’ skill does. Hence, using the formula above and assuming horses can sprint about 40 KPH, that would make their movement speed: 4m/12m (note - the horse is rolling their sprint, not the rider rolling their sprint). The rider can spend their full action shooting or just holding on (if they are not a great rider).
Example: Guy is a passenger in a car. The car is going 100 KPH. The GM may have the driver do a ‘drive auto’ roll if they’re trying to keep up speed and confronted with things that would slow down a car (terrain, other vehicles, etc). The GM might rule the movement speed is 10m. The car doesn’t need to sprint and can (aside from terrain and obstacles like other cars) keep a fairly consistent speed.
ATTACKING
If you are using melee (hand to hand) you may both attack and parry within the same round.
The player must figure out if they are ‘using a strong attack’ or ‘fighting defensively’. Declare before you or the bad guys start rolling. If they are strongly attacking, their parry is at half/negative thirty. If they are fighting defensively, their attack is at half/negative thirty.
Example: Beth attempts to ‘attack the crap out of’ the orc. She attacks at full but if the orc attacks her back, her first parry starts at half/negative thirty and her second (if needed) is at a quarter/negative sixty. She doesn’t get more than two attempts at parrying.
Example: Frank is fighting the mushroom man defensively. He attacks at half/negative thirty but his first parry is at full. His second parry (if needed) is at half/negative thirty and his third (if needed) is at a quarter/negative sixty.
You only get one attempt to parry an incoming attack and not all attacks may be parried.
Example: A giant swings his club at Frank. Frank can either attack or dodge this round because a parry of something that size is not going to happen.
Dodge: This is used when the GM tells you parry is not a possibility. Note that there are times when dodging is unwise - you must be able to swiftly move backward or to one side to dodge. If you can’t, you may not dodge. See skill ‘dodge’.
AREA EFFECT STUFF
Why you can’t ‘save for half’ from explosive damage? Because this is not fucking D&D. The best you can hope for in this system is (aside from not being where the bomb is) rolling low on your damage. If you don’t, Hero Points may help reduce the amount of damage you take. Bombs and such are lethal.
In some cases (such as someone tossing a grenade into the room you are in) you might be able to dodge behind something to try to absorb some of the shrapnel. Consult the GM. It should be noted that the ‘pick up the grenade and toss it back’ only works if the person throwing them doesn’t know what they are doing. (Explanation - professionals throw it in such a way it is bouncing around prior to going off to keep someone from tossing it back or - if they have big stones - they may ‘cook off’ the grenade. Pull the pin, wait a bit then throw.)
Generally speaking, it is not a brilliant idea to annoy people who carry grenades.
Even if you declared dodging, if you are still in the explosive radius, you are fucked.
Unfortunately, stuff like large explosions are not normally survivable. Shit, even a hand grenade is ugly - especially if they are in a confined space.
The ‘danger sense’ has always been a kind of ‘you don’t want to go in there’ thing. It’s the warning the players get.
It is hard not to blow up the characters when the players often don’t practice even very basic OPSEC. The number of times PC’s have either led bad guys to their bases, gone to places they knew to be compromised, given away important data to bad guys - it’s amazing.
NO SAVING THROW
There are places that - if the PC's go - it is fully possible to die without taking damage, getting any sort of 'saving throw', etc. [Note - in general, this game does not have ‘saving throws’ - that’s some D&D shit there.]
It is the responsibility for all of these situations to have foreshadowing. If the PC's choose to ignore it, good for them. It shows they are brave and adventurous.
WEAPON DAMAGES
Listed on the PC sheet. Because this is a simple game, ‘bigger is better’.
While in real life, a short bladed knife or ice pick is a lethal weapon and professional assassins favor the .22 caliber pistol with silencer, in this simple game system those weapons are shitty. Bigger is better - though not for concealment nor silence.
STATTING NPC’S
It’s very simple in this game. Generally, go with the 30/60/90 rule.
30% skill: They are somewhat inept and maybe only have some ‘basics’ in combat. Example: Thugs.
60% skill: They regularly do this. Example: Soldiers, well trained cops.
90% skill: They are experts at combat. Example: Ninjas, cyberpunk ‘solos’ etc.
Then, damage by weapon. Quick and easy.
CARDS DURING COMBAT
The GM flips cards into their own special pile and just uses the bottom information. If the combat is normal, they use the N: part, if it is a ‘heroic’ combat (think ‘boss fight’) they use the bottom line H:.
The bottom of the cars may look something like this:
N: H V
H: V H (setback)
Library research
This means that during a normal combat, the heroes are first, villains are second. During a ‘heroic’ combat, the villains are first and the heroes are second and ‘setback’. The setback means that something bad is going on which adversely affects the heroes.
The preferred action this round is ‘library research’. This probably won’t come up unless not all of the players made it out to the combat and one is back at base (or a library or on the computer, etc) doing research. If so, that person gets a card and they’re not even involved with the combat. You can get cards for doing preferred actions even if not in the combat. That makes it more interesting for people rather than ‘just sit there and wait for the combat to conclude’.
EXAMPLE OF COMBAT
Three PC’s vs five NPC thugs.
Joe, Alice and Betty are taking on A, B, C, D, E. The terrain is open enough that everyone can easily get to everyone else.
GM: Give me a luck roll, let me know who gets the worst.
Joe: Made mine by 30.
Alice: Just made mine.
Betty: Crit!
GM: Joe, only one guy is attacking you, everyone else has two on them.
GM: Five thugs with a variety of hand held weapons emerge from the fog in the field you guys are in. Round one! (Flips a card) Normal combat - heroes are first, villains second, library research is approved.
Group reacting to the preferred action: /eyeroll
GM: Alice!
Alice: How many of them are there again?
GM: You spend your time counting! Joe!
Joe: Fast draw pistol and (rolls, fails, curses) slowly take out my gun this round.
GM: Betty!
Betty: If they are close enough I kick one otherwise I rush them!
GM: You rush them! Roll sprint!
Betty: Success!
GM: You are at them. Alice, there are five - you don’t see any more around at this time. The two coming for you - one has a chain and the other brass knuckles! Bad guys turn! Betty the two people at you begin to attack - the guy with the lead pipe takes a swing (rolls 78) and a miss. The other guy tries to stab you with a knife (rolls 15) and he hits for four real damage! The other three rush people (rolls sprint for each) but only Joe’s guy makes it to him. The other two are waddling toward Alice. Another two rounds of waddling and they’ll reach her! Next round! Heroes are first, villains are second, talking about a dream is approved! Alice!
Alice: “I had a dream just like this where two guys came out of the fog with weapons toward me!” Can I try fast draw pistol too?
GM: Take a card for discussing your dreams and sure, if you make it it’s your free action but if you don’t, then you just slap leather and that’s it.
Alice: Success!
GM: Excellent - you’ve got your gun out and got a card. Joe!
Joe: Shoot one of them - preferably whoever has a ‘non-club’ - taking real damage sucks.
GM: Fortunately, you’ve still only got the one guy on you and he has a hockey stick.
Joe: Bang! (Rolls 97, has a skill of 60) Well, shit. Fumble.
GM: (Draws a card from the fumble deck) Looks like you’re fucked. You got the ‘draw five’ card.
Joe: Gaaa! Can I spend a Hero Point for a new card?
GM: According to the text on this card, no. Open wide for chunky! Let’s see (draws ‘you fall down’, ‘gear gone’, ‘throw away hand items’, ‘drop everything’ and ‘wrong target - team’). /ponder. OK - here’s what happens Joe.
Joe: /covers face with hands.
GM: Alice and Betty - luck rolls if you please - Betty you’re at -30% since you rushed into the fray and Joe’s spray bullets into that same fray. Probably you.
Alice: Made it.
Betty: Nope.
GM: OK Joe - your gun does d8 normally?
Joe: It’s heavy - d10.
GM: Neat. Roll a d10 on Betty.
Joe: 7.
GM: Betty - you take 7 HP of damage as Joe shoots you in the back. Joe, the gun going off surprises you so much that it flips out of your hand and disappears forever into the long grasses, never to be seen again. Apparently, you got knocked down by the recoil as well.
Joe: Hate this so much.
Betty: Can I spend a Hero Point not to take the damage?
GM: If you want.
Betty: I do so. /glare at Joe.
GM: Betty, what do you do?
Betty: Take out my frustration on one of the guys! Success on fist, success on martial arts and I rolled a 2. Well, crap.
And so on. Note - made with drawing actual cards from the deck. You never can tell what you’re going to get. But as you can see from this example, combat should be short and brutal.
FALLING DAMAGE
See also 'damage track'.
One story fall/3m: d6
Two story fall/6m: d12
Three story fall/10m: d8+d10
15m: 2d10+d12
25m: 4d12 (top of the damage track)
Falling damage - after 25m, humans die. Roll two ‘01’ results in a row two barely survive. Three ‘01’ results in a row mean you can just walk away. Four ‘01’ results in a row means your gear is undamaged, your clothing isn’t even dirty. You just emerge from a crater you made, pick off an invisible speck of lint from your clothing, check your phone for messages and walk away.
Note that you can use the ‘it’s a crit’ card to get an ‘01’ for this.
Note that in one combat round (about 5 seconds) the average human falls about 100m. If you are attempting to use a spell or ability that takes a round (or longer) to reduce or negate your falling damage, try to fall from much further up.
ARMOR
If you are wearing some sort of physical armor (furs, chain mail bikini, full plate mail - whatever), one place reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
If you are wearing some sort of magical armor (ring, underwear, fake arrow through the head - whatever), one place reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
If you have both (or magic physical armor like magic chain mail, etc) two places reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
Two places is the max. The minimum damage on the damage table is d3 (unless special damage - see GM).
Why:
KISS. Also, if the armor becomes too effective (like with a straight point reduction) then small attacks are completely ignored.
Example: If someone had physical, magical or both armor that reduced incoming damage by four, the person would be literally immune to daggers unless they scored some sort of critical.
LULL (combat)
In the movies, this is when the heroes have just gotten done smashing up some bad guys and are moving from here to there but the dramatic, tense music is still playing in the background.
If the GM hasn’t fucked up and not foreshadowed correctly, the players know they are going to be back in combat very soon. It comes as no surprise.
Example: The main bad guy has kidnapped a hostage and sends his mooks after the PC’s. The PC’s finish off all the mooks then turn to confront the bad guy who murders his hostage in rage then attacks the heroes. The time between the PC’s finishing off the mooks, heading over to the bad guy, listening to his monologue and entering combat with him is called the ‘lull’.
Often times this is not a big deal but some items and such are only able to be used once during a combat. A lull means that item (if used previously against the mooks) is not available.
A lull can be used by a GM to heighten suspense, mess with PC’s who have once per combat items/effects and so on.
At the end of the mook combat, the GM would simply announce “You’re in a combat lull.” Or “You’re in a lull.” Or “Lull”.
PVP
If the GM allows PVP (Logan strongly discourages it), the combat type is normal and the aggressor(s) are the villains. Note that in games where PVP is encouraged, the GM may choose to have whoever initiated the combat be the 'heroes'.
HERO POINTS
STARTING HERO POINTS
As seen when generating a character, players receive a number of starting Hero Points equal to their starting Essence statistic.
HOW TO GAIN HERO POINTS
Hero Points are gained at the discretion of the GM and are awarded at the end of a session or a mission. For game sessions lasting six hours or less, it is recommended to award them at the end of the session. For marathon game sessions they might get awarded by the mission.
At the end of the mission, the GM awards all of the players the same number of Hero Points based on the success of the group as a whole during the mission.
1: It’s a participation trophy. The group showed up.
2: You tried really hard but the mission did not go well or little was actually achieved.
3: Mission success. Note that the GM can have very loose parameters of ‘success’ - finding out an important clue, meeting some important NPC, surviving, etc.
Everyone gets the same amount of Hero Points - do not award some people more and others less as this can create huge resentment. Also, the amount of Hero Points difference between a great player and a seat filler would only be two. Not worth the aggravation of hostile seat fillers. Don’t forget that as a GM you can award good actions with the cards throughout the session.
Also, at the end of the session after ‘end of mission card play’ (see section on card play) there are various cards that - if successfully held on to till the end of the session - award either the individual holding them or the entire group extra Hero Points. It is possible - though unlikely - to get over five Hero Points at the conclusion of a successful session.
The Hero Points gained are added to the total Hero Points left. Any Hero Points over twenty go in to the ‘overflow’ total. Depending on the type and power level of the campaign, the GM may wish to make special abilities available after players reach certain levels of overflow Hero Points.
Allowing the players to have over twenty Hero Points has proven (after a couple decades of play testing) to be a poor idea as some players will then be sitting on a heap of points and be nearly invincible. Restricting the number of Hero Points helps keep an element of danger.
HOW TO USE HERO POINTS
Note - for purposes of this, a person or target is considered them and or their vehicle/steed/transport.
Hero Points can be used for:
After finding out the damage (or before if the player wishes) the player may spend a Hero Point on an incoming attack that is directly against the Hero or their vehicle/steed/transport. This causes it to barely miss you (or your vehicle) instead of hitting.
After you fail a roll, you may spend a Hero Point to reroll. If you fail the roll again, you may spend another Hero Point and try again and so on until you have either made the roll, run out of Hero Points or given up your futile efforts. This includes both skill and statistic rolls.
Example: The GM asks for a willpower x3 roll.
John has a shit willpower of 10 so he needs a 30 or less. If he misses that, he can spend a Hero Point to try again.
Rerolling your sanity loss.
John sees a scary picture which scares him. The GM informs him that the sanity loss is 1/d6 - one if you succeed in the sanity roll, d6 should you fail it. John has a sanity of 55. He rolls, he misses with a roll of 76! If he wanted to he could spend a Hero Point to reroll but he is confident. Unfortunately, his confidence is ill placed as he then rolls 6 sanity loss. Rather than run the risk of freaking out in the art gallery, he spends a Hero Point and rerolls the d6. He gets a 4. John deducts 4 from his sanity and now has a 51 sanity.
Rerolling damage you take from an AOE attack. Since AOE attacks (usually bombs, grenades, etc. but some sorts of monsters and spells may be included at the GM’s discretion) are not directed against ‘you’ but the area, you cannot say they ‘missed’ with a Hero Point. You can attempt to take less damage. Spending a Hero Point allows you to reroll some or all of the damage. You can spend as many Hero Points as you wish to reduce this damage.
Example:
John is driving his car down the street when an IED left by Badassium explodes. It is a huge explosion resulting in 4d10 of damage.
The GM (or John, up to the GM) rolls and gets a 1, 10, 9, 9.
John spends a Hero Point and decides to reroll the 10, 9, 9 - he keeps the 1.
The reroll nets him a 4, 7, 3. Combined with the earlier 1 that would be 15 points of damage. If John can survive that, he may keep that result or he may choose to spend another Hero Point and try again. If John can’t survive that, he might keep the 3 and the 1 and choose to try to reroll the 4 and 7.
He rolls a pair of 8’s.
Fuming, he spends yet another Hero Point and gets a 2 and a 3. Combined with the earlier 3 and 1 he had, that would be 9 points of damage. Hopefully, he can survive that.
When attacking someone, you may spend a Hero Point to reroll an attack or damage. If the person you are attacking also has Hero Points, they may spend one to ‘counter’ your Hero Point. You may not spend any more Hero Points in that round for that same roll upon that person after being countered.
Example:
John is attacking Badassium (NPC villain).
John rolls his attack and misses. John spends a Hero Point.
Badassium spends a Hero Point to counter.
The attack misses.
Had the attack initially hit and John chosen to spend a Hero Point to reroll his damage, Badassium could have countered that as well.
Note that you don’t have to be the driver/controller of a vehicle you are in to spend Hero Points on it.
Example: Four PC’s are in a car. The forces of Badassium pull up and begin wildly shooting at the car attempting to disable it. Anyone within that car may spend a Hero Point in order to cause the bullet to miss. This allows the party to ‘share the load’ rather than piling it all onto the driver who may already be spending a lot of Hero Points attempting to drive the vehicle.
WHAT YOU CANNOT SPEND HERO POINTS ON
Other people.
Example: John is confronting Badassium who is using the ole ‘human shield’. After Badassium demands John drop his gun and John refuses, Badassium shoots the hostage in the head.
John cannot use a Hero Point to attempt to protect the hostage. Nor could he protect a person he was carrying on his back, etc.
Hero Points are just for you and a vehicle you are riding in.
Should John attempt to get around this rule by having the hostage give him a piggy back ride (thus making the hostage John’s steed) the GM is free to rule that John is full of shit and cannot spend Hero Points on it. This does get more tricky if John is in a living space ship or some such and the GM is free to make their own ruling on it.
Any roll after you’ve already made a new roll, or after any significant time has elapsed.
Example: Fred misses his skill roll. He then rolls for something else. He cannot then go back and spend a Hero Point on the skill roll he earlier missed.
Example: Fred misses a skill roll. The GM then continues narrating the scene based on that. Fred feels he is missing out and wants to go back and spend a Hero Point on the missed roll. The GM tells him it is too late and he will have to suck it up.
WHEN TO USE HERO POINTS
The advice for new players is to never spend Hero Points unless it is an immediate life or death situation. A stealth roll deep in enemy territory might qualify, or a climbing roll when at a great height or using a Hero Point to make an enemy ‘miss’ their strike or shot. Everything else probably doesn’t warrant a spending of this scarce resource.
NPC’S WITH HERO POINTS
There is a card which allows the players to ‘Hero Point rate an NPC’. Also, if the GM feels they are vital (avoid Mary Sue’s!) they can give Hero Points to NPC’s. Recommend doing this rarely.
VILLAINS WITH HERO POINTS
Sometimes the GM may choose to have a certain boss villain or some of his henchmen - or some random unimportant guy - have Hero Points. Again, it is recommended not to do this that often as it is usually not needed.
ADVANCED USES FOR THE CURRENT CAMPAIGN
Once they finish a mission and are awarded HERO POINTS, anything over 20 gets sucked away and put into their bank.
'Siphoned HERO POINTS' is never 'spent' or 'deducted' - subtraction would only weaken your character. Instead, the players attempt to build up to higher levels.
Every 50 Hero Points in the bank the players have gives them a new ‘nifty power’ (GM has secret chart you can roll on).
It is important to note that if you are careful, horde your Hero Points and play regularly you can get approximately one new ‘nifty power’ per season. Or, you can burn through the Hero Points as you get them to try to get a more immediate pay off.
SKILL PENALTIES
If the skill is pretty hard, -30% or half
If the skill is super hard, -60% or quarter
If the GM thinks the player is crazy for even trying but there is a slim chance, ‘crit only’ or something crazy like ‘roll me two 01’s in a row’.
If the GM doesn’t think the skill can succeed, no roll is permitted.
WHAT THIS MEANS AND EXAMPLES
The -30% or half, when called for means that the player can choose if they want to have their skill at -30% or cut it in half to make the roll.
Example: Nancy has a 70% in a skill. If she chooses to go at -30%, that means she needs a 40 or less. If she chooses to go at half, she needs a 35% or less. Being able to figure out simple math problems helps. Roll first then figure it out.
Example: Fred has a 60% in a skill and agonizes about which he should choose, to go at half or at -30% from his skill. Nancy hits Fred.
The -60% or quarter works the same way but mathematically is challenging for some. Roll first, figure it out later. Nothing irritates everyone more than someone trying to figure out what a quarter of 32% is then they end up rolling an 84 anyway. Roll first - always.
Example: Nancy has a 70% in her skill and needs to do it at -60%. She rolls hoping to get over a 20% so she doesn’t have to do math.
You can always choose which (the flat minus or the half/quarter you want. For those with a grasp of basic math it will be obvious, for the rest a constant source of mystery.
NOTE that the new skill you are at (when your skill is penalized) affects your critical and fumble numbers as well!
Example:
Nancy is looking for clues. The bad guys have hidden them well, giving her a -30% (or half) to her skill. She normally has an 80% in ‘spot hidden’ so takes the -30%. At a 50% in spot hidden, her critical chance is reduced to needing a 5% or less on a roll and her fumble chance goes up to 95% or higher.
OPPOSED SKILLS
Compare the skills, difference plus or minus from 50.
Example 1: PC has a strength of 80 and wants to arm wrestle NPC with a strength of 70.
PC has 10% over the NPC. Add to 50 giving 60. Hence, PC has a 60% chance of winning - roll 60 or less.
Example 2: Godzilla has a strength of 150 and wants to grab the PC (strength of 80) to hold on to him so he can bite his head clean off. Assuming Godzilla already grabbed him (grapple skill) and the PC just wants to ‘strength his way out’, 150-80=70. That is more than 50% so if the GM is feeling nice, he can give the PC a 5% chance. Moral of the story, don’t get grabbed by Godzilla. That’s what ‘dodge’ is for.
Although this could be used for everything (PC has a dodge of 70, NPC has a pistol of 30, etc) I don’t use it because math sucks and also once you have a high enough dodge, mooks would never be able to effect you. So I use it for some things but not for others. That way, having a gaggle of say gunmen with 20%-30% skill are still somewhat of a potential threat.
CHARTS and why they suck (pacing)
Within this game, there is only one relatively simple chart - the damage track. Through decades of gaming, I’ve discovered that the more charts and rules you have, the slower the game goes. Hence, we have just the one and it is pretty simple.
Avoid anything that needs more charts especially if those charts are needed during combat.
THE FUMBLE DECK - the GM finally gets to have some fun
Once you get into the fumble deck, spending a Hero Point merely gets you a new card.
If you don’t want any fumble cards, spend Hero Points prior to drawing.
Reason - it’s pretty much like going to a different table, but in this case the table is represented by cards and the ‘roll’ on the table is which ever card you get.
SKILL DESCRIPTIONS
Specific skills (note – only some of the skills are being covered below; pistols are like shotguns but have a lower range and do less damage, quick drawing a pistol is no different game mechanic wise from quick drawing a knife and so on)
Clubs/Brawling: If you don’t want to put a lot of points into combat skills, this is a great way to go. High base plus, you don’t need to carry anything around. You will spend a full combat action picking it up but then you have a weapon. Examples include the bottle you were just drinking out of, the chair you were just sitting in and so on.
Fast draw pistol: If successful, it takes no time at all to get your gun out of it’s holster; in other words it’s a free action. Now, this does not mean it is ‘instant’. If someone has a gun pointed at you and says ‘move and I shoot’ and you go for a fast draw he gets a shot off if he has held his action. (Note – all fast draws work like this but you must buy them for specific things – pistol, smg, arrow, knife, etc. Things which are big and can’t be holstered or slung conveniently you cannot buy fast draw for.)
Dodge - you need somewhere to dodge TO. If you are busy climbing a rope, perhaps on a catwalk (or in a narrow hallway) there may not be anywhere to dodge TO hence the skill either can't be used or only at a strong negative, see GM. This skill cannot be used to ‘dodge explosions’. The stuff in an explosion (regardless of what you’ve learned from movies) moves faster than you can.
Pistol: Allows you to hit if you shoot. With firearms (only) you can choose to evenly divide up your chance to hit if you are firing at multiple targets that are all ‘in front of you’. In other words if you have a 90% in pistol and want to shoot three shots – whether at three separate guys or two at this guy and one at that guy, whatever) then you divide up the skill 90/3 = 30% per shot. If you can’t do the math without help YOU MISS. Good to figure it out ahead of time. Holding up the game for poor math skills is reprehensible.
Submachine Gun: Any fully automatic weapon (SMG, Assault rifle, etc) has multiple ways of firing. Some have single shot capability, others don’t. Options often include short burst, long burst and ‘clip it’. (See combat below)
Held weapons (all): If you hit, you do the damage indicated by the weapon. Note that you can either have attack at full and parry at -30% or vice versa.
Parry/Block (all) notes: If the thing fighting you is man sized or less (assuming you are as well) you can attempt to parry their attack. If you are fighting a giant or some sort of large creature, you can’t really parry them. Imagine trying to parry a bear. Not really happening. But against humans, it’s great. A parry (generally speaking) will negate their attack. There are special rules on ‘fighting offensively’ (attack at full, parry at -30%) or ‘fighting defensively’ (parry at full, attack at -30%).
Heavy Weapon (fill in the blank): Think ‘mounted machine gun’ or ‘rocket launcher’ as examples. Note that many ‘heavy weapons’ are ‘crew served’ meaning if it’s just you, it isn’t happening. Ask the GM if you are uncertain.
Whip (see grapple, below if using the special attack).
Block (hand to hand): This works the same way as ‘parry’ (above) with one major caveat. If you are blocking someone else’s hand to hand attack, nothing special need be done. If the person is attacking you with a hand to hand weapon and you attempt to block it, you must also roll ‘martial arts’ skill. If you succeed in block but fail martial arts, you automatically take the damage whether the person would have hit or not.
Grapple: This is literally grabbing someone. If you are trying to grab something specific (gun, throat, etc) you are at half skill. The person grabbed has several different options to try to escape. They may choose grapple, DEX or STR. Grapple means you are doing things wrestlers do to try to get out of holds. DEX shows you are trying to worm your way out of the hold and STR shows you are just strong arming out of the hold. The grappling person may choose which they want to ‘hold on’ with. Example: Fred (grapple 60%) is fighting Tim (STR 15). Fred has successfully grappled Tim, and Tim wishes to use his huge strength to break free. It is then the normal skill vs skill check.
Martial arts: This must be specified by the weapon. You can specify ‘body’, ‘sword’, ‘club’, etc. No, you can’t have firearm martial arts. Success in this gives a bump in damage (see ‘damage track’). Martial arts is also handy if you want to ‘parry’ something barehanded. See ‘parry’ above.
Missile weapons: Any missile weapons use skill: dexterity to determine whether they get a bump in damage (see ‘damage track’).
Second skill sheet:
Accounting: Good at going through books, find out where the bad guy is funneling money to, etc. Great for businessmen.
Acrobatics: This is a ‘spiff’ skill. You can add it to other skills to look great while you are doing it. For example, if you are using the jump skill to jump to a different building, acrobatics will allow you to put a flip in there. Some skills (like the modern day Parkour skill) the GM might require acrobatics rolled many times during its use. Doing ‘Jackie Chan’ style climbing might be a roll against climbing and acrobatics.
Acting: This skill is used to resist the Empathy skill.
Animal Handling (specify animal)
Allows you to saddle, hook up to different things meant for the animal (plow, wagon, etc) and to calm it down when it is irritated or freaked out. Riding does not calm the animal. Once a snake goes for it your riding roll will probably be just to stay on the beast while it does something like run into a fire.
Also, this skill allows you to care for the animal. Unlike vehicles that we are able to get into today, turn the key and blithely go where we want and the only thing we have to remember to do is hopefully lock it and take it in for service occasionally, beasts are a huge daily pain in the ass.
If you don’t know how to take care of them (often twice per day) they will go lame, start missing patches of hair from the saddle rubbing because you don’t know how to adjust the flank cinch and so on. And the animal will come to hate you over time.
Also caring for the animal in adverse conditions.
Cars are easier.
How to get around having to worry about this skill:
In many medieval places, they often had inns/taverns every day of the normal journey length.
This is a great way (if you stay on the road) to just be able to toss the reins and some money to the stable person and say ‘take care of the horse!’ and go in to drink. Sure, they may screw up their roll but at least you didn’t have to roll it.
Or run everywhere like they did in the first Conan movie. See skill “Long Distance Running”.
Anthropology: Figuring out what a race was up to at a specific time. Possibly customs and such as well.
Appraisal: How much is this worth?
Archeology: We all know you want to be Indiana Jones.
Architecture: Does this structure have a basement? Where is a good place for a secret passage? Where should I set the explosives charge?
Art lore: You know about art and junk. Don’t see this come up too often but if you happen to find some Revere silverware and have this skill, ca-ching!
Art: This is actually MAKING the art. You need to specify your medium. Could be pencil drawing or painting or sculpting, etc.
Astronomy: Super useful if you are piloting a spacecraft.
Bargain: Getting a break on the prices; haggling. This is definitely the skill to have if you have some high priced merchandise. This is opposed by the NPC’s ‘bargain’ skill.
BARGAIN
People who don’t bargain or have a good bargain skill are the ones who take what ever price is either on the sticker or what is offered.
People who have bargain haggle back and forth, look for quantity discounts, etc.
This skill can take anywhere from a minute to literally hours. I have personally taken about six hours bargaining over some stuff. Bought sodas for myself and the merchant - that’s when he knew he was in trouble.
Generally speaking, the more money that is changing hands, the more leverage you have.
In real life, most people don’t bargain because it is not part of the culture they grew up in and they ‘feel uncomfortable’ doing it and ‘just want to pay money and get something’. They make excuses like ‘it’s not that big of deal’ or ‘it’s not that much money’.
In many cultures, foreigners who do not bargain are seen as rich idiots who should be robbed.
In game terms, if you don’t want to use bargain, you have only two choices - take the price you are offered or don’t sell. Your offered price (especially on illegal or odd goods) will always be shit. If offered 300 and you say “I’m not selling for less than 500” - that is a part of bargaining.
When preparing missions, prices and such I often have the four different results written out and they are wildly different.
Example from a mission I am currently working on.
Bargain roll: Fumble: You get a couple of shiny new (stolen goods) for an easy job. Chumps.
Fail: 200! Shiny.
Success: 800.
Critical: 1500gu. You rock.
As you can see, big swing of money for this often underrated skill.
When bargaining is not used:
For many zones, I have a ‘standardized price sheet’. Since I could give a fuck less about many of the shopping trips (”I want to buy new underwear - how much are they?”) I just hand out a sheet with the standard prices on them. It is assumed that the PC’s go to several different merchants and buy little bits all over town. Most places adventurers hang out in do not have malls. The prices are base line and you are probably not buying much from any one merchant so I’m not worried about bargaining in those cases.
When bargaining is used:
Sometimes when negotiating how much money you will make from a job. Note that if you decide to make a bargain roll and fumble - you are stuck with that result. If you back out at that point, you are seen as someone who says one thing and does another. A liar, a cheat, etc. Your reputation will crumble in that town, possibly further.
If you are buying or selling something that a bargain roll will actually make a significant impact on finances. If you are saving less than the equivalent of $100, let’s not piss about with more rolls.
When the GM asks for a bargain roll - possibly someone else has initiated bargaining with you whether you wanted to or not.
Biology: If you are a doctor (unless you are ‘Dr. Nick’) you’d better have this. Tells you where things should be.
Boating: Specify type of boat.
Botany: You know more about plants and stuff than someone just getting by with ‘natural history’.
Bureaucracy: The paperwork skill.
Business/industry lore: Good for businessmen – who’s who and what’s what in the business world.
Carpentry/woodcraft: A surprisingly useful skill to make things out of wood.
Cartography: Usually just if you want to make a map; might be used to read a map if it is very complicated.
Chemistry/alchemy: You need a full lab to really get much from this skill.
Climbing: If you don’t have this high and need to climb, chances are you won’t live to regret it.
Computer use, general: Good for very basic stuff.
Computer use, hacking: If your GM knows little about real life hacking, this skill probably won’t do you as much good as you think.
Conceal/camouflage/holdout: This is good for hiding things either on your person (like weapons) or hiding them out in the wilderness. The opposed skill is usually ‘spot hidden’.
Contortions: TThis allows you to slowly wriggle your way through the hole/gap.
Cooking: Yummy food! May be used for potion making and such as well.
Counter surveillance: You need to be *in motion* to use this skill. This is the ‘is there anyone following me’ skill. Note that this will reveal the presence of only amateur and under funded surveillance individuals or small teams. You will probably never know or suspect a professional team is there – depending on the circumstances. See skill ‘danger sense’.
Cryptography: This is for breaking codes that the PC’s cannot be expected to break. Quite often this skill can be ‘supported’ with ‘advanced mathematics’. It often requires large computers. Note that from time to time the GM may choose to (sparingly) throw in easy codes - letter replacement, word jumble, etc. These the players have to work out for themselves. Note for GM’s - it is best to keep the use of things like codes very sparing because they may destroy the pacing of your game while the PC’s take minutes or hours trying to figure them out. In general, if a teenager can’t do it use cryptography skill instead.
Cthulhu mythos: Depending on the campaign, this may or may not be something you can start with. In some campaigns, it is the limiter to keep you from learning too many spells. In other campaigns, it is like a highly specialized ‘occult’ type skill.
Current events: What is going on in the world today.
Dance: Move without looking like a dork or injuring your dance partner.
Demolitions: If you are trying to use explosives without this skill you will probably kill yourself and others in a dramatic fashion.
Direction sense - that way is generally north. Also, if you go through some various tunnels (or a maze) underground, you can try to use this skill to generally say "I want to go in this general direction." Doing that works less well above ground where you want navigation. It allows you to move on various established routes (roads and shit) instead of 'this is the general direction toward the goal'. Also, if someone is using 'direction sense' they may say things like "Gosh, there is a big canyon here" where as the person with navigation would say "Yes, that is on the fucking map. We should have taken route 38 to go around it."
Disguise: Look like someone different. Opposed with ‘spot hidden’.
Dreaming: If the ‘dreamlands’ is being used this is your ‘get on the adventure’ skill. Within the dreamlands, it has other uses. Within the dreamlands, you can ‘dream up’ an item for a time. The MP the item costs and how long it stays around are generally up to the GM. Dreaming up an item takes about a minute hence this is foolish to attempt during combat. Check to see if this skill is being used before burning points on it.
Dream lore: Knowing about stuff inside of the dreamlands. The GM may require different dream lore for different major areas within the dreamlands. Check to see if this skill is being used before burning points on it.
Drive (specify; examples include air car, ground car, heavy truck, etc): Doing fancy stuff, attempting to avoid stupid people who don’t have the skill but are driving, etc. Note that sometimes an accident simply cannot be avoided. In those cases, a drive roll may merely be to try to mitigate damage or keep everyone alive.
Drive motorcycle: As drive car but without the protection and airbags.
Electronics/electronic repair: Fix that toaster!
Empathy: “Lie detection’s all about asking the right questions.” - “Lie To Me”, S1E7. This will get you the basic emotion that someone you are talking to is feeling or displaying, possibly with use of microexpressions. According to Dr. Paul Ekman, there are seven universal microexpressions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and contempt. They often occur as fast as 1/15 to 1/25 of a second. You need to be able to see the person's face. Hence if they sit around in darkness, with big sunglasses on and so on, it's an easy way to negate empathy skill. The empathy skill will tell you what general emotion (or, if the GM is feeling fancy, microexpression) the individual is displaying but not why. That is where asking the right questions comes in. If the target has no emotions, it doesn’t work. If the target is an unfamiliar creature, it won’t work or be at a negative. This skill is opposed by ‘acting’. If the actor wins, you get whatever emotion they want you to get. What makes this skill interesting in play is that the right questions must often be asked in order to get the microexpression to display. If you don't know what to ask, this skill is much less effective.
Etiquette: How to carry yourself well, possibly with style in a social environment.
Evidence analysis: What does it all mean? Unless the GM is doing a CSI type of module (where all of the evidence is spelled out and the PC’s get to put it together on their own) this will give you a general idea of what happened at the scene of the crime.
Fast talk: Your bullshitting skill. If you are going to use this, I’d definitely having acting. Otherwise, you spin a good yarn but look guilty as hell. Note that the player themselves must be able to BS a little bit in order to actually use this skill. TTRPG’s are a ‘talking’ game. You cannot say “I convince him that I’m nice.” And roll. You need to actually come up with something a bit plausible.
First aid: See HP/healing.
Forensics: You may gather evidence (finger prints, bullets, etc) or if you are a criminal you can hide evidence (put a bunch of bleach on the blood, etc). Note that this skill (either way) takes a LONG TIME to do. You may NOT do a quick forensics roll as you are fleeing the scene – just assume this skill takes HOURS.
Gambling: Attempt to win money. Better if you are ‘the house’. Note that you may actually lose more money than you wanted to bet. That’s just the way gambling often seems to work.
Geography: Where is Canada on the map? Some surveys have showed most American’s can’t find it. With this skill, you just might.
Geology: Better than natural history, you know about rocks and stuff.
Gun-smith: This is good for fixing your gun, clearing a jam or if you have a workshop you might be able to modify your gun.
History: What happened previously.
Interrogation: This is NOT just tying up some unfortunate and beating them till they tell you what they think you want to hear. Actual interrogation has several different methods. Overused (and well known, hence not so good to use) methods are things like ‘good cop, bad cop’. Less known methods include the ‘we know all’, ‘time speed up’ and the ‘we have your family now talk’. Actual interrogation can take hours up to months. In the end, everybody breaks. But if using strong arm tactics, they will just tell you what they think you want to hear.
Intimidation: Making the target feel nervous due to the possibility of impending physical violence. If you are a big guy with brass knuckles and a gun, it is a lot easier than if you are a short bald professor with a pot-belly.
Jump: This is a skill like climb – if you don’t have much in it, you probably won’t live to regret it if you roll it. This skill can negate d6 of falling damage if you were prepared to fall. If you weren’t and the fall took you by surprise, the GM may have you roll at half or some such.
Jury rig: This is the ‘make it work without the right stuff’. Note – you still needs stuff to attempt the roll and it should be feasible. Watch a lot of MacGuiver.
Law: This skill is required (as ‘does it as a living’) by law enforcement professionals (yes, that includes PI’s). It tells you what the law is regarding your secret illegal Swiss bank accounts, your unlicensed weapons and your breaking and entering.
Library use/research: This is your ‘find information out’ skill. The information could be in a library or you could go out and ask people questions – depends on the type of information and how you want to go about finding it out.
Linguistics: This is your ‘what language is this I cannot understand’ skill. This does not allow you to speak or understand the language but it will tell you what it is so you can find someone who does.
Listen: Hear vital conversation or person sneaking up behind me skill.
Lip reading: You must be able to clearly see the persons lips.
Literature: Unless you have some sort of character concept that relies heavily upon this, just like in real life this is an utterly useless skill. If you have a doctorate in it and aren’t teaching it you probably work at Starbucks. Sorry.
Lock lore: This tells you what kind of lock, how many tumblers, etc. Good to use to support your lock-picking.
Lock-picking, electronic: If it has wires hooked to it! This takes under one minute to do.
Lock-picking, mechanical: If it has tumblers! (Note, if it has both wires and tumblers, the GM may have you roll both.) A professional lockpick told me that if he couldn’t pick the lock in under a minute it was time for the drill. This takes anywhere from 1 round (if you are prepared and know fancy stuff about it) to a minute to pull off. [Note: Unless modern day campaign, ‘bumping’ not allowed.] Side note: If you think that scratches on the exterior of the lock mean it has been picked, no, it means inept clumsy people picked or attempted to pick the lock. If the tumblers are out of synch it means your lock has been picked. (You can feel it when you insert the key.)
Mathematics (advanced): This very rarely comes up but everyone will look at you with awe in that one in one hundredth module where it comes up and oh, you happen to have it.
Medicine: See HP/healing.
Meditation: You can be at peace and harmony with all living things. In game mechanics, this is (usually) an utterly useless skill. No, you are not an elf who can meditate for just a couple hours to replace the need to sleep. Don’t even think about trying it.
Memory: If the GM still remembers and you were too dim/lazy to take notes, this skill will allow the GM to remind you of what you specifically ask about. It is not a ‘Gee – what was the important clue again? Can I make a memory roll?’ How about NO. Also, if you didn’t bother to ask about it at the time, you can’t say ‘Do I remember the license plate number on that get away car?’. No, you don’t. Take notes. Relying on the GM to remember and rolling this skill is lazy.
Mimicry: Sound like someone or something else. The human vocal cords must be able to do it and you must have heard it before.
Natural history: This is the ‘skate by’ skill for knowing about plants, animals, rocks and such. It won’t give you nearly as much information as the specific skill (botany, geology, zoology, etc) but you have a basic understanding.
Navigation: land: This is the ‘know where you are going on land’ skill. Works with a map and compass.
Navigation: sea/air: As above but for sea/air.
Occult: Occult is not a replacement for Cthulhu mythos but it can be handy if you are dealing with non mythos critters like witches. Or if you want to make your own flaming pentagram out in your yard to horrify your neighbors.
Operate Heavy Machinery: Allows the PC to operate many large types of equipment such as a crane or excavator. Unless the type of equipment is judged to require some sort of specialized knowledge (nuclear power factory) this skill allows it’s operation. If the thing being operated does require specialized knowledge (such as the nuclear power factory) the GM may allow the character to use this as a ‘supporting skill’.
Parachuting: Everyone can parachute - once. Gosh this is a great skill to have at least as a hobby. Yes, you need a real parachute, your bed sheets just will not cut it.
Pharmacy: Good skill for doctors to have to know what sort of expensive drugs to give their patients.
Philosophy: Rationalize away the existence of God but this probably won’t be of any use. Ever. See also, Starbucks job opportunities.
Physics: About the same as ‘advanced math’.
Pilot: Choose what kind of craft you want to fly. Glider, fixed wing aircraft, passenger jets, rotary wing aircraft, etc. Good to have at ‘does it as a living’ or better if you want to fly. Remember, you have to come in pretty low to land.
Prestidigitation/pick pockets: Snagging little things without people noticing. This can go against spot or feel depending on situation. Keep in mind that real life teams of pickpockets work in teams of three or more so if you are on your own trying to make a living doing it, the GM can penalize your skill and tell you to go get a real job instead.
Psychoanalysis/psychology: This is knowing the fancy book stuff of these trades. This can be used to tone down someone’s insanity if their current sanity total has climbed up higher than the special number. See also ‘sanity’ section.
Religion: General knowledge of religions. Specific religious rites may be at severely reduced score depending on the commonality of the religion.
Repair, mechanical: Fix it! Note - you need to have tools and spare parts.
Ride: Specify what kind of mount. Riding camels is very different from horses. Definitely a good skill to get. Failing your riding roll means you might as well be leading it instead of riding it. Unless you get tossed into a tree upside-down. That hurts.
Running: long distance: Most folks only get sprinting but after a few hundred feet, this skill kicks in. There is nothing more satisfying than chasing down a bad guy for a mile or two and not even working hard at it. This is also a good skill for ‘I need to leave the area quickly and all my vehicles are disabled and mounts are dead.’
Running: sprinting: If you don’t have it, chances are the monster will eat YOU.
Safe-cracking: This skill is like lock-picking but for safes. Some safes take a long time to crack. This is NOT the ‘put my ear to the safe and spin the dial’ necessarily. There may be drilling and high tech gadgets for seeing inside involved. It is often noisy and takes many minutes.
SCUBA: Using fancy gear to dive and not die.
Security systems lore: Knowing about motion detectors, silent alarms, cameras, etc. This is pretty much a modern day skill although some pre-WW2 places might have crude electronic security.
Seduction: Making nice with someone else in hopes of a romantic interlude.
Singing: Comes up a surprising amount and can be darned useful.
Sixth sense/danger sense: In real life, you sometimes enter those situations that you ‘just get a feeling’ that it is dangerous. This is the skill for that. It does not tell you where the marksman is hidden or what the danger specifically is. This is the skill that would be rolled if the bad guys had rigged your door with a laser marker and a couple pounds of C4. There is no other legitimate way to know that opening your door will cause the hotel to explode – no ticking, no wires, no buzzing, nothing. This skill is your last chance to say “Hum. I feel in danger. Maybe I should go to a different hotel.” If you ask for a skill roll you get it at full, if the GM asks for it, you get it at half.
Skiing: Beware of trees! Play James Bond!
Signaling: This covers hand signals, Aldus lamps, smoke signals, etc.
Spot hidden/find: This is your generic ‘notice clue’, ‘notice bad guy sneaking up on you with a knife’ etc. Gets used all the time.
Feel: Your sense of touch, etc.
Smell/taste: Nose, tongue.
Spy lore: This skill is only really useful if the GM knows more about it than you do. In my campaign, this tells you what the ‘by the book’ procedure is for different circumstances. The ‘by the book’ procedure might not be the right one for the circumstance . For example, if you are being followed, what is the ‘by the book’ procedure? If you want to tail someone? If you want to send a secret message? What is a dead letter drop? Etc. [Note - Logan’s spy lore is mostly from the Cold War era.]
Stealth: Being sneaky. This is also known as the ‘don’t get left in the car while we go do stuff’ skill.
Streetwise: A lot of people always like to say things like “Oh, he’s book smart but he’s not *street smart*”. I respond “Do you know where to get an unlicensed Uzi in downtown Chicago right this instant? If not, you aren’t really street smart either.” This is that skill. It tells you where to get hold of illegal things, whose on the take, whose who in crime families, etc.
Surveillance: After setting up somewhere that you can comfortably hang out for ONE WEEK and spending a week there then you get a roll on this skill. Better to have NPC’s do this unless you have a lot of time. Amateurs do this with one vehicle. Professionals use several at the same time and rotate them. Amateur tales are easy to spot unless they are tailing other amateurs. See ‘counter surveillance’.
Survival: A type of area must be specified (jungle, desert, urban, etc). This allows you to survive (barely) in that area for an extended time. Having other nifty skills like carpentry, natural history, etc really can make your life more comfortable.
Swim: If you don’t have it, you get to discover the drowning rules!
Tactics: Detailed planning, surprise, entry, speed and ‘violence of action’. Read more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_quarters_combat Within the game, this also allows (assuming everyone has similar weapons and a decent plan) the PC’s not accidentally shoot each other and so on. If one person has a sword and the other two are using shotguns and the sword guy closes to engage while the others stand back and shoot, he is probably fucked and should have bought a shotgun. Or covered the back door. Note - this use to be split into ‘police’ and ‘military’ tactics but they have gotten close enough in recent years I’m happy to have the same skill cover all of them.
Teaching: If you have at least hobbyist (30%) in a skill, you can attempt to teach it to others.
Tracking: If it isn’t humans and you don’t have natural history etc you probably won’t know what it is but you can tell where it went for at least a short way. If the tracks have been sitting around for a week or it’s rained in the meantime, you are probably out of luck.
Trapping: This is a good skill either if you are out in the wilds and need to eat or if you are one of the rare PC’s who plans ahead. Traps can take from minutes to hours to set up depending on what type. This covers anything from placement of trip wires to digging out a punji pit.
Zoology/animal lore: You know more about animals than someone skating by with natural history.
Third skill sheet:
Heavy weapon skills: I wouldn’t expect to find these sitting around. The police are pretty harsh on people who own rocket launchers or artillery. In ‘war torn’ countries you can probably get some of these through the ‘streetwise’ skill.
Languages: You start with your native language. This is always denoted by an “N” – I don’t make people roll to see if they can speak their native language. Any other language must be bought separately. I know several languages have the same base/root – I don’t care. Buy them separately. Also, if you have less than a 60% (do it as a living) you are not fluent. Any time you want to speak or understand it is a separate roll. If you have 60% or better, you roll once for the adventure. Good to have 60%. If you fumble in the language, you not only say/understand something extremely rude/insulting/vulgar but you are done attempting to roll that language for the entire adventure. In order to get around certain ‘cheesyness’, I require players to make some sort of hand sign/wear a special hat/something obvious when they are speaking in a different language. This keeps people from saying something highly inappropriate then attempting to cover their tracks by claiming they were saying it in a different language. I don’t allow the ‘oh, we are always speaking in Gaelic’. Nope. Go buy special ‘these are our Gaelic speaking hats’ and wear them. Watch NPC’s become confused when you address them in Gaelic! No end of fun.
Write in Skills:
These can really, really make your character SHINE. Nothing is better than having some odd write in skill that nobody knows about then – when that one in twenty adventure comes along that it is the ‘daddy’ skill for UNLEASHING it.
Any skill that can be done from golf, knitting, drinking beer with your feet (seen it) etc can be a write in skill. No, you can’t have ‘decapitate foe with one swift strike’ or any of that ‘I’ve played too much D&D silliness’. GM has the right to veto any write in skill. Certain write in skills may only become available after very specific things happen, GM’s discretion.
LANGUAGES
For some campaigns, spoken and written are split up. For example, ‘Egyptian hieroglyphs’ would be ‘read Egyptian hieroglyphs’ because nobody knows how to speak Ancient Egyptian.
Unless you go there and learn it - which may be possible in some campaigns. That would then allow you to build the new skill ‘Speak Ancient Egyptian’.
Additionally, some GM’s might specify that for certain very complex languages which many people can speak but fewer can read (example Mandarin) that the player must buy spoken and written separately.
How languages work: First, you say what you are trying to say then you make your roll. This allows hilarity for the GM when you fail or fumble your roll.
If the player rolls a critical, the GM may not ask them to roll again for awhile.
For a success, the idea the player is attempting to communicate is passed.
Failure indicates they are either trying to make up words that nobody recognizes or garbling it so badly the listener cannot understand what they are saying.
Fumbles are hilarity for the GM. Maybe insulting the listener, maybe volunteering for something dangerous, whatever. Also, you are done attempting that language for the adventure or session - whichever ends first.
A special rule with languages is that once a player has a 60% or higher in a language, they need only succeed once per session to communicate for the entire session in that language. Conversely, if the roll is fumbled, you seem to have forgotten how to speak that language for the adventure or session - whichever ends first.
SANITY - AND WHY YOURS IS SLIPPING
LOSING SANITY
There are bunches of ways to lose sanity. Doing horrific acts, witnessing scary monsters, going to war, etc all cause people to lose sanity.
Sometimes, people will lose sanity based on what their party members do - whether they witness or condone it or not.
“Well, I’m going to go out and gather firewood because I suspect you might torture this guy for information…”
Yeah - you’re losing sanity toward ‘torture’ either way. Ways of trying to get around it don’t work.
Although in this game, PVP is strongly discouraged, we don’t have any players who are completely selfish dicks. Those sort of people don’t tend to last. Hence, if you want to try to talk someone out of an action that causes sanity loss, you generally can do it.
GAINING SANITY
Generally, doing actual ‘good guy’ stuff will help the PC’s gain sanity. Also, things like defeating the kind of monsters that cause you to lose sanity will gain some sanity back. (Defeating a bear won’t gain you sanity but killing a ghoul will.)
GETTING USE TO IT
When someone takes sanity loss, they can record it on their character sheet. Once they hit the ‘max’ number, they no longer lose sanity toward that specific thing, though they may still toward other related things until they max that out as well.
Example: A certain young lady likes to torture victims. They just wish she’d ask questions. Eventually, she and her companions lose enough sanity (20) to max that out. Unfortunately, she is super messy with the victims as they are being tortured, hence, everyone gets to work on maxing out their ‘human gore’ (20), maybe ‘gross out’ (20) and because she doesn’t like to leave any witnesses, ‘cold blooded killing/guilt’ (60).
THE SPECIAL NUMBERS
40, 30, 20. Once your sanity gets down to - or below - any of those numbers, you pick up a new ‘permanent’ insanity. Some examples - won’t use firearms, won’t use currency, beat anyone who screams, etc.
For new players, it is vital to talk to the GM and other players and bounce ideas off of them about what is and is not a good insanity.
Remember, your insanity should - in some way - fuck you at least once per session. If it doesn’t, you will get assigned a new insanity. Your insanity should not fuck the other characters.
A good way of ‘testing’ out insanities before you are stuck with them is to give your character ‘quirks’. These are not mandatory and are much less severe than insanities. Examples - dislikes using guns, doesn’t like to buy anything unless they have to (or always ‘forgets’ wallet at home), screams at people who are screaming to ‘be quiet’. You can pick these up and drop them as desired.
CURING YOUR CRAZY
If your sanity had dipped down to 38 (gaining you the insanity at 40) then risen back up over 40, it is possible to get psychoanalysis (skill) to move the insanity down to a ‘strong quirk’. Not nearly as severe. If you dip down again, you can pick it back up as an insanity. If your sanity has gotten high enough you don’t think you will be in danger of getting the insanity back, you can get more psychoanalysis and move it to a mild quirk or even remove it altogether. Then, if your insanity goes back down, you can either pick back up the same thing (relapse) or go for a new insanity.
MAKING SANITY ROLLS
Sanity is a slippery slope. The more sanity you have, the slower you lose it. The less you have, the quicker it goes. All creatures/actions/things that make you crazy have two different numbers. The first is if you succeed in your sanity roll, the second if you fail your sanity roll.
Example: Fred is forced to kill a guard, not in the heat of combat. He was just standing there. The GM asks for a sanity roll, 1/d6. That means if Fred’s character makes his sanity roll, he loses one point (probably toward cold blooded killing - the GM will let you know) but if he fails his sanity (see stat - sanity) he loses d6 sanity. If Fred fails his sanity roll and loses five or more sanity at once (or in a short time), he may ‘lose his shit’.
LOSING YOUR SHIT
Sometimes, you lose a bunch of sanity at once. The GM will ask for some sort of willpower roll to avoid ‘going crazy’. Generally, willpower x3. If this is failed, roll d20. That’s how many rounds you are not in much control (if any) of your character. Then, roll a d4: fight, flight, freak, freeze.
Fight: If there are bad guys around, you will go after them whether you want to or not. No bad guys? Someone else. Maybe the GM will roll at random, maybe you will attack a bystander, someone’s horse (you always hated that horse) or another PC. You don’t have to spend any Hero Points during the combat but you will use (at minimum) whatever weapon is in hand. If you have a loaded pistol in hand, you are going to start shooting - not try to knock someone out with your fist because it’s a PC. You’ve gone berserk.
Flight: You run. So long as it is ‘away’ from whatever made you crazy, the GM usually lets you pick your route.
Freak: You don’t get to do anything useful. You are freaking out. You can go at walk speed where ever you want, usually ranting about how the ‘lib dems are responsible for the flat earth’ and so on.
Freeze: You’re just fucked. You will stand there like a statue until your d20 rounds are done. If you were hiding when you saw whatever made you crazy this is the best possible result. Otherwise, not so good.
RUNNING OUT OF SANITY
If your character ever reaches zero sanity, they instantly, immediately and irrevocably become an NPC. Make a new character.
SANITY THOUGHTS
It all depends on play style. Some people always seem to be between 90-99 sanity; others under 40. Figure out what is right for you.
No sanity bonus (COC) for getting a skill high. You’ll just have to be content with your high skill and being crazy.
MAGIC
MAGIC POINTS
Your magic points are equal to your Essence stat.
After a good night of sleep, you gain them all back.
CASTING SPELLS
All spells use your mouth and hands and it’s obvious you are casting them. No secret spell casting.
Tied up and gagged means no spell casting for you or your enemies. Depending on who is tied up.
Monstrous abilities might still work when people are tied up and gagged - best just to kill the monsters quickly.
Spell casting has a lot of rules. If the player does not know how part of spell casting works off the top of their head and holds up play with needing to look up something, the GM should rule their magic has failed for the day and move on.
Does this mean players who can’t memorize the magic system (or at least look it up and have it ready to go before they try to use it) can’t cast spells?
Yes. Stick to simpler stuff if you can’t remember how the system and your spells work.
MAGIC/TECH ITEMS
For some zones, magic (or tech) always works. In these zones those items can be used normally.
In other zones, a willpower roll is needed to try to get the magic item or tech item to work.
Making it work takes one round. Even for items which would be normally 'always on', in areas they don't work, you have to spend a round (and make the appropriate Willpower (stat) roll to 'make them work'. [The GM sets the difficulty at anything from 'make a crit' up to x5 depending on the zone.]
That makes some items pretty much useless. Example: A ring of feather fall. The average person (100kg) can fall a bit over 100m in five seconds. Hence, unless your fall is further than that, your ring of feather fall when not in a ‘high magic’ zone is simply jewelry.
FULL MAGIC RULES
COMPLEXITY
The spells are a very complicated (comparatively) part of the game. Simply put, if the player cannot understand the spells, know the rules and know their spells as well or better than the GM they should not be casting them. If you don’t get it, stick to melee or shooting stuff. You can still make a good contribution to any fight. If the player regularly causes combat to slow down due to arguing about spell effects or simply not knowing what their spells do, the character will soon lose the ability to cast spells. Does this mean that clever players can cast spells while ‘not as clever spells cannot’? Yes. Spell casting has long been the domain of the clever. There is no ‘intelligence’ stat for the characters - their intelligence is equal to the players. Sorry but I am not willing to slow down everyone for the sake of the slow trying to do complicated things. Stick with simpler stuff. Spells are complicated. If this causes only NPC’s to be casting spells, I can totally live with that - but don’t think it will actually happen.
DISCLAIMER
These magic rules apply to most of the zones. Should special zone rules be in place for certain zones, those take precedence. [For example: Wearing metal armor normally does not interfere with spell casting. If there is a special ‘D&D parody zone in which it does, then those zone rules apply.]
CASTING SPELLS WHERE YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO
The modifiers for each zone vary between ‘no roll needed’, some multiplier of willpower (will x3, etc) or ‘spells and magical effects do not work here period’.
CASTING TIMES
Anything with a casting time of more than two rounds is generally an idiotic spell to cast during combat. Better to cast it before or after combat. When casting a spell, ‘casting’ is your full action each round.
Casting time of one round - on your turn they are cast and the effect is done.
Casting time of instant - in the description it will say whether it goes off at the beginning of the round or beginning of your turn. (Though I should examine these spells and see if that can be standardized.)
DURATIONS
Some durations are a number of rounds or hours.
Till sunset or sunrise - this is whichever comes next. If you cast a spell an hour before sundown and it has this duration, your spell will only last for an hour.
Also, killing the caster of a spell (or knocking them out) is usually a great way to turn off any and all spells they have cast as those spells have no life of their own UNLESS Essence was sacrificed to give the spell life. (Or other special things were done, consult the GM).
Combat: This means the spell ends when there is a ‘lull’ in combat or the GM announces combat is over.
Concentration: Some spells require concentration. That takes one full action each and every round. Unless you are hasted (etc) aside from simple actions and free actions, that is your entire round. Should concentration be broken or given up, the spell ends and must be cast anew in the future. Note - you do not need to be able to speak to maintain concentration - just glare balefully. Note that (unless hasted) moving or being moved breaks concentration. Concentration means ‘you do nothing but keep the spell going’. BEING DAMAGED BREAKS CONCENTRATION.
WEIRD DURATIONS
Certain spells may be broken by certain things - a rooster’s first call (which sucks because they actually often go all night - best to slit their throats ahead of time), first ray of light, water (crossing or getting splashed by), true love’s first kiss, etc.
These are usually odd spells NPC’s cast or special ‘zone specific’ spells.
DUMB VS SMART DEFENSES
These are categories of magical defense. Dumb automatically trigger. Smart defenses trigger when the caster wishes them to trigger.
FAILING OR FUMBLING SPELLS
Fail means half the MP of that spell are gone.
Fumble means you pay the full MP cost of that spell and you may not cast that spell again until the next sunup or sundown. In addition, the GM may have it go off, hit the wrong target, give bonuses to enemies, explode or whatever his sadistic mind comes up with.
LEARNING NEW SPELLS
One hour of someone telling them how a first rank spell works. Only the first spell from the chain may be taught.
The teacher must roll under their spell skill and under their ‘teaching’ skill. You can try once per day till you make it or fumble. Should either roll be fumbled (even if the other is crit) then you can never teach that skill to that student ever again.
Even if the teacher is teaching multiple students the same spell, they must make a teaching roll for each student. It is possible to have some get it and others not understand the material. Despite the teacher failing their teaching roll, it is best to blame the student.
[As always if the teacher forgets what stuff exactly they can’t teach to a particular student, then they can no longer teach ANYTHING to that student. Keep better notes.]
Should the roll succeed (crits don’t really matter) then the PC picks up the level 1 spell at their ‘learn’.
As normal, the only way to get higher ranking spells is to get a crit on casting the one they have. They either then get the next higher rank at ‘learn’ or if it is TBD, they have to (between game sessions) figure out a spell, get GM approval (on a probably nerfed version) then they get that one at learn when they next make a crit. You can’t save up crits. Best to work on the spell as soon as you find out it is a TBD.
One attempt may be made per day to learn a spell, whether that attempt is successful or not. You may not make multiple attempts to learn spells in a single day. One day, one attempt.
LIMITATIONS
In some more elemental lands, the caster can’t do the opposite element of their main and may be limited to half way up the chains on the other two.
Depending on the specific zone, a player that knew opposing magics might either have some of them (usually the lower skill ones) suppressed while they were there or they might be able to ignore the limitation all together.
MAGIC POINTS
When are the magic points spent? When you first begin your spell. Example: If you are casting a spell that requires ten magic points and ten rounds to cast it, you have lost five magic points (same amount as ‘failing’ a spell) even if you stop casting after the first round. If you continue through the whole spell and fail it, you are still down five magic points.
If you run out of MP (IE your MP=0) you fall unconscious and cannot be revived until your Magic Points regenerate (usually 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep). If this happens while casting a spell the spell does not go off. You can also be brought back to consciousness with a 'wake up' spell or card effect. This puts you at 1 magic point. Note - unless the specific zone rules differ, sleeping for four hours does not regenerate half of your MP. It’s an all or nothing thing. For this reason, it is not unheard of for people who imprison casters to have them woken up every few hours by the guards.
In some zones, there may be other ways to regain MP.
MAKING MAGIC ITEMS
Figure out what is needed to make an item that while holding it and using a particular type of spell (or a specific element spell or any damage spell) and it moves up the damage one place on the damage track. We can have it where the ‘wood carving’ (for a staff as an example) needs to be done with a certain type of wood and a ‘crit’ wood carving roll needs to be made to pull it off. Certain things might require an object with a lot of skills put in to it - maybe all of them needing a critical roll, or perhaps just normal successes, depending. Anyone who wants to make magic items (in the event those spells ever get done) will need to get great at lots of crafting skills. Lots and lots. Making magic items (for obvious reasons) will be a huge pain in the ass of such a magnitude that only the most stubborn players even bother with it. If the rules ever get done for it.
Given how often the players lose all of their possessions within the campaign, I doubt this is going to become a huge thing. Unless the players learn what ‘cache’ means.
MERGING SCHOOLS
When someone has two different schools at ‘do it as a living’ they might start making hybrid styles of magic. It is important though to make sure one spell has one and only one effect. (Water plus air might equal steam, for example).
Rules on this have not been made and if they are, it will probably be a ‘zone specific’ thing.
MP COST
Why are they all even numbers? Because if you fail, you lose half round up. Easier to make it so rounding is not required. [Why? Many PC’s suck at simple math.]
If your spell goes off successfully, but someone resists it, you are still stuck paying full MP cost for the spell - it was successfully cast.
SPELL EFFECTS YOU WON’T EVER SEE IN THE CAMPAIGN:
Divination: One day, all of the players may spontaneously decide they want to own, operate and stock a Pottery Barn store. I will then be stuck making Pottery Barn plots. There is no way I could know what the players are going to do ahead of time. Augury works well in books where the author knows what will happen and has a lot more control of the characters. They can then come up with some clever formula. Hell, some cryptic NPC may even give a prophecy from time to time within the campaign but I’m not going to have any magic for it. Within games it is often either useless or over powered. Also never going to happen include spells to locate things or people. Or figure out ‘who dun it’.
Illusion: Not happening. Anyone who has any subtly and brains will quickly make this over powered.
Memory alternating/annihilating: Nothing but fucking trouble and gas lighting down the road. Suck up your own actions and find different ways to get clever.
Spells that compel you to tell the truth. Holy shit does that put a dent in murder mystery adventures.
More effects will get added to this list as time goes on.
PLAYER RESPONSIBILITY
If the player has to stop and look up how their magic spell works - especially during combat - the spell just fails and costs the caster the MP. If they don’t even know how many MP it costs, congratulations the player has only 1MP left. That keeps you conscious and unable to cast more spells and we can all move on with our lives. There is nothing worse than some idiot who can’t remember their own spells dragging all of the action to a stand still because they need to look it up. If you can’t remember your spells without hesitation, use a sword or something instead.
The player must keep a copy of the spell at hand in case the GM wants them to read it or have a question on it. In other words, if you want to do something more complex than swing a sword, it’s your responsibility to be able to know your spells without hesitation.
During the game session is NOT the time to work on magic. This includes both asking questions about how a spell works or trying to develop new spells. Work on magic when the campaign is not going on - contact the GM privately.
RANGE
Unless otherwise stated in the spell, ‘touch’ spells may be cast on oneself. By…er…touching yourself.
Self is understood to mean ‘your self and a reasonable amount of gear’. Many spells will not work if you are holding on to someone else, even if they are dead or unconscious as they are not a ‘reasonable amount of gear’.
Touching someone else takes an action. If they are trying not to be touched, roll ‘unarmed’.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The GM may choose to add in whatever special effects to any spell they wish. These may change depending on their whim.
No spell may be cast covertly. Otherwise, we get NPC’s sitting around and ‘staring daggers’ at the PC, the PC dying and not even knowing who was attacking them. Or vice versa. Not a good fit. Magic is always obvious. Sometimes super obvious. Some magicians of sufficient power may even be able to tell when someone starts throwing around magic within their area.
Note that in some zones, casting any spell will result in problems - even if you are casting them at hostiles with no neutral parties around. The experienced players know what sort of problems. In general, casting spells is best done in private to avoid these problems.
SPELL CAPABILITIES
All spells have one effect. [Later or in certain zones, there might be some wild chain casting of various spells in order to have different effects but that is down the road a ways.]
SPELL CASTING
All spells have verbal and gesture components. Few have material components as well.
Also, be sure to note that you can always tell who is doing a spell against you - no hidden guy staring intently at you. Possible exception when someone is doing a ritual spell with a connecting thing - they’ve got your hair or something. But those need to be much weaker like ‘your luck is fucked’ type spells.
Note that if you cannot speak and/or make gestures (your hands are tied up and/or you are gaged) you cannot cast spells. There may also be other things (a silence spell) which will keep you from being able to cast spells.
Different other things (Faraday cages, being bound with a silver chain, anti-magic collars, some circles of power, etc) may cause different problems. Anything from completely suppressing someone’s spell casting ability on to ‘if you try to cast a spell your head explodes’.
On the HC deck, some rounds are also marked ‘no magic’. No spells may be cast during those rounds. In addition, any ‘concentration’ or ongoing effects are turned off. Other magic (such as bonus damage which is ‘permanently’ on a weapon) may be suppressed for the round or destroyed permanently. Ask GM. Generally, stuff that has a duration of less than a year is destroyed, greater than a year is suppressed for a round.
SPELL CHAINS
Chain - this starts off with the least powerful spell of the type and leads to stronger spells. Chains may fork. Once a spell is unlocked, the player may be given a choice of two or more spells. If the player rolls a future critical on the same spell, they then get to learn another.
Example: Getting a critical on purple leads to three possible paths - dinosaur, case or soft. The player opts for soft. Later, they are using the spell purple again and get another critical. This time they choose dinosaur to unlock that chain as well.
Certain new spells will be come up with and put into various chains. For example - Let us say with have the chain:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
A new spell, Juice is come up with. The decision (GM and players, GM gets final word) is made to place it into this chain and the new chain becomes:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Juice - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
If the player knew Night and Fox before then yes, Uncle is pushed a little further out. You’ll get over it. Since spells beyond the basic ones will be mostly player made we’re all hoping they’re useful and wanted.
Let’s say the player was up to Ghost however. They then get a choice of their personal chain looking like:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Meaning they have to learn it next or they can simply ignore and not take Juice. No freebies but no punishment for creating a new spell.
Note that eventually, spells might become more standardized and even get assigned ranks and such. This may break already existing chains apart and make some of the spells unlearnable until some bright spark comes up with a new spell. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Let’s say the GM has decided Uncle is too powerful and wants to ramp it up two notches.
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
Those that already have Uncle and Meat are unaffected but someone at Juice or earlier now needs to invent two spells which are agreed to fit into the sequence before Uncle or Meat may be learned. Yeah, it sucks but game balance and better design trump ‘fairness’.
At the GM’s discretion, new spells may be added to existing chains, branch from existing chains or become parts of new chains.
Spells which do not fit into existing chains but are too powerful to form their own chain will be undiscoverable until weaker spells are created to make the chain.
Some spells may be taken off of one chain and moved to a different chain - or even a whole new school by the GM if they feel it would fit better within a different school. This may prevent the character from working on the next spell in that chain though they will still keep the spell they have. Or, if they are able to learn the new chain, the GM may have them unlock all lower level spells before preceding in that new chain. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
At some future point in the campaign it is felt that Juice would better fit into a different chain so it is removed from the above chain and put into:
Fliver - Nox - Juice - Roman - Roam - Rum
Before being able to learn Roman, the GM may decide the PC must learn Fliver - Nox.
The player may not learn a spell further along a chain unless some weird stuff has happened - see GM - or until they have unlocked it by working their way up the chain.
WHAT IF TWO DIFFERENT CHAINS HAVE THE SAME SPELL?
Though I try to avoid this, I’m sure it will come up. In that case, they already know it. There is no value to learning three different ways to do the same thing. Since all of the spells are meant to be single effect, meh. If you crit that spell, you can pick up the next spell on the chain.
SPELL LEVELS
Each spell has ten and only ten levels per spell. While some people may not consider level 10 to be powerful enough this is by design. Spells need to keep lower powered.
Because I’d rather spend my time working on plots than spells - and most PC’s are unwilling to work on anything unless it directly affects their character (and even then it might be iffy) the first release may have several ‘broken chains’. It will be up to the PC’s to forge new links in these chains if they want to continue on with the spells. If they don’t, then getting those spells may not be possible for PC’s. NPC’s will run around shooting flames out of their rears and so on.
What if spells from one chain are substantially stronger than spells from another? Submit ideas to build something more balanced that the GM likes.
TAKING DAMAGE WHILE CASTING A SPELL
You fail the spell and half the MP of the spell are gone.
TAKING DAMAGE WHILE MAINTAINING A SPELL THAT IS ‘CONCENTRATION’ DURATION
Spell effects end as soon as you take damage.
VARIOUS CREATURES AND MAGIC
Lots of creatures can only cast one school of magic and usually do so decently if not great. The PC’s can learn to cast whatever they can find if someone is willing and able to teach.
WHY SPELLS ARE LOW POWERED
In other systems, like D&D, the power curve is such that after the wizard starts casting third level or higher spells, the fighter is left well behind. That’s bad game design. The only solution? Keep spells low powered. Even then, you will have magic users become more powerful than those who don’t use magic. It will just be by (hopefully) a smaller degree.
Also, unlike that woefully designed system, in this one anyone can learn magic. Realizing that armor isn’t much of a balance to the ability to cast spells (especially when you have magic armor) it doesn’t matter if someone wears armor or not for casting spells in most zones.
In addition, all of my campaigns are fairly ‘low powered’. Magic (and ‘parkour’) are not solutions to everything.
UNLOCKING NEW SPELLS
In order to get the next spell up, the player must roll a critical on their spell. If they do, they unlock the next level at their ‘learn’ skill.
Example - if the spell chain is:
No smell -> No smell other -> Breath -> Breath; other -> Gust of wind -> Summon air elemental
If they have the ‘no smell’ spell and make a critical on it, they unlock ‘no smell other’ at ‘learn’. When they eventually get a critical at that, they pick up ‘breath’ at ‘learn’.
POSSESSIONS
10/20/40kg. Not encumbered, moderately encumbered, heavily encumbered.
Extended shopping trips often lead to time spent buying equipment that is often ignored and abandoned.
Why carrying more than what people usually do is not realistic unless it is ‘tool up time’.
ACTIVATING MAGIC ITEMS
Unless otherwise stated, ‘activating’ a magical item (make rocket go now) costs 1 MP, usually doesn’t require a roll and takes one action (ie generally a round).
For some specific items, multiple MP, a roll may be required and it may take multiple rounds, minutes, hours, days, months, years or centuries.
For some zones, magic (or tech) always works. In these zones those items can be used normally.
In other zones, a willpower roll is needed to try to get the magic item or tech item to work.
Making it work takes one round.
That makes some items pretty much useless. Example: A ring of feather fall. The average person (100kg) can fall a bit over 100m in five seconds. Hence, unless your fall is further than that, your ring of feather fall when not in a ‘high magic’ zone is simply jewelry.
CHARACTER DEATH
“Although, so far there's no known treatment for death's crippling effects, still everyone can acquaint himself with the three early warning signs of death: one, rigor mortis; two, a rotting smell; three, occasional drowsiness...It is also important to know what to do you when you die. 1) Don't try to drive a car. 2) Do not operate heavy machinery. 3) Do not talk.” - Kentucky Fried Movie
There are three types of death within the current campaign:
Temporary
Permanent (this isn’t detailed out, you simply die and need to make a new character)
Soft
Which one you take depends upon where you are. Once the PC’s have figured out more about life, the universe and everything they can figure out which happens where. Or speculate now.
‘TEMPORARY DEATH’ RULES
STATS
-10 SAN (flat - note, you may pick up a normal insanity due to this but chances are very good you won't get a temporary insanity due to (special). Goes toward dying/death (self) maxes at 50. If this causes your sanity to reach zero, make a new character.
-2 from all the remaining stats. If any stat is zero, make a new character.
SKILLS
-10% from all skills above 80%. If they have only three skills above 80% they are the only ones affected. Should the character have no skills above 80%, they lose no skill points from that death. [If the skill is exactly 80% you dodged a fucking bullet there.]
GEAR
Assume it’s all gone. The GM might allow the player to choose three pieces of gear and do a willpower x3 for each to see if it is retained. If not then like all other gear on the PC at the time of their death it is gone forever. [Note that in some cases if the other PC’s are near the corpse of the PC before it goes to where ever corpses of PC’s go they may be able to save some or all of the gear if they immediately loot the corpse.] Note - if the PC is permanently dead you might have more time to loot their corpse.
RESPAWN
The GM will let you know where and when you respawn. Due to Rule #2, it should be close and soon but subject to the needs of plot. (See Logan’s Rules, Rule #2). Note that the respawn point will be ‘as safe as Logan can get it’ given where ever you are. Figure if you just died, you’re probably already having a rough day. The GM should attempt to get the PC back into play as soon as possible. It is also recommended the players assist the GM by going to somewhere safe and such. This is a bit ‘metagamey’ but if we can prevent a player from sitting around waiting to play it is worth it.
Also, you respawn at ‘residual self image’. All of the stuff the PC’s had before (servitor of AI, cyberware, etc) - gone. The AI may (or may not) choose to again make the PC a servitor (if the PC seeks them out) but if they do not, the power(s) gained should be removed from the PC sheet. If the PC ever again gets into service with that same AI (assuming the AI has undergone no drastic changes), they pick up the exact same power as before, no rerolling.
STARTING HERO POINTS AFTER DEATH
Half remaining Essence (after deduction).
SOFT DEATH
This can only happen in zones where the day is reset over and over. Even if you ‘die’ you simply wake up the next day, like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’.
Every time you die, take SAN d6/d10, max 50
In the ‘soft death’ places you don’t lose stats and skills though gear loss is as per temporary death above.
GM NOTES
NPC’s - how to make and stat them.
How NPC’s are different than PC’s
The Warehouse story (aka ‘why levels suck ass’)
GM PHILOSOPHY
People who do careful (D&D type with minis, terrain, etc) are essentially wargamers (at least part time wargamers) who have either 'some' or a 'thin veneer' of RP to add to their wargaming.
Which is fine. I'm not into wargaming. At all.
So - with combat in a TTRPG you can take hours (maybe even the whole session) doing it. Fine if that's how your group wants to spend it's time. Many do. Easier than coming up with complex plot.
If I want good quick combat of different levels of 'realism', computer games are my go to. It's quick and brutal and it's not all laid out on a flat (yeah, hills are still pretty flat) surface. You can do wild stuff with multiple levels inside of a computer game.
TTRPG's suck for combat.
What TTRPG's are good at is personalized and complex plot. You can't get that from a mass produced computer game. Even the best written plot is not going to take your individual character in mind unless you are on a pretty narrow railroad track.
Also, TTRPG's are much more 'open' than a computer game. If the players suddenly decide they want to run a hot dog stand and are really in to it, then within a session or two the GM can change around the entire course of the campaign to plots about that hot dog stand. Computer games cannot change that radically.
Those are just my opinions. I realize a lot of people like wargaming (though they may call it RP the stuff I've seen in the last four decades is at best a 50/50 mix) but I personally am on the other end of the spectrum. In my system, combat is brutal short and fatal. The players have to make decisions based on partial information and in a huge hurry. Much like real life combat.
MORE PHILOSOPHY - LOGAN’S RULES
Logan’s Rules
These ‘rules’ are either observations I’ve made or campaign rules for my game. The list has slowly shaped up after four decades of running twenty hour gaming weeks (or more).
Rule 1: Any negative - no matter how large or important will be forgotten about almost immediately by the player. Any bonus - no matter how slight - will be remembered forever. This seems to be human nature. All of the rules within my game are set up to reflect that.
Rule 2: Keep the party together. It’s not just for ‘massed firepower’ but the narrative can only be in one place at one time. If you split up, then you have one group active while the other group has to sit and wait. If it is impossible to keep the party together, the GM will try to keep it as brief as possible so that a group doesn’t have to sit around and wait.
Rule 3: Iron sharpens iron. Recruit clever people. Plus, in this style of game that I run, people who aren’t clever do not seem to have a good time.

Rule 4: Roll first, then figure it out. Making other people wait when you don’t have to is disrespectful and needlessly slows down the game. Plus, it breaks up the pacing and flow of the game.
Rule 5: Give the game your full attention. To do otherwise is disrespectful to the other players and the GM who may have spent hours preparing for your fun. If you are drinking strong drinks or on an electronic device doing something other than gaming, that shows you are not really into it. That is fine but we will find people who are willing to give this game their undivided attention.
Rule 6: Finding good players is difficult. Rare is the player who invests time in the game outside of simply playing it. Expecting otherwise is frustrating and futile. To the players that invest their time in the game outside of gaming as well as in it, know that you are making things better for everyone.
Rule 7: What it looks like Logan wants you to do within the campaign could be an elaborate set up for failure. Think sideways at a problem and try to come up with interesting workarounds.
Rule 8: Lots of problems look insurmountable and unsolvable. If obstacles were easy, chances are good some other person would have taken care of it already. See rule 7 for help.
PREP - how logan does it
Scrivener
Scapple
This specific campaign:
Every 50 points of hero point overflow = a special power; if you play a lot you tend to get one per season if you hoard your hero points.
No memories or spotty memories when you start.
No PVP - though messing with each other a bit is normal
Within this campaign, it is possible to be from a wide variety of time periods. Be sure to generally state when your character is from. Medieval period, 1920’s, Cyberpunk, etc.
MALE VS FEMALE
Stats for both are exactly the same. The GM is a simple creature and asks everyone to play their own sex. Partially to be able to easily tell, partially because after four decades of gaming I’ve not seen anyone able to convincingly play the opposite sex.
NAME
If you don’t come up with one, chances are good the other players will assign you one then you may wish you’d come up with one.
AGE
Pick somewhere between 18 and 50. People outside of that age range are generally not believable as adventurers. Note that in some campaigns (or parts of the campaign) a character’s age may be briefly outside of those ranges for plot reasons.
STARTING WITH SPELLS
Nope - though it is super easy to get the other players to teach you a few spells.
FOR NEW PLAYERS
For all new players, I suggest making a character from approximately ‘now’ (it’s easy to know what sort of tech and such you are use to whereas if you find say a 1920’s character who is good with computers you know they’ve either been playing for awhile and learned it in game or they are shitty roleplayers) and have both a melee and ranged weapon. While not everyone wants to do combat, it is dull to sit around unable to do combat while everyone else indulges themselves in it.
THE BOOKS
This is a simple system, especially compared to other books whose publishing companies rely on coming up with more and more filler to sell. There is no separate GM’s guide and players guide. To make a character, all that is needed is the character sheet for experienced players. There are instructions and such for the new players.
So just this book.
Introduction to roleplay
If you don’t know what it is, your chances of picking this book up are almost nill. Since this is covered in literally every other rule book, I’m skipping it. If you picked up these rules by chance and have no idea what it is all about, good luck. And thanks for the money if we’re selling this.
ADVANCED ROLEPLAY
Be in character - always.
Bad: “My character does…”, “He heads out to the park.”, “I tell Bert’s character…”, “Look at that great roll!”
Good: “I shoot!”, “I head out to the park.”, “Hey, Ronnie (the character’s name) -…”, “You are kicking ass!”
METAGAMING
Don’t metagame. Metagaming is acting on knowledge your character doesn’t have.
Fred: “Do I know astrologically what the Maya think about this?”
GM: “Roll your astrology.”
Jim: (Rolling his astrology)
GM: “Jim, WTF are you doing? Just because Fred looks thoughtful doesn’t mean you suddenly get to roll your astrology skill.”
Metagamey: “I have a low sanity - let’s do some good guy shit so I can gain some sanity.”
Better RP: “I’ve been having second thoughts about some of my life choices. Who can we help today?”
WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR CHARACTER
Make someone who is not only fun to play but someone who is fun to play ‘with’. Be generous to your fellow players.
An article I read had an excellent comment: “Very quick rule of thumb: If a player has to utter the phrase "but it's what my character would do" more than once the PC (and quite likely the player) is probably an asshole.”
Here’s a rather long article on the subject if additional clarification is needed: tinyurl.com/ybj8e3bv
HOW THIS GAME IS DIFFERENT FROM D&D
Why is this section in here? Because most people who have done table top roleplaying games have done D&D. In fact it seems that there is a significant percentage of players who seem unaware that other games even exist. Hence, this section.
D&D is an adolescent power fantasy in which ‘killing solves everything’. If you still have a problem after killing, it is because you haven’t done enough killing. Your character becomes stronger and stronger from fighting.
In this game, enough fighting will drain your Hero Points (see below), leaving you weaker for future fights. Do this often enough and you will be totally drained and probably die in the next fight.
Also, many people play what I call ‘chess D&D’, moving minis around a grid and taking on ‘level appropriate’ opponents. Though I’ve heard many GM’s say they ‘don’t always run level appropriate encounters’ in my experience this is usually a defensive lie. Within most D&D, your character is meant to have the ‘strength of arms’ (or magic, whatever) to be able to power their way through a dungeon of monsters.
In this game, the characters are much much weaker. They cannot withstand prolonged combat. It will kill them. With a maximum hit points of twenty and a pistol able to do half of that on a hit, simple math should tell you that compared to many games.
Going at problems ‘head on’ is not desirable. Finding ways around combat helps players survive.
Generally, people seem poor at planning beyond ‘kick in door, kill everything’. Even those that make a better plan seem stumped when their plan falls apart. To paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” Even fewer groups have a simple back up plan like “This is our fall back point.”
This game will help educate people to develop those skills.
GM’s who attempt to run this like a D&D campaign will probably find the characters dead, players frustrated and campaign in a shambles.
FOR NEW PLAYERS - HOW TO GET INVOLVED IN THE CAMPAIGN
For the TL;DR crowd: Lots of new players who attempt to get around doing these steps will often get told "RTFM" (read the fucking manual). This is it. There is no short cut. If you want to get in on the game, you're going to need to do all of these steps. Asking questions to see if there is a way around some of the steps or 'what kind of game is it' are not going to help. RTFM. I've had new players complete all of these steps within an hour so I don't consider them too difficult. If you can't spend an hour or two doing these things, chances of your committing to five hours at a time regularly are pretty low.
1. Watch at least some of the stuff that is on youtube. If you like that, you'll like the game. If you don't, this may not be the game for you. Link for a sample session is at: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0st04ylFfuYDLXRv1FakHGo1Yaillmmh
2. Make a character. See the post 'how to make a character'. (Note - this is the only moderately complicated part - and there are tools to help you. As you've watched the videos you know that - mechanics wise - the play is the easy part.) Don't worry about min/maxing - you'll get the ability to rewrite it after the first session. If you still have questions after reading the post, check out the video (also on this board). If you've watched the entire hour long video and still have more questions, post them in the general board. Making a character will tell you pretty much everything you will need to know about the system.
3. Sign up for one session. See the general board - sign up sheet. Figure out what time the start time is in your time zone. Post on the sign up thread sheet what date you'd like to play. Playing is really the easiest way to learn. As one of the new players said "Don't be intimidated by the game sign-up either, don't feel like you have to sign up more than you want to, Logan does a great job of making any session fun and interesting, even if you don't have a regular session/group." For new people, I recommend signing up on a day that has other people already signed up to play. Learn the ropes from experienced players. The most experienced players include Chris, Matt and Pete who have gamed with me for over a decade.
4. Post your character in the general section, ask experienced players what they think of it. Every campaign is different and the experienced players know the GM'ing styles. Get their advice. Sometimes, they can point out other strategies that fit better within this campaign. If you are very lucky, they may total up your character points and find you didn't give yourself enough or some such. Because it can take quite a while to get responses on your character (oddly, people do stuff aside from stalk this board) posting the characters as far in the future as possible is a great idea. If you post them up a couple days before you play it probably won't help you much.
5. Ask questions. If you want, they can even be on the newbie board. Or on the general board. Whichever. Remember, everyone was new at one point. People are happy to help out.
6. For now, ignore most of the stuff on this board (outside of the 'new players start here' board and the 'sign up sheet' - those please pay attention to). There is a lot of it and it can be intimidating trying to figure this all out. Best to just concentrate on getting a character made and doing a game. See if you have fun. After that, you can ease into things.
7. Before the game starts, be sure to friend 'Logan Horsford' (the old bastard, not the young one) on Facebook. I use this to send you information you will need - the roll20 site and the Google hangouts information. This will also get you access to the ATAW Facebook group. When sending Logan Horsford a friend request on Facebook, be sure to send a message saying 'hey, I'm joining ATAW'. Logan gets a lot of weird spam friend requests.
8. Have Chrome loaded. Google hangouts only seems to work with Chrome. Most people use Chrome any way but some do not.
9. 15 to 30 minutes before the game, send Logan a PM on Facebook. He will send you links to the roll20 room and the Google Hangouts. If you don't send him a PM, he assumes you are busy/have forgot today is game day, etc and will try to fill the slot with anyone else available. After you get these links, please log on so that you can double check your equipment (camera, mic) to make sure they are working properly.
10. You will need a webcam, mic and headphones to play. AND A QUIET PLACE TO PLAY IN where you won't get interrupted or need to move. Make sure they work days before your game time.
FOR NEW PLAYERS - HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER
Before messing about with stats, points and the calculator which is probably on your phone, it is a good idea to think about what kind of character you would like to play.
Keep in mind that they will have to be a people person in so far as they need get along well with the other PC's and have plenty of reasons to adventure with them. If you don't have those two things, try new character ideas until you do. Seriously. Loner characters won't work. Even if you don't start with a group, chances are good you may eventually be playing with others.
Also, everyone is 'human'.
The most basic thing is to figure out the time period the character comes from. The time periods can generally be broken down to ancient, cowboy to 1920's, modern, cyberpunk, space. These aren't exact but gives a decent idea of a break down. For new players, I strongly recommend 'modern'. That way, you can take all of the skills that seem logical to you. You don't have to spend most of the session hiding from a talking box that is too small to have people in it, you don't have to wonder why supposed futuristic science is such shit. Obviously the occupation and skills are limited by the time period if you take earlier times. While it is possible to take 'flint napping' with a space character, it is not possible to take computer programming with an ancient one.
Figure out some sort of basic occupation. This will tell you generally what kind of skills you will be taking. You don't have to - you could have someone who has trained in how to fly a jet fighter and fight with a spear - it really does not matter.
Ponder what your character's hobbies are.
Now, you're ready to start messing with the points.
LOGAN'S WONDERFUL SHEET OF HOW TO OPERATE PETE'S CALCULATING SHEET
This is a wonderful artistic model. It is important not to let the number of skills on the sheet overwhelm you. After actually playing the game a time or two I challenge you to find a simpler system with a nuanced of starting characters. Note that obviously the skills continue on past the bottom of the page and for the next couple of pages past that. Plus write in skills, languages, etc.

STATISTICS
There are four statistics you may divide a total of ten points among. The statistics all start at ten with the exception of sanity which starts at 50.
Those statistics are: Willpower, Learning, Essence and Sanity.
Note that for every point put into Sanity gives you five.
Example: If the player put 2 points into Willpower, 3 into Learning, 1 into Essence and 4 into Sanity, their stats would look like this:
Willpower: 12
Learning: 13
Essence: 11
Sanity: 70
What the stats mean:
Willpower: Mental fortitude, your drive to get things done, etc. This is important as it is also your hit points - the amount of damage you can take before dying.
Learning: This is your base for all skills unless the base printed on the character sheet is higher. Any time you learn a new skill it starts at your learning expressed in a percentage.
Essence: Your Essence is the amount of magic points you have. This stat is useful only for casting - and in some cases resisting - spells. This is also your starting HERO Points. Note that becoming a competent mage is a hard thing that takes awhile to do within the campaign. The main thing starting with a high Essence will do for you is to give you more starting Hero Points - which are important.
Sanity: The more sanity you have, the more difficult it is for you to lose sanity. Once you get under 50% or so, it starts a 'slippery slope'. You can gain sanity through various things including 'good guy' acts - helping people, destroying bad things and so on. You lose sanity from a variety of things such as a messy break up, severe stress and mind blasting eldritch horrors. Once a character's sanity has been reduced to zero they either become an NPC or die at the GM's discretion. Often both. Either way, you will be making a new character.
SKILLS
The player has 2000 points to distribute among their skills. For this campaign, the base of all the skills (unless the number in parenthesis listed behind the skill is greater) is equal to their 'Learning' statistic. [This applies to new character skills. Later, when picking up new skills, they start at LEARN.] Spend all your skill points and stat points - you cannot keep them to spend later.
Please note that as the game progresses these skills go up, you will pick up new skills and so on.
Example:
For the character above who has a Learning of 13, their base in Accounting (first skill, second sheet) would be 13%, not 10% listed. However, their base in Photography would still be 40% as that exceeds their Learning.
The most points (of the 2000) the character can put into any skill is enough to raise it to 60. If the player of this character wanted to raise both their Accounting and Photography to 60 it would take 47+20 = 67 total points. That would leave the player with 2000-67 = 1933 points.
It is not recommended to write your current Learning stat in blanks where that would become your new base as statistics can go up and down during the course of play.
Special rule - if someone wanted to put all of their starting statistic points into Sanity, rather than it being 100, it would be 99.
Note that the skills which are bold faced are the ones experienced players strongly recommend taking.
Another strategy I personally recommend is to take a skill which is not commonly taken nor will come up very often. A good example of this is ‘pilot: helicopter’. While many players will say (quite rightly) that having a 60% skill means you have a 40% chance of crashing every time you get in one, it is probably better than an 80% or higher chance of crashing if you didn’t. While it doesn’t come up often if it ever does you will be a 'big damned hero'.
There are also other skills it is wise to get as high as possible (60% for a starting character) as they are ‘all or nothing’ type of skills. Things like stealth, climb, SCUBA, swim, etc which can spell death for your character very easily if you don’t make the roll.
There are other strange skills (example: fly zeppelin or blimp, dog sledding) which rarely come up but when they do the players seem to grouse loudly about them.
Next, there are ‘write in skills’. These include any skill which you can think of including ‘lore - Dutch master painters’, ‘art - surreal, oil paint’, any thing you can think of. Just because it is not on the sheet does not mean it will not get called on. Consult with other players and the GM about your ideas for brand new skills until you are comfortable with the system and styles of GM’ing. Do not assume that the skill you have thought of is a good idea or will be allowed.
Lastly, there are your (the players' personal) skills. Many players who have skill in something in real life find it very frustrating if they cannot use at least some of that skill in the game. If you personally have a wide knowledge of 1980’s movies, buying some ‘1980’s movie trivia’ is probably a good idea. Otherwise, if you use your knowledge when your character doesn’t know anything about it, you are doing a crappy job of roleplaying.
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A COUPLE IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER
First,
If you wrote a character and have played one time and decided that you messed up how you put the character together, you may rewrite it.
This is a one time thing. If you play a session and say "Well, this group of skills is useless" be advised that in the current campaign literally any skill may become vital in various areas. If you decide to lose all of your (for example) knight skills because the characters are in a cyberpunk realm then later go to a medieval realm, you will be stuck with the skills you have.
So you don't need to create a perfect character - you need to make one that is 'good enough' to get you through your first session. That's it.
Second,
Your character may end up going a totally different way than you envisioned. Just because you started him/her as a retired cop does not mean that will end up mattering much in the future. They may end up doing something totally different later. This is not like a level based game where everyone goes along a pre-determined track and takes certain skills. You may end up crazy different - and that's OK.
Your character's skill may go up during the campaign. They may pick up new skills. They may learn things not even on the sheet. They could end up learning spells or other weird things. Nobody knows ahead of time - and that's OK.
Third,
Don't stress this - the character building appears to be the most intimidating thing. After you know what you are doing it will literally take a couple of minutes or less to make a character. Don't agonize over it - just slap something together that works for a session and just have fun. I often tell people if they don't know what to make, make an idealized 'you' and mess about with it. The important thing is to get in on a game to learn how the campaign and character work.
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NOTES FOR PLAYERS
Note that this campaign needs all characters to be 'good'. (If you are saying ‘but I want to play a cold blooded murderous psychopath who betrays the other PC’s’, I would recommend finding a different group as it saves us time from kicking you out later. In short, this is the wrong group for PVP.)
They don't have to be good all the time but if they don't care about other people, they are not right for this campaign.
The characters have to want to find out why. How do things work? Why do they work as they do?
This is a major part of the campaign. Mystery. If nobody is interested in finding out the mysteries, those character's won't fit into the campaign.
Even if your character doesn’t ‘know’ another PC, you know it is your ‘buddy’. Why that is you don’t know. (Welcome to more mysteries.)
You'll need to be able to be quickly integrated onto a team and be a good, useful member of it quickly.
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CHARACTER BACKGROUND
Unless you've played in three sessions or more of a campaign Logan has GM'ed before, do NOT worry about your character's background. Heck, if you want to come up with a name for your character that is OK. If not, that is OK as well.
You are going to be waking up missing large chunks of your memories in this campaign.
And honestly - a lot of the backgrounds I've heard from players make me think "WTF".
Seriously - wait to come up with any sort of background until you've played at least three sessions so you can get a feel for the campaign. Even then, I recommend talking to the other players and GM to find out if your background fits in. Once you are an experienced, regular player you will know what works.
You should still come up with at least a name. It doesn't have to be your character's real name - just something you are called. If it is silly ("Switchback", "Hoss", "Razor", etc) expect to be mocked often.
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Q&A
Below are questions about character creation I have been asked along with the answers. If I get more good questions, I will add those questions as well.
Q: What is base in primary language?
A: Write N in your native language - all others start at LEARN.
Q: What are starting Hero points?
A: Starting Hero Points equal your ESS. Use them carefully as you typically earn between 1 to 3 per adventure.
Q: What do Hero Points do?
A: They can either be used as a reroll or cause an attack directly against you (knife, gun, etc but not AoE stuff) to miss.
Q: I want to be able to use a mounted gun, like a 50 cal on the back of jeep. Heavy weapons? Is it for any mounted gun, or just a 50 cal?
A: Buy Heavy Weapon: MG. Different than say Heavy Weapon: Cannon. Or Heavy Weapon: MRL.
Q: Where does the "Tactics" skill come in, and what are the write-ins?
A: Generally, if you are doing an entry into a place with a team they are somewhat useful for not blocking each other's shots and such. Since we don't use maps and minis, the GM will often declare that other people are blocking your shot and such because untrained people plus guns are not a good mix. It also teaches you what 'slicing the pie' is, etc. Keep in mind that without this skill, your characters tactics are roughly equivilant to kids in horror movies. That being said, it doesn't get called on too often - possibly because the PC's aren't soldiers or cops, possibly because the GM forgets. There are various kinds of tactics, usually just taking SWAT tactics or Military tactics is fine. The descriptor is often a 'flavor' thing.
Q: What kind of skills can my character NOT start with?
A: Cthulhu Mythos (not really used in this campaign), spells. Anything else is pretty much OK however the more obscure it is, the less it gets called on during play. Also 'dreaming' and 'dream lore' are not being used in this campaign.
Q: What are the bold faced skills?
A: A long time ago, the experienced players got together and made a list of what skills they decided were the 'if you don't have this, you are dumb and will die'. I put them in boldface on the character sheet. It is recommended - though not required - to get them at the most you can. For starting characters, in this campaign, that number is 60% total.
Q: Starting gear?
A: Literally none.
Q: If I want to get in on a game at the last minute, how should I go about it?
A: You need to get my attention somehow. The best way is to probably send me a message on Facebook ("Logan Horsford" - the older one, not the kid) and keep an eye out for a reply. If you don't see one by 2:15PM (London time) that either means I did not see you or the group is full and I'm too busy with them to answer. Trying to get in on a game last minute is known by long time players as 'sharking'. I don't know why.
Q: What are the numbers with the darker back fill on sanity?
A: As your character loses sanity, they will eventually get to - or pass - one of those numbers. Currently, those numbers are 40,30,20. Once you have hit or passed one of those three numbers, your character has picked up a new insanity. Speak to the other players and GM about what sort of insanity would be a good one to take for your character long before getting there. Typically, those new players who try to pick out an insanity on their own end up needing to figure out a new one later. Seriously, talk to the other players and GM before your character gets that crazy.
THE STATISTICS
WHAT THEY REPRESENT
Willpower is how much strength of will or resolution you have. It also is used to determine the character’s ‘hit points’ or ‘how much damage the character can take before going unconscious or dying’.
Learning represents the starting level of all new skills. <If I get a skill at learn then later my ‘learn’ stat goes up, do I increase the skill I’d gotten at learn? No. Way too anal. Just use the skill a couple times and you should be easily able to get the skill over the max learn stat.>
Essence shows the character’s aptitude toward magic and other mystical things. Essence is also the starting level of the very important ‘hero points’.
Sanity gives a measurement of how far your character is from ‘barking mad’. Should your character’s sanity ever reach zero, you lose your character.
All of the statistics are important, there are no ‘dump stats’.
GETTING CHECKS IN THE STATS AND WHAT THAT MEANS
If you ‘have a check in a stat’, that means you have rolled a test against that stat that was difficult and you did it successfully. That means at the end of the adventure the statistic may go up or down.
The GM may call for a roll for one of the two ‘rollable’ stats - Willpower and Essence.
There are two types of rolls - ones where the GM gives a target multiplier and ones where he does not.
TARGET MULTIPLIER EXAMPLE (for these, the player has a 15 in the stat being asked for)
GM: "Give me a willpower x3."
Since the player has a 15 in willpower, that means that - for this roll - their skill is '45'. Hence, a critical would be a 4 or less, a fumble 94 or higher. Success 05-45 and failure 46-93.
If the target number was x3 or less of the stat, and you succeed, you get a check in the stat.
Example: GM says “Give me a Willpower x4 or better roll” and you roll an 01, you still don’t get a check in Willpower.
LOWER IS BETTER EXAMPLE
GM: "Give me a willpower roll."
Since the player has a 15 in willpower that means that - for this roll - if they roll a 01-15 they would say 'willpower x1'. A 16-30 is 'willpower x2', 31-45 is 'willpower x3', 46-60 is 'willpower x4', 61-75 is 'willpower x5'. A 76-96 would be a 'fail' and - since at willpower x5 (=75) a fumble would be 97-00.
If you get x3 or less in the stat on your roll, check with the GM to see if you get a check in the stat. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on how the GM is feeling about the task.
THE OTHER TWO STATISTICS
HOW DO WE GET CHECKS IN LEARNING?
If the player has found something that seems appropriate to try out a new skill with (example: A banjo and they are in the bayou and want to pick out the first few notes of the ‘creepy inbred song’) if they try and succeed in a learning roll, they get a check in learning as well as picking up the new ‘banjo’ skill.
To pick up a skill, the character needs to see something that deals specifically with that skill. In other words, to know how to fly a helicopter, they need to see the helicopter - not just be asked about the helicopter.
HOW DO WE GET CHECKS IN SANITY?
You don't. Sanity generally goes down for seeing scary stuff or doing bad things. Sanity goes up for doing 'good' things. If you enjoy going on killing sprees of the innocent and happily wipe out say a town of them, this won't get you sanity even though you'd accomplished your goal. If you save a town of innocents from some horrible monster, you might gain sanity. It decreases through seeing anything ‘troubling’ or through doing things which the average mentally healthy person would consider ‘bad’ or ‘appalling’.
This is not a good campaign (or game system) for evil people. If the GM is purposefully making an ‘evil’ campaign, they may choose to give out less statistic points and just start everyone’s sanity at zero and ignore any sanity losses.
Note - if sanity losses cause a character to hit 0, that character then becomes a NPC. Usually, a very naughty one.
If the cyberware a character is recklessly installing cause sanity to hit zero, that character becomes an NPC and hits 'cyber psychosis' - usually a 'let's kill everyone' thing.
STAT DECREASES AND INCREASES
If you get a check in your stat, roll 2d6.
If you roll a 2 (snake eyes) the stat decreases by one. (Note, if someone uses a ‘hero point’ they can reroll this hence having statistics go down is actually quite rare. See the section on ‘hero points’ below.)
If you roll a 7, the stat may increase.
If you have rolled a 7, attempt to fail your STAT x5 - if you do, congratulations, your stat increases by one point.
Hero Points (and any remaining cards from the session) may be used to influence these rolls but generally it is a poor use of HERO Points - unless you rolled ‘snake eyes’.
STAT LOSSES
Because of various things (death, drugs, limb loss, etc) both skills and statistics may be 'permanently' lost.
For example:
Someone has an 14 in learning.
Some bastard cuts out part of their brain.
The GM gives the character a -2 permanent to learning.
This does not mean that the character's learning is now limited to 12. They can build it back up. Hopefully, they will get some sort of high tech cyber brain and then slowly learn to use it.
Or they might hop their way to victory. On their new brain.
Note, due to 'Logan’s rule 1' there are no temporary stat or skill negatives.
STATS
If any stat hits zero, your character dies permanently.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR CHARACTER
There are no classes, occupations or levels. Everyone starts out with the same number of points.
Before thinking about where to put your points, it is advisable to envision your character and their background. It is strongly recommended that everyone put lots of points into the bold faced things as they are considered (by the players) to be the ‘skills that no adventurer can live without’.
Talking to the group ahead of time about your character is strongly encouraged.
PICK SKILLS APPROPRIATE TO THE CAMPAIGN
This is a generic system meaning that it can be used for literally any historical period. The GM may of course add skills appropriate to their game as well as having other skills not able to be purchased. Example: In a 1920’s game, computers would probably not be an appropriate skill.
Bold faced skills - if you don’t take them, you’ll either be unable to participate in certain things or be a huge drag on your team. Example: Stealth, for obvious reasons.
STARTING WITH SPELLS
In some campaigns, the GM may choose to let the players start with spells - ask the GM.
OTHER STRANGE SKILLS
Anything you can think of (”Painting lore: Dutch Masters”) can be a skill. Check with the GM before buying anything not on the character sheet. They may allow it, they may not.
FIRST CHARACTER
Too many choices can make some new player’s heads explode. To those people, I suggest making a souped up version of yourself, adjusted for whatever time period the campaign is taking place in.
For people who are more comfortable with choices, figure out what kind of role you want to do within the party and build accordingly.
WHAT IF YOU DON’T LIKE YOUR CHARACTER?
For brand new players, they are allowed to do a complete rewrite of their character after the first session they play.
For players who have played before, a bit of point shuffling is also allowed if they got dumb and forgot something obvious.
Generally speaking, this is a system that allows you to spend your points as you wish without any random rolls. Therefore, if you don’t ‘like’ your character, you shouldn’t have made them like that.
‘READY TO PLAY CHARACTERS’ AND WHY WE DON’T USE THEM
Seriously - once you’ve done it a time or two, making a character is a five or ten minute job. The hardest part for experienced players is often figuring out what kind of character they want to play.
If a new player does not want to spend a little time coming up with a new character, chances are good their heart really isn’t into playing.
THE CARD DECK
This is a deck of several hundred cards. Some have bad effects, many have either effects which are not useful or only useful in specific circumstances and most cards are useful.
One player gets eight cards. If there are two players, they each get six cards. For groups of three or more, four cards each. Note that this is the maximum amount of cards any of the players can have at any one time.
All players start with a number of cards based on how many players are present at the table. Should someone new join later, the players may have to discard some cards.
Example: Ted is playing solo and gets eight cards. Cindy joins the game. If Ted currently has more than six cards, he must reduce his hand immediately. If he does not, he need not discard any cards however his new maximum number of cards is six. If another player joins, everyone goes down to four cards and that is their new maximum.
Hence, if the player gets a card they wish to play at once, their remaining cards should be one under the maximum they can have after that is one less than the maximum they are allowed.
Example: Johnny has a great hand of four cards but pulls a ‘play when you want’ instant hero point card. He could trade that card to someone else discarding whatever he is given or discard one of his great cards in order to play the instant hero point card.
Drawing a ‘play immediately’ doesn’t cause any of your cards to automatically be removed from going over the number allowed, however the card itself may cause you to discard some or all of your cards.
Example: Johnny draws a card that causes everyone at the table to discard two cards. Johnny will have two cards remaining of his four.
The cards are set up in such a way that they are a small mini-game.
Players who want to hide their cards from others may do so but it will only hamper the team as a whole.
HOW TO GAIN CARDS
The GM’s can and should give cards for anything they consider praise worthy within the campaign. Good roleplay, being clever, being funny, helping to set the right mood, etc. In a normal session with three good players, going through 150+ cards is not at all unusual.
The reason for this is that it subtly gives an instant gratification reward to players who are doing things which the GM approves of.
Do not give out cards for things like ‘good rolls’.
Cards can also be given to subtly mislead a party. When someone begins to go in totally the wrong direction, the GM can begin giving that person cards to mess with the players.
It is also possible to get cards in combat - see below ‘preferred actions’.
When giving the players cards, it is recommended to do so in such a way that it does not break their flow. If they are in the midst of planning and being very clever, a good GM will simply add cards to players stacks.
At the end of a session (unless the GM is frustrated with their players sucking so badly) it is customary to give an ‘end of mission refill’.
TAKING AWAY CARDS
Although cards are given for positive things, it is not recommended to take them away for negative things. Players who come up with poor plans and such will simply not receive cards. If you have people who are humorless, poor roleplayers and destroy the mood you have been working on setting the question would be ‘why do you game with such people?’ Let them have a card drought.
The power level of the characters decreases without a constant influx of cards.
TRADING CARDS
Any time the characters are able to communicate they can trade cards. Hence, if all of the characters are together they can trade cards freely. Other examples include such things as being on the phone, psychic communication, possessing each other, etc.
Any time there is the ability to freely communicate, players can trade cards.
This is a great mechanic for incentivising ‘keep the party together’.
PREFERRED ACTIONS
Another time players (even the bad ones) can get cards is during combat.
Within most TTRPG’s, usually the only tactically sound thing to do within a round is ‘shoot’ or ‘move’. There are a few other rare things like ‘take out a different weapon’ or ‘reload’ but if the players are clever these don’t come up often.
The cards allow another thing to become tactically sound - the preferred action.
At the bottom of all of the cards is the ‘GM area’. This will read something like:
N: H V
H: V H
Falling down
Under initiative, we will explain the rest of the card however in this case ‘falling down’ is the preferred action. When reading off the round (see below) the GM tells the players ‘falling down is approved’.
Hence, if the players fall down rather than do any thing else during the combat round, they get a card.
Falling down - in that round - is a tactical action as it gets a card.
Some actions require successful rolls to be made to get cards and so forth.
There are lots of different preferred actions. Some are just silly but sometimes others may fit into what is going on during the combat. It is up to the players to decide whether gaining another card is worth giving up their full action.
See the section on combat below.
HELD ACTIONS
These do not come up often fortunately.
Instead of going on your round, you can hold your action till later. You don’t do anything in the meantime, you just wait.
Example: During a combat round, instead of going the person points their gun at the person and says ‘move and I shoot!’ (Speaking is the free action, they then hold their held action.)
This held action can take place within the same round or in a later round. Upon a simple contingent the person gets to go first.
Example: The hero had gone first and decided to say ‘move and I shoot’ and held action. On the villain’s turn, the villain decides to move - therefore the hero shoots first.
The held actions need to be super simple and able (of course) to be accomplished in one round. Some things don’t work well for a held action.
Example: “I shoot the first bad guy through the door” would not work as a held action because you have to first figure out if it is a bad guy coming through the door or not. That slows you down enough that the GM will rule you lose your held action and initiative is determined normally.
Example: “I shoot the first person or whatever that comes through the door” would work and possibly lead to hilarity for the GM if it is a friendly party through the door.
Either way, however, your held action takes up your action for the round that it takes place in.
Example: PC’s were going last in the round and the PC does the ‘move and I shoot’ thing and ‘holds their action’. On the next round, the GM draws a card showing villains are first, heroes are second. The villain begins to move and bang - the PC shoots. The villain (assuming they survive) then gets their normal action. The PC has already taken their action as a held action from last round. If the initiative order was reversed (heroes first then villains) holding action didn’t really do the PC any good.
CRITS AND FUMBLES (AKA 'rolling the dice)
Before discussing that, we must discuss what the ‘ones digit’ and the ‘tens digit’ are in numbers as many countries (like the USA) have many shitty school systems and people might not know what these are.
Example: 74.
The ‘7’ is the ‘tens’ digit. The ‘4’ is in the ‘ones’ digit place.
Example: 138.
The ‘3’ is in the ‘tens’ digit, the ‘8’ is in the ‘ones’ digit.
Criticals:
Take the tens digit from your skill and put a zero in front of it (unless your skill is 100% or higher, see below). That is your chance of rolling a critical.
Example: 61% (skill). The ‘6’ is the tens digit. Put a ‘0’ in front of it (lose the ones digit, nobody likes it any way) and that gives you a 06. If you roll a 6% or less, you have rolled a critical.
Example: 128% (skill). In this case (since over 100%) keep the ‘12’. We don’t need to put a zero in front of it. You would roll a critical on a 12% or less.
Fumbles:
Take the tens digit and stick a ‘9’ in front of it. If you have a 100% or higher skill, you always fumble on a 100.
Example: 61% skill. Put a ‘9’ in front of the tens digit ‘6’ and that gives you a ‘96’. Hence you fumble on a 96 or higher.
Example: 98% skill. You drop the 8 and you only fumble on a 99 or higher.
Example: 128% skill. You only fumble on a 00 (or 100).
Note that in both cases, modifiers can affect your critical and fumble range.
Example: 61% is the fist skill. The character is at a +10%. For purposes of crits and fumbles, the character is now at an effective skill this round of a 71%. Hence, they would critical on a 7 or less and fumble on a 97 or higher instead of their usual of critting on a 6 or less and fumbling on a 96 or higher.
Example: 61% is their fist skill but their opponent is stunned giving them a +30% for this round. Their new crit range is 9% or less, fumble range is 99 or higher.
Or - for those that know formulas, crits = (skill/10)rounddown, fumble = 90+(skill/10)rounddown
ROLL RESULTS
Only results from a roll the GM needs to hear:
Fumble
Failed it
Made it
Made it at -30%
Made it at -60%
Critical
SKILL MODIFIERS
If the GM thinks that whatever the players are doing is harder than normal, they can slap whatever skill negative they want onto them.
-30% or half (players choice): What you’re doing is pretty hard.
-60% or quarter (players choice): What you’re doing is crazy hard.
Give me a crit buddy: What you’re doing is not going to work.
Roll me an 01 (or several 01 in a row): No.
If the GM thinks whatever the players are doing is easier than normal, they can give bonuses. Note that the bonuses are intentionally smaller than the negatives.
+5%: Someone is helping you! (Also see ‘supporters’).
+10%: Pretty easy.
+20%: Super easy.
+30%: If you can’t make this, you suck.
MODIFIER EXAMPLES
These are not hard and fast modifiers - just ideas for the GM.
-30: stunned/light cover (including crowds)/additional attempts at same task/bad lighting/long range.
-60: heavy cover (including crowds)/horrible lighting (aka 'I fire at the muzzle flash')/excessive range.
Note, all this stuff is cumulative. In other words, if you are stunned and doing a called shot (for some reason) you are at a -60.
If you shoot into a crowd and miss due to the negative modifier, you hit a random member of the crowd.
Firing into a crowd indiscriminately (IE you don't care who gets hit at all) the GM may give a bonus, depending on how tightly packed people are.
SUPPORTERS
Sometimes, the players will all attempt to help each other in order to spread the blame for failure more evenly. This is called ‘supporting’.
How it works:
One person is designated as the ‘primary’. Let’s say the players are working on defusing the bomb. Unfortunately, the only person with demolitions skill doesn’t have it high - 30% so he is a bit nervous. The other two players have some strange aversion to being blown up and wish to help defuse the bomb.
The other players (who do not have demolitions skill) ask the GM if they can try to support with other skills. One has electronics which the GM agrees would help. The other has nothing applicable and decides this might be a way to attempt to build up their demolitions skill by using that (at base, in this case the character’s learn skill) as their supporting skill.
The primary must announce whether he is accepting their advice or aid or ignoring them and doing it himself. Despite heavy misgivings, he decides to accept both other people’s aid.
The lady with electronics rolls hers successfully - that gives a temporary bonus of +5% to the primaries ‘demolitions skill’. Had she rolled a critical on her electronics, she would have given the primary a temporary +10% instead. If she had failed her electronics, no bonus.
So the primary is currently sitting at (for this roll) a 35% demolitions skill. Then the other guy who has no demolitions rolls his and of course it is a fumble. This gives the primary a -10% to his chance knocking him down to a total 35-10=25% chance. He should have refused this person’s help but since he accepted and they rolled (do not roll until it is accepted or you’ll just have to roll again) he is going to have a rough day.
HIT POINTS (’how much abuse you can withstand before unconsciousness or death’)
There are three different kinds of damage.
Real, stun and half and half. Half and half is half real, half stun - round to stun.
Example: Mikey takes a club to the head doing 5 points of half and half. Mikey takes 2 real and 3 stun.
Unlike real life, there are only two times when you are affected by missing HP.
When you have only one or less HP remaining you are either dead or unconscious. Either way, you are knocked down and lying on the ground.
If you have zero left and none of the damage is stun, you are dead.
If you have zero left and some of the damage you have taken is stun, you will wake up when the stun is healed - unless further damaged.
Stun damage generally comes back after a good night of sleep.
To find out how ‘real’ damage comes back, see the section on ‘damage and healing’ below.
DAMAGE AND HEALING
HEALING - CURRENT CAMPAIGN
Every night the PC's sleep, the PC can call for a willpower roll. (If they do not, they stay wounded but need not roll - their choice).
Fumble: You stay wounded this week - try again seven days from now. Also, you are back at 'residual self image'. Any sort of implants, plastic surgery, etc - gone.
Fail: You stay wounded - try again tomorrow night.
WILLPOWER ROLL
x5: Heal 1 real HP.
x4: Heal 2 real HP.
x3: Heal 3 real HP.
x2: Heal 4 real HP.
x1 OR CRIT: You're fine. Total heal. Also, you are back at 'residual self image'. Any sort of implants, plastic surgery, etc - gone.
(Not sure if these are system or just the current campaign but they do seem to work well - note that NPC’s heal hella slower.)
Note that within the current campaign, usually the above is used. There may be times when ‘regular healing’ is used instead - consult GM.
HEALING - REGULAR (AKA ‘just lying around hoping to get better’)
You heal d3 per week.
If first aid is done regularly during that week, bump up one place. AKA having someone look after you.
If medicine is done regularly during that week, bump up one place. AKA being in a doctor’s care.
First aid and medicine stack. Additional things (magic, etc) may also stack, see GM.
HEALING - MEDICALLY
Note that you can use neither ‘first aid’ nor ‘medicine’ skills on yourself. Because this is not a ‘crunchy’ game where we have figured out the exact hit locations, just assume it is somewhere you can’t reach or see. Either have a PC or an NPC attempt it.
For first aid, there are some wounds (only given to NPC’s as the PC’s are basically a bag of HP) that cannot be helped at all. Example - being gut shot with your intestines and stomach draining into each other. For this, they probably won’t even survive in a hospital.
The HP regained from first aid/medicine are HOT (healing over time) not instantaneous. Generally the GM can choose between 1HP/hour up to 1HP/round, whatever the story needs.
First aid can be used once successfully. If successful, it regains d3 real HP to the target. Required materials include simple first aid supplies. The GM may allow for ‘ripping up someone’s clothing because the so called doctor is too inept to carry a small lightweight first aid kit with them’.
Note that if someone tries first aid and fails, the next person is at a -30% to succeed. The next person at a -60%. Better to have the person who is best at first aid actually attempt it.
Medicine has the exact same effect as first aid however requires 'doctor' skill and a lot more props. You need at minimum a ‘home operating theater’.
Successive tries in medicine work in the same way.
Because life is unfair, a fumble in either first aid or medicine will not heal any damage but will in fact reduce the target's HP by d6, possibly killing them. If both first aid and medicine are fumbled, 2d6 damage will be done to the unfortunate. At the GM's whim, he may also have them accidentally amputate a limb.
Because life is hard.
Example: Billy has been shot. He has taken 7 real of his 10 HP and is in a bad way with three HP left.
Phil attempts first aid, fumbles and inflicts another 2 HP of real damage. Billy is now sad. Rather than have someone else attempt first aid on the now critical patient, they take him to a doctor who also fumbles, killing Billy. This is what happens if you let NPC's do the work.
Example 2: Phil has been brutally clubbed by Fred for helping kill Billy. Phil normally has 12 HP. He took 12 points of half and half damage. That means that unless someone messes with him, he will lie there in a pool of his own blood for eight hours. When he eventually comes around, he will be at 6 HP, leaving him with 6 real HP of damage.
Bob decides to punish Phil by attempting first aid while Phil is still unconscious at 0 HP. Strangely, Bob succeeds, causing Phil to regain d3 HP. Bob rolls a 3. Phil is now awake and still has 6 stun and 3 real damage but at positive 3 HP.
After a screaming match between Fred and Bob, it is decided to take Phil to the same doctor that helped kill Billy. The stars align and the drunken doctor succeeds his medicine and rolls a 3 (for HP regained). All of Phil's real HP of damage are gone. His stun damage will go away at one per hour. After six hours of rest, he is again at full (12) HP and ready for a new savage beating.
Note that even the ‘laying around’ healing rate is much faster than real life.
COMBAT OVERVIEW AND PHILOSOPHY
Combat - how does it work?
Well, first you roll initiative, then you do the different phases of the -
No. Fuck that.
Nearly every roleplaying game out there drags out combat. Yes, it is more realistic but I'd rather do story than war gaming - which is what most RPG's are thin veneer for.
In this system, the GM points at the player and says "What do you do?"
If the player says "uh" or looks confused, the GM moves on. That character spends their time panicking during the round. Perfectly normal, perfectly natural.
[Note - does this discriminate against people who like to ponderously think and come up with ideas slowly? Yes. Combat does too. Those will be the guys standing there with a stupid look on their face getting filled with bullets while everyone diving for cover makes 'loot the dead guy' plans. Generally these kind of people don't last long in my groups. Yes, I've had people get stressed out during combat; imagine how their character feels. If ponderous person says "But I'm roleplaying someone who is cool under fire and great at combat" I respond "Obviously not well."]
If the player asks "How far is it to..." Great - they get to spend their round looking around, trying to figure out where they are and other things in relation to them. Combat rounds are fast.
Answering "Fire pistol at Captain Slash!" (possibly with 'bang bang' noises) while rolling dice is a fast (possibly correct) answer.
While in many RPG's you have the time to look around leisurely, maybe go through a list of possible weapons, maybe take out a weapon, examine it, take out poison, maybe apply it to the weapon then put back the poison via, gauge distances, maybe run through some scenarios in your head (IE discuss with the GM) - this is not that game. That is chess for people who kind of like RPG's.
If you want to say something, you get three words - choose them wisely. Other characters may or may not hear over explosions, gunfire and the GM yelling. There is no time to discuss plans. Common sense says if you need to discuss plans during combat, you have fucked up badly and should probably retreat and learn to plan better.
Combat may be entirely over before you have managed to take off your backpack, open it and rummage around inside of it to find an item. Round one - take off backpack, free action drop backpack on floor. Round two - open backpack. Round d6 or more later - find item you were looking for. [For those who say 'but my backpack is arranged' - I was a backpacker for seven years. Fuck off, shit never stays where you want it to and you have the added stress of being in combat.]
Combat rounds are fast and often deadly. Know what is in your character's hands. If you want to jump and grab the rope with both hands, stuff held in those hands is now lying on the floor where you dropped it.
Although it would be neat to say ‘long enough to pull a trigger or stab someone’, if you need to compute time it’s generally around five seconds.
WHAT YOU CAN DO DURING A COMBAT ROUND (types of actions)
During a round, the player may do one full action, one simple action and one free action at maximum.
Free actions: These are actions which don't take up any actions. You can generally do one of these and a normal action within the round.
Examples of free actions: Say your three words for the round, drop (not throw) something. At the GM's discretion, perhaps a spot hidden at a negative, etc.
A simple action is exclusively movement - see ‘movement speed’ below.
Actions: These are things which take up the entire round. Example: looking around - is the guy you are getting ready to shoot in the doorway your buddy or a bad guy? Taking a weapon out of a holster. Taking the pin out of a grenade. Not throwing it - just removing the pin. Pushing the large red button marked 'self destruct lair'. Honestly, if you are freaked out and don't know what to do 'taking cover' is often a fantastic idea. In this game, one way to spot the amateurs is to see at the beginning of combat who takes cover and who stands there, pulls out a weapon and starts shooting. I blame D&D for that sort of thinking. Though it is known you can shoot or stab someone a lot more during five seconds, you only get one try during a round.
Example of what someone can do in a combat round: Drop spent pistol, walk forward three meters and pull out a new pistol. This assumes they do not have ‘quick draw’ skill - see section ‘skills’ below.
WHY IS THE COMBAT ROUND AS IT IS?
Just like combat in real life, you have to make shitty decisions based on partial or no information.
Reasons why combat is simple, brutal and short: There are things TTRPG's do well and things they do horribly. Combat is always done horribly. If you want good fast combat that is remarkably detailed, play computer games. If you want detailed, individualized plot TTRPG's offer an experience a mass produced computer game cannot.
So I'm attempting to focus on the strengths of the medium (table top gaming) as I see them while skipping past the weaknesses.
Unlike in most TTRPG's I've seen in the last four decades, within this campaign it is quite possible to skip nearly all combat if you're clever enough. Having said that, sometimes the players enjoy getting their blood fix - take some combat skills for those times.
The limit on three words is because some players (wargamers or those who think they are wargamers) often try to make each brief round into a long tactical conversation in order to squeeze the most out of each round. Combat isn’t like that - it is short, scary and messy.
Also (in my personal game) I don’t use miniatures and maps during combat for reasons:
1. It gives a huge unfair tactical advantage to the players while stripping away the much more realistic ‘fog of war’.
2. Your game flow is completely destroyed while setting up miniatures maps and assorted paraphernalia.
3. It leads inevitably to people wanting more ‘crunch’.
4. The amount of time spent with combat in these sort of games (to me) is both ridiculous and completely unacceptable. If you want good combat, try a computer game.
INITIATIVE
With rare exception, figuring out who goes first is completely unnecessary. The only important thing is who goes first - the PC’s (and their allies) or their foes?
Figuring out the order of PC’s going is unnecessary and slows combat to a drag. If someone has in mind some special action that will affect the entire round and other PC’s actions, they can inject a quick ‘anyone mind if I go first this round?’
Example: Jarvis is going to set off a bomb. As the last round is brought to a close he says to his fellow PC’s “Anyone mind if I go first next round?” They agree and he does. This is - and should be - rare.
The best way to keep the combat speedy is for the GM to simply go around the table, point at each player and say ‘What do you do’. If they hesitate for more than five seconds, the answer is ‘nothing’ - they freeze up and stand there. That happens often in real combat. If the player has questions about the field of battle (”How far am I away from the crane?”) they spend their time piercing the fog of war - nothing else. The player must declare quickly what they are doing and preferably already have their dice results done.
Example:
“I shoot the nearest bad guy for eight points of damage.”
Many people (especially war gamers) will find this rapid fire combat style stressful. This is realistic as combat is highly stressful. It also allows huge combats to be resolved within minutes rather than hours.
RANGES OF FIREARMS
These are simplified rules to avoid 'gun porn' that so many rule books fall into. Also, if you have someone claim that 'a pistol range is much further', that is technically true but also shows that person hasn't spent much time at the gun range or in combat. These ranges are the 'normal effective ranges'. Just because some guy does a 1000m shot with a pistol does not mean your character can ever hope to do that.
Bow range - 30m
Pistol range - 10m
Rifle range - 100m
Shotgun range - 40m
After consulting with a lieutenant on the police force (I figure he should know) about fire arm ranges for someone 'with less than 10 hours of training', 'able to hit a man sized target half the time', he said these ranges (aside from bow, which he didn't know but I Googled) were on the money.
Don't fucking talk to me about scopes on a pistol - it's mostly a gimmick that people use or Hollywood to make the gun look bigger - plus it can't be holstered.
If you go beyond those ranges, your skill drops by half. Beyond double and you're at half again. Shotguns won't do much beyond 40m with bird-shot (personal experience here - do not try this at home kids!) and slugs suffer from lack of rifling hence accuracy. Pretty much don't bother with a shotgun beyond that range.
Also, it is possible that different weapons have different ranges but it is completely unimportant and slips into ‘gun porn’ territory. If you want to spend hours coming up with extra rules that will destroy your pacing and give a table to consult during combat, have at it. I don’t. 10 and 100 (pistol, rifle) are easy to remember and people who are into shotguns and bows can remember 30/40.
LONG RANGE SHOOTING (assumes scope, much slower rate of fire, professional spotter, high caliber sniper rifle). All snipers know that the spotter (buy skill ‘sniper spotter’ (write in) is essential. In fact, on sniper teams the senior sniper (the better guy) generally fills this spot.
These ranges are when you have to start taking into account things like the Coriolis effect, air pressure, wind, etc.
Assuming you have all of the things listed above, your damage (assuming you have high dex) will probably be about 2d10. Everyone is surprised when a bullet from this far away strikes them on the first shot. Subsequent shots, much less effective as they know a sniper is out there. You cannot effectively silence that large of caliber.
You will get one shot every three rounds in the perfect world with a scoped weapon. (Steady from recoil, reacquire target, fire). One shot every four rounds if the rifle is a bolt action - most sniper rifles are in ‘modern’ - if futuristic you might find one that isn’t. This isn’t a good ‘get lots of bullets’ weapon. More of a ‘surprise, mutherfucker’ weapon.
600m to 1000m long range -30% to hit
1000m to 1600m extreme long range -60% to hit
Above this is possible in real life (up to 2400m world record) but is beyond the scope of this game.
Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_range_shooting Actual serving police officers and military service.
FULL AUTO RULES
Full Auto on multiple targets (expending at least ten rounds of ammo - most clips have 20 or 30 rounds so you can do this two or three times).
One target +2 bump on damage track.
Two targets if the GM deems they are reasonably close, +1 bump damage track - roll separately for each target.
Three targets if the GM deems they are reasonably close, NO bump damage track - roll separately for each target.
MOVEMENT
On foot, humans go at 3m/10m.
That means they can ‘simple action’ forward at 3m per round or if they successfully sprint forward (sprinting skill) they go ten meters per round. If they attempt to sprint forward and fail their roll, they move only at simple action speed (3m/round) despite using a round to try to move forward.
Example: Melissa ‘simple actions’ toward her target and attacks. She does not need to roll to move, only to attack and moves 3m toward her target.
Other movement speeds: Running speed /10 = combat speed (m/rnd). Sprint = combat speed x3 approx.
Example: According to Google, the running speed of a cheetah is 100-120 KPH. Let’s call it 100 KPH. Hence, in this game, they would move at 10m/30m per round.
Also, sometimes the person does not need to do anything active while traveling forward at a great velocity.
Example: Guy riding a horse. The ‘ride horse’ skill doesn’t make the horse sprint faster or slower - the horses ‘sprint’ skill does. Hence, using the formula above and assuming horses can sprint about 40 KPH, that would make their movement speed: 4m/12m (note - the horse is rolling their sprint, not the rider rolling their sprint). The rider can spend their full action shooting or just holding on (if they are not a great rider).
Example: Guy is a passenger in a car. The car is going 100 KPH. The GM may have the driver do a ‘drive auto’ roll if they’re trying to keep up speed and confronted with things that would slow down a car (terrain, other vehicles, etc). The GM might rule the movement speed is 10m. The car doesn’t need to sprint and can (aside from terrain and obstacles like other cars) keep a fairly consistent speed.
ATTACKING
If you are using melee (hand to hand) you may both attack and parry within the same round.
The player must figure out if they are ‘using a strong attack’ or ‘fighting defensively’. Declare before you or the bad guys start rolling. If they are strongly attacking, their parry is at half/negative thirty. If they are fighting defensively, their attack is at half/negative thirty.
Example: Beth attempts to ‘attack the crap out of’ the orc. She attacks at full but if the orc attacks her back, her first parry starts at half/negative thirty and her second (if needed) is at a quarter/negative sixty. She doesn’t get more than two attempts at parrying.
Example: Frank is fighting the mushroom man defensively. He attacks at half/negative thirty but his first parry is at full. His second parry (if needed) is at half/negative thirty and his third (if needed) is at a quarter/negative sixty.
You only get one attempt to parry an incoming attack and not all attacks may be parried.
Example: A giant swings his club at Frank. Frank can either attack or dodge this round because a parry of something that size is not going to happen.
Dodge: This is used when the GM tells you parry is not a possibility. Note that there are times when dodging is unwise - you must be able to swiftly move backward or to one side to dodge. If you can’t, you may not dodge. See skill ‘dodge’.
AREA EFFECT STUFF
Why you can’t ‘save for half’ from explosive damage? Because this is not fucking D&D. The best you can hope for in this system is (aside from not being where the bomb is) rolling low on your damage. If you don’t, Hero Points may help reduce the amount of damage you take. Bombs and such are lethal.
In some cases (such as someone tossing a grenade into the room you are in) you might be able to dodge behind something to try to absorb some of the shrapnel. Consult the GM. It should be noted that the ‘pick up the grenade and toss it back’ only works if the person throwing them doesn’t know what they are doing. (Explanation - professionals throw it in such a way it is bouncing around prior to going off to keep someone from tossing it back or - if they have big stones - they may ‘cook off’ the grenade. Pull the pin, wait a bit then throw.)
Generally speaking, it is not a brilliant idea to annoy people who carry grenades.
Even if you declared dodging, if you are still in the explosive radius, you are fucked.
Unfortunately, stuff like large explosions are not normally survivable. Shit, even a hand grenade is ugly - especially if they are in a confined space.
The ‘danger sense’ has always been a kind of ‘you don’t want to go in there’ thing. It’s the warning the players get.
It is hard not to blow up the characters when the players often don’t practice even very basic OPSEC. The number of times PC’s have either led bad guys to their bases, gone to places they knew to be compromised, given away important data to bad guys - it’s amazing.
NO SAVING THROW
There are places that - if the PC's go - it is fully possible to die without taking damage, getting any sort of 'saving throw', etc. [Note - in general, this game does not have ‘saving throws’ - that’s some D&D shit there.]
It is the responsibility for all of these situations to have foreshadowing. If the PC's choose to ignore it, good for them. It shows they are brave and adventurous.
WEAPON DAMAGES
Listed on the PC sheet. Because this is a simple game, ‘bigger is better’.
While in real life, a short bladed knife or ice pick is a lethal weapon and professional assassins favor the .22 caliber pistol with silencer, in this simple game system those weapons are shitty. Bigger is better - though not for concealment nor silence.
STATTING NPC’S
It’s very simple in this game. Generally, go with the 30/60/90 rule.
30% skill: They are somewhat inept and maybe only have some ‘basics’ in combat. Example: Thugs.
60% skill: They regularly do this. Example: Soldiers, well trained cops.
90% skill: They are experts at combat. Example: Ninjas, cyberpunk ‘solos’ etc.
Then, damage by weapon. Quick and easy.
CARDS DURING COMBAT
The GM flips cards into their own special pile and just uses the bottom information. If the combat is normal, they use the N: part, if it is a ‘heroic’ combat (think ‘boss fight’) they use the bottom line H:.
The bottom of the cars may look something like this:
N: H V
H: V H (setback)
Library research
This means that during a normal combat, the heroes are first, villains are second. During a ‘heroic’ combat, the villains are first and the heroes are second and ‘setback’. The setback means that something bad is going on which adversely affects the heroes.
The preferred action this round is ‘library research’. This probably won’t come up unless not all of the players made it out to the combat and one is back at base (or a library or on the computer, etc) doing research. If so, that person gets a card and they’re not even involved with the combat. You can get cards for doing preferred actions even if not in the combat. That makes it more interesting for people rather than ‘just sit there and wait for the combat to conclude’.
EXAMPLE OF COMBAT
Three PC’s vs five NPC thugs.
Joe, Alice and Betty are taking on A, B, C, D, E. The terrain is open enough that everyone can easily get to everyone else.
GM: Give me a luck roll, let me know who gets the worst.
Joe: Made mine by 30.
Alice: Just made mine.
Betty: Crit!
GM: Joe, only one guy is attacking you, everyone else has two on them.
GM: Five thugs with a variety of hand held weapons emerge from the fog in the field you guys are in. Round one! (Flips a card) Normal combat - heroes are first, villains second, library research is approved.
Group reacting to the preferred action: /eyeroll
GM: Alice!
Alice: How many of them are there again?
GM: You spend your time counting! Joe!
Joe: Fast draw pistol and (rolls, fails, curses) slowly take out my gun this round.
GM: Betty!
Betty: If they are close enough I kick one otherwise I rush them!
GM: You rush them! Roll sprint!
Betty: Success!
GM: You are at them. Alice, there are five - you don’t see any more around at this time. The two coming for you - one has a chain and the other brass knuckles! Bad guys turn! Betty the two people at you begin to attack - the guy with the lead pipe takes a swing (rolls 78) and a miss. The other guy tries to stab you with a knife (rolls 15) and he hits for four real damage! The other three rush people (rolls sprint for each) but only Joe’s guy makes it to him. The other two are waddling toward Alice. Another two rounds of waddling and they’ll reach her! Next round! Heroes are first, villains are second, talking about a dream is approved! Alice!
Alice: “I had a dream just like this where two guys came out of the fog with weapons toward me!” Can I try fast draw pistol too?
GM: Take a card for discussing your dreams and sure, if you make it it’s your free action but if you don’t, then you just slap leather and that’s it.
Alice: Success!
GM: Excellent - you’ve got your gun out and got a card. Joe!
Joe: Shoot one of them - preferably whoever has a ‘non-club’ - taking real damage sucks.
GM: Fortunately, you’ve still only got the one guy on you and he has a hockey stick.
Joe: Bang! (Rolls 97, has a skill of 60) Well, shit. Fumble.
GM: (Draws a card from the fumble deck) Looks like you’re fucked. You got the ‘draw five’ card.
Joe: Gaaa! Can I spend a Hero Point for a new card?
GM: According to the text on this card, no. Open wide for chunky! Let’s see (draws ‘you fall down’, ‘gear gone’, ‘throw away hand items’, ‘drop everything’ and ‘wrong target - team’). /ponder. OK - here’s what happens Joe.
Joe: /covers face with hands.
GM: Alice and Betty - luck rolls if you please - Betty you’re at -30% since you rushed into the fray and Joe’s spray bullets into that same fray. Probably you.
Alice: Made it.
Betty: Nope.
GM: OK Joe - your gun does d8 normally?
Joe: It’s heavy - d10.
GM: Neat. Roll a d10 on Betty.
Joe: 7.
GM: Betty - you take 7 HP of damage as Joe shoots you in the back. Joe, the gun going off surprises you so much that it flips out of your hand and disappears forever into the long grasses, never to be seen again. Apparently, you got knocked down by the recoil as well.
Joe: Hate this so much.
Betty: Can I spend a Hero Point not to take the damage?
GM: If you want.
Betty: I do so. /glare at Joe.
GM: Betty, what do you do?
Betty: Take out my frustration on one of the guys! Success on fist, success on martial arts and I rolled a 2. Well, crap.
And so on. Note - made with drawing actual cards from the deck. You never can tell what you’re going to get. But as you can see from this example, combat should be short and brutal.
FALLING DAMAGE
See also 'damage track'.
One story fall/3m: d6
Two story fall/6m: d12
Three story fall/10m: d8+d10
15m: 2d10+d12
25m: 4d12 (top of the damage track)
Falling damage - after 25m, humans die. Roll two ‘01’ results in a row two barely survive. Three ‘01’ results in a row mean you can just walk away. Four ‘01’ results in a row means your gear is undamaged, your clothing isn’t even dirty. You just emerge from a crater you made, pick off an invisible speck of lint from your clothing, check your phone for messages and walk away.
Note that you can use the ‘it’s a crit’ card to get an ‘01’ for this.
Note that in one combat round (about 5 seconds) the average human falls about 100m. If you are attempting to use a spell or ability that takes a round (or longer) to reduce or negate your falling damage, try to fall from much further up.
ARMOR
If you are wearing some sort of physical armor (furs, chain mail bikini, full plate mail - whatever), one place reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
If you are wearing some sort of magical armor (ring, underwear, fake arrow through the head - whatever), one place reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
If you have both (or magic physical armor like magic chain mail, etc) two places reduction in damage on the ‘damage track’.
Two places is the max. The minimum damage on the damage table is d3 (unless special damage - see GM).
Why:
KISS. Also, if the armor becomes too effective (like with a straight point reduction) then small attacks are completely ignored.
Example: If someone had physical, magical or both armor that reduced incoming damage by four, the person would be literally immune to daggers unless they scored some sort of critical.
LULL (combat)
In the movies, this is when the heroes have just gotten done smashing up some bad guys and are moving from here to there but the dramatic, tense music is still playing in the background.
If the GM hasn’t fucked up and not foreshadowed correctly, the players know they are going to be back in combat very soon. It comes as no surprise.
Example: The main bad guy has kidnapped a hostage and sends his mooks after the PC’s. The PC’s finish off all the mooks then turn to confront the bad guy who murders his hostage in rage then attacks the heroes. The time between the PC’s finishing off the mooks, heading over to the bad guy, listening to his monologue and entering combat with him is called the ‘lull’.
Often times this is not a big deal but some items and such are only able to be used once during a combat. A lull means that item (if used previously against the mooks) is not available.
A lull can be used by a GM to heighten suspense, mess with PC’s who have once per combat items/effects and so on.
At the end of the mook combat, the GM would simply announce “You’re in a combat lull.” Or “You’re in a lull.” Or “Lull”.
PVP
If the GM allows PVP (Logan strongly discourages it), the combat type is normal and the aggressor(s) are the villains. Note that in games where PVP is encouraged, the GM may choose to have whoever initiated the combat be the 'heroes'.
HERO POINTS
STARTING HERO POINTS
As seen when generating a character, players receive a number of starting Hero Points equal to their starting Essence statistic.
HOW TO GAIN HERO POINTS
Hero Points are gained at the discretion of the GM and are awarded at the end of a session or a mission. For game sessions lasting six hours or less, it is recommended to award them at the end of the session. For marathon game sessions they might get awarded by the mission.
At the end of the mission, the GM awards all of the players the same number of Hero Points based on the success of the group as a whole during the mission.
1: It’s a participation trophy. The group showed up.
2: You tried really hard but the mission did not go well or little was actually achieved.
3: Mission success. Note that the GM can have very loose parameters of ‘success’ - finding out an important clue, meeting some important NPC, surviving, etc.
Everyone gets the same amount of Hero Points - do not award some people more and others less as this can create huge resentment. Also, the amount of Hero Points difference between a great player and a seat filler would only be two. Not worth the aggravation of hostile seat fillers. Don’t forget that as a GM you can award good actions with the cards throughout the session.
Also, at the end of the session after ‘end of mission card play’ (see section on card play) there are various cards that - if successfully held on to till the end of the session - award either the individual holding them or the entire group extra Hero Points. It is possible - though unlikely - to get over five Hero Points at the conclusion of a successful session.
The Hero Points gained are added to the total Hero Points left. Any Hero Points over twenty go in to the ‘overflow’ total. Depending on the type and power level of the campaign, the GM may wish to make special abilities available after players reach certain levels of overflow Hero Points.
Allowing the players to have over twenty Hero Points has proven (after a couple decades of play testing) to be a poor idea as some players will then be sitting on a heap of points and be nearly invincible. Restricting the number of Hero Points helps keep an element of danger.
HOW TO USE HERO POINTS
Note - for purposes of this, a person or target is considered them and or their vehicle/steed/transport.
Hero Points can be used for:
After finding out the damage (or before if the player wishes) the player may spend a Hero Point on an incoming attack that is directly against the Hero or their vehicle/steed/transport. This causes it to barely miss you (or your vehicle) instead of hitting.
After you fail a roll, you may spend a Hero Point to reroll. If you fail the roll again, you may spend another Hero Point and try again and so on until you have either made the roll, run out of Hero Points or given up your futile efforts. This includes both skill and statistic rolls.
Example: The GM asks for a willpower x3 roll.
John has a shit willpower of 10 so he needs a 30 or less. If he misses that, he can spend a Hero Point to try again.
Rerolling your sanity loss.
John sees a scary picture which scares him. The GM informs him that the sanity loss is 1/d6 - one if you succeed in the sanity roll, d6 should you fail it. John has a sanity of 55. He rolls, he misses with a roll of 76! If he wanted to he could spend a Hero Point to reroll but he is confident. Unfortunately, his confidence is ill placed as he then rolls 6 sanity loss. Rather than run the risk of freaking out in the art gallery, he spends a Hero Point and rerolls the d6. He gets a 4. John deducts 4 from his sanity and now has a 51 sanity.
Rerolling damage you take from an AOE attack. Since AOE attacks (usually bombs, grenades, etc. but some sorts of monsters and spells may be included at the GM’s discretion) are not directed against ‘you’ but the area, you cannot say they ‘missed’ with a Hero Point. You can attempt to take less damage. Spending a Hero Point allows you to reroll some or all of the damage. You can spend as many Hero Points as you wish to reduce this damage.
Example:
John is driving his car down the street when an IED left by Badassium explodes. It is a huge explosion resulting in 4d10 of damage.
The GM (or John, up to the GM) rolls and gets a 1, 10, 9, 9.
John spends a Hero Point and decides to reroll the 10, 9, 9 - he keeps the 1.
The reroll nets him a 4, 7, 3. Combined with the earlier 1 that would be 15 points of damage. If John can survive that, he may keep that result or he may choose to spend another Hero Point and try again. If John can’t survive that, he might keep the 3 and the 1 and choose to try to reroll the 4 and 7.
He rolls a pair of 8’s.
Fuming, he spends yet another Hero Point and gets a 2 and a 3. Combined with the earlier 3 and 1 he had, that would be 9 points of damage. Hopefully, he can survive that.
When attacking someone, you may spend a Hero Point to reroll an attack or damage. If the person you are attacking also has Hero Points, they may spend one to ‘counter’ your Hero Point. You may not spend any more Hero Points in that round for that same roll upon that person after being countered.
Example:
John is attacking Badassium (NPC villain).
John rolls his attack and misses. John spends a Hero Point.
Badassium spends a Hero Point to counter.
The attack misses.
Had the attack initially hit and John chosen to spend a Hero Point to reroll his damage, Badassium could have countered that as well.
Note that you don’t have to be the driver/controller of a vehicle you are in to spend Hero Points on it.
Example: Four PC’s are in a car. The forces of Badassium pull up and begin wildly shooting at the car attempting to disable it. Anyone within that car may spend a Hero Point in order to cause the bullet to miss. This allows the party to ‘share the load’ rather than piling it all onto the driver who may already be spending a lot of Hero Points attempting to drive the vehicle.
WHAT YOU CANNOT SPEND HERO POINTS ON
Other people.
Example: John is confronting Badassium who is using the ole ‘human shield’. After Badassium demands John drop his gun and John refuses, Badassium shoots the hostage in the head.
John cannot use a Hero Point to attempt to protect the hostage. Nor could he protect a person he was carrying on his back, etc.
Hero Points are just for you and a vehicle you are riding in.
Should John attempt to get around this rule by having the hostage give him a piggy back ride (thus making the hostage John’s steed) the GM is free to rule that John is full of shit and cannot spend Hero Points on it. This does get more tricky if John is in a living space ship or some such and the GM is free to make their own ruling on it.
Any roll after you’ve already made a new roll, or after any significant time has elapsed.
Example: Fred misses his skill roll. He then rolls for something else. He cannot then go back and spend a Hero Point on the skill roll he earlier missed.
Example: Fred misses a skill roll. The GM then continues narrating the scene based on that. Fred feels he is missing out and wants to go back and spend a Hero Point on the missed roll. The GM tells him it is too late and he will have to suck it up.
WHEN TO USE HERO POINTS
The advice for new players is to never spend Hero Points unless it is an immediate life or death situation. A stealth roll deep in enemy territory might qualify, or a climbing roll when at a great height or using a Hero Point to make an enemy ‘miss’ their strike or shot. Everything else probably doesn’t warrant a spending of this scarce resource.
NPC’S WITH HERO POINTS
There is a card which allows the players to ‘Hero Point rate an NPC’. Also, if the GM feels they are vital (avoid Mary Sue’s!) they can give Hero Points to NPC’s. Recommend doing this rarely.
VILLAINS WITH HERO POINTS
Sometimes the GM may choose to have a certain boss villain or some of his henchmen - or some random unimportant guy - have Hero Points. Again, it is recommended not to do this that often as it is usually not needed.
ADVANCED USES FOR THE CURRENT CAMPAIGN
Once they finish a mission and are awarded HERO POINTS, anything over 20 gets sucked away and put into their bank.
'Siphoned HERO POINTS' is never 'spent' or 'deducted' - subtraction would only weaken your character. Instead, the players attempt to build up to higher levels.
Every 50 Hero Points in the bank the players have gives them a new ‘nifty power’ (GM has secret chart you can roll on).
It is important to note that if you are careful, horde your Hero Points and play regularly you can get approximately one new ‘nifty power’ per season. Or, you can burn through the Hero Points as you get them to try to get a more immediate pay off.
SKILL PENALTIES
If the skill is pretty hard, -30% or half
If the skill is super hard, -60% or quarter
If the GM thinks the player is crazy for even trying but there is a slim chance, ‘crit only’ or something crazy like ‘roll me two 01’s in a row’.
If the GM doesn’t think the skill can succeed, no roll is permitted.
WHAT THIS MEANS AND EXAMPLES
The -30% or half, when called for means that the player can choose if they want to have their skill at -30% or cut it in half to make the roll.
Example: Nancy has a 70% in a skill. If she chooses to go at -30%, that means she needs a 40 or less. If she chooses to go at half, she needs a 35% or less. Being able to figure out simple math problems helps. Roll first then figure it out.
Example: Fred has a 60% in a skill and agonizes about which he should choose, to go at half or at -30% from his skill. Nancy hits Fred.
The -60% or quarter works the same way but mathematically is challenging for some. Roll first, figure it out later. Nothing irritates everyone more than someone trying to figure out what a quarter of 32% is then they end up rolling an 84 anyway. Roll first - always.
Example: Nancy has a 70% in her skill and needs to do it at -60%. She rolls hoping to get over a 20% so she doesn’t have to do math.
You can always choose which (the flat minus or the half/quarter you want. For those with a grasp of basic math it will be obvious, for the rest a constant source of mystery.
NOTE that the new skill you are at (when your skill is penalized) affects your critical and fumble numbers as well!
Example:
Nancy is looking for clues. The bad guys have hidden them well, giving her a -30% (or half) to her skill. She normally has an 80% in ‘spot hidden’ so takes the -30%. At a 50% in spot hidden, her critical chance is reduced to needing a 5% or less on a roll and her fumble chance goes up to 95% or higher.
OPPOSED SKILLS
Compare the skills, difference plus or minus from 50.
Example 1: PC has a strength of 80 and wants to arm wrestle NPC with a strength of 70.
PC has 10% over the NPC. Add to 50 giving 60. Hence, PC has a 60% chance of winning - roll 60 or less.
Example 2: Godzilla has a strength of 150 and wants to grab the PC (strength of 80) to hold on to him so he can bite his head clean off. Assuming Godzilla already grabbed him (grapple skill) and the PC just wants to ‘strength his way out’, 150-80=70. That is more than 50% so if the GM is feeling nice, he can give the PC a 5% chance. Moral of the story, don’t get grabbed by Godzilla. That’s what ‘dodge’ is for.
Although this could be used for everything (PC has a dodge of 70, NPC has a pistol of 30, etc) I don’t use it because math sucks and also once you have a high enough dodge, mooks would never be able to effect you. So I use it for some things but not for others. That way, having a gaggle of say gunmen with 20%-30% skill are still somewhat of a potential threat.
CHARTS and why they suck (pacing)
Within this game, there is only one relatively simple chart - the damage track. Through decades of gaming, I’ve discovered that the more charts and rules you have, the slower the game goes. Hence, we have just the one and it is pretty simple.
Avoid anything that needs more charts especially if those charts are needed during combat.
THE FUMBLE DECK - the GM finally gets to have some fun
Once you get into the fumble deck, spending a Hero Point merely gets you a new card.
If you don’t want any fumble cards, spend Hero Points prior to drawing.
Reason - it’s pretty much like going to a different table, but in this case the table is represented by cards and the ‘roll’ on the table is which ever card you get.
SKILL DESCRIPTIONS
Specific skills (note – only some of the skills are being covered below; pistols are like shotguns but have a lower range and do less damage, quick drawing a pistol is no different game mechanic wise from quick drawing a knife and so on)
Clubs/Brawling: If you don’t want to put a lot of points into combat skills, this is a great way to go. High base plus, you don’t need to carry anything around. You will spend a full combat action picking it up but then you have a weapon. Examples include the bottle you were just drinking out of, the chair you were just sitting in and so on.
Fast draw pistol: If successful, it takes no time at all to get your gun out of it’s holster; in other words it’s a free action. Now, this does not mean it is ‘instant’. If someone has a gun pointed at you and says ‘move and I shoot’ and you go for a fast draw he gets a shot off if he has held his action. (Note – all fast draws work like this but you must buy them for specific things – pistol, smg, arrow, knife, etc. Things which are big and can’t be holstered or slung conveniently you cannot buy fast draw for.)
Dodge - you need somewhere to dodge TO. If you are busy climbing a rope, perhaps on a catwalk (or in a narrow hallway) there may not be anywhere to dodge TO hence the skill either can't be used or only at a strong negative, see GM. This skill cannot be used to ‘dodge explosions’. The stuff in an explosion (regardless of what you’ve learned from movies) moves faster than you can.
Pistol: Allows you to hit if you shoot. With firearms (only) you can choose to evenly divide up your chance to hit if you are firing at multiple targets that are all ‘in front of you’. In other words if you have a 90% in pistol and want to shoot three shots – whether at three separate guys or two at this guy and one at that guy, whatever) then you divide up the skill 90/3 = 30% per shot. If you can’t do the math without help YOU MISS. Good to figure it out ahead of time. Holding up the game for poor math skills is reprehensible.
Submachine Gun: Any fully automatic weapon (SMG, Assault rifle, etc) has multiple ways of firing. Some have single shot capability, others don’t. Options often include short burst, long burst and ‘clip it’. (See combat below)
Held weapons (all): If you hit, you do the damage indicated by the weapon. Note that you can either have attack at full and parry at -30% or vice versa.
Parry/Block (all) notes: If the thing fighting you is man sized or less (assuming you are as well) you can attempt to parry their attack. If you are fighting a giant or some sort of large creature, you can’t really parry them. Imagine trying to parry a bear. Not really happening. But against humans, it’s great. A parry (generally speaking) will negate their attack. There are special rules on ‘fighting offensively’ (attack at full, parry at -30%) or ‘fighting defensively’ (parry at full, attack at -30%).
Heavy Weapon (fill in the blank): Think ‘mounted machine gun’ or ‘rocket launcher’ as examples. Note that many ‘heavy weapons’ are ‘crew served’ meaning if it’s just you, it isn’t happening. Ask the GM if you are uncertain.
Whip (see grapple, below if using the special attack).
Block (hand to hand): This works the same way as ‘parry’ (above) with one major caveat. If you are blocking someone else’s hand to hand attack, nothing special need be done. If the person is attacking you with a hand to hand weapon and you attempt to block it, you must also roll ‘martial arts’ skill. If you succeed in block but fail martial arts, you automatically take the damage whether the person would have hit or not.
Grapple: This is literally grabbing someone. If you are trying to grab something specific (gun, throat, etc) you are at half skill. The person grabbed has several different options to try to escape. They may choose grapple, DEX or STR. Grapple means you are doing things wrestlers do to try to get out of holds. DEX shows you are trying to worm your way out of the hold and STR shows you are just strong arming out of the hold. The grappling person may choose which they want to ‘hold on’ with. Example: Fred (grapple 60%) is fighting Tim (STR 15). Fred has successfully grappled Tim, and Tim wishes to use his huge strength to break free. It is then the normal skill vs skill check.
Martial arts: This must be specified by the weapon. You can specify ‘body’, ‘sword’, ‘club’, etc. No, you can’t have firearm martial arts. Success in this gives a bump in damage (see ‘damage track’). Martial arts is also handy if you want to ‘parry’ something barehanded. See ‘parry’ above.
Missile weapons: Any missile weapons use skill: dexterity to determine whether they get a bump in damage (see ‘damage track’).
Second skill sheet:
Accounting: Good at going through books, find out where the bad guy is funneling money to, etc. Great for businessmen.
Acrobatics: This is a ‘spiff’ skill. You can add it to other skills to look great while you are doing it. For example, if you are using the jump skill to jump to a different building, acrobatics will allow you to put a flip in there. Some skills (like the modern day Parkour skill) the GM might require acrobatics rolled many times during its use. Doing ‘Jackie Chan’ style climbing might be a roll against climbing and acrobatics.
Acting: This skill is used to resist the Empathy skill.
Animal Handling (specify animal)
Allows you to saddle, hook up to different things meant for the animal (plow, wagon, etc) and to calm it down when it is irritated or freaked out. Riding does not calm the animal. Once a snake goes for it your riding roll will probably be just to stay on the beast while it does something like run into a fire.
Also, this skill allows you to care for the animal. Unlike vehicles that we are able to get into today, turn the key and blithely go where we want and the only thing we have to remember to do is hopefully lock it and take it in for service occasionally, beasts are a huge daily pain in the ass.
If you don’t know how to take care of them (often twice per day) they will go lame, start missing patches of hair from the saddle rubbing because you don’t know how to adjust the flank cinch and so on. And the animal will come to hate you over time.
Also caring for the animal in adverse conditions.
Cars are easier.
How to get around having to worry about this skill:
In many medieval places, they often had inns/taverns every day of the normal journey length.
This is a great way (if you stay on the road) to just be able to toss the reins and some money to the stable person and say ‘take care of the horse!’ and go in to drink. Sure, they may screw up their roll but at least you didn’t have to roll it.
Or run everywhere like they did in the first Conan movie. See skill “Long Distance Running”.
Anthropology: Figuring out what a race was up to at a specific time. Possibly customs and such as well.
Appraisal: How much is this worth?
Archeology: We all know you want to be Indiana Jones.
Architecture: Does this structure have a basement? Where is a good place for a secret passage? Where should I set the explosives charge?
Art lore: You know about art and junk. Don’t see this come up too often but if you happen to find some Revere silverware and have this skill, ca-ching!
Art: This is actually MAKING the art. You need to specify your medium. Could be pencil drawing or painting or sculpting, etc.
Astronomy: Super useful if you are piloting a spacecraft.
Bargain: Getting a break on the prices; haggling. This is definitely the skill to have if you have some high priced merchandise. This is opposed by the NPC’s ‘bargain’ skill.
BARGAIN
People who don’t bargain or have a good bargain skill are the ones who take what ever price is either on the sticker or what is offered.
People who have bargain haggle back and forth, look for quantity discounts, etc.
This skill can take anywhere from a minute to literally hours. I have personally taken about six hours bargaining over some stuff. Bought sodas for myself and the merchant - that’s when he knew he was in trouble.
Generally speaking, the more money that is changing hands, the more leverage you have.
In real life, most people don’t bargain because it is not part of the culture they grew up in and they ‘feel uncomfortable’ doing it and ‘just want to pay money and get something’. They make excuses like ‘it’s not that big of deal’ or ‘it’s not that much money’.
In many cultures, foreigners who do not bargain are seen as rich idiots who should be robbed.
In game terms, if you don’t want to use bargain, you have only two choices - take the price you are offered or don’t sell. Your offered price (especially on illegal or odd goods) will always be shit. If offered 300 and you say “I’m not selling for less than 500” - that is a part of bargaining.
When preparing missions, prices and such I often have the four different results written out and they are wildly different.
Example from a mission I am currently working on.
Bargain roll: Fumble: You get a couple of shiny new (stolen goods) for an easy job. Chumps.
Fail: 200! Shiny.
Success: 800.
Critical: 1500gu. You rock.
As you can see, big swing of money for this often underrated skill.
When bargaining is not used:
For many zones, I have a ‘standardized price sheet’. Since I could give a fuck less about many of the shopping trips (”I want to buy new underwear - how much are they?”) I just hand out a sheet with the standard prices on them. It is assumed that the PC’s go to several different merchants and buy little bits all over town. Most places adventurers hang out in do not have malls. The prices are base line and you are probably not buying much from any one merchant so I’m not worried about bargaining in those cases.
When bargaining is used:
Sometimes when negotiating how much money you will make from a job. Note that if you decide to make a bargain roll and fumble - you are stuck with that result. If you back out at that point, you are seen as someone who says one thing and does another. A liar, a cheat, etc. Your reputation will crumble in that town, possibly further.
If you are buying or selling something that a bargain roll will actually make a significant impact on finances. If you are saving less than the equivalent of $100, let’s not piss about with more rolls.
When the GM asks for a bargain roll - possibly someone else has initiated bargaining with you whether you wanted to or not.
Biology: If you are a doctor (unless you are ‘Dr. Nick’) you’d better have this. Tells you where things should be.
Boating: Specify type of boat.
Botany: You know more about plants and stuff than someone just getting by with ‘natural history’.
Bureaucracy: The paperwork skill.
Business/industry lore: Good for businessmen – who’s who and what’s what in the business world.
Carpentry/woodcraft: A surprisingly useful skill to make things out of wood.
Cartography: Usually just if you want to make a map; might be used to read a map if it is very complicated.
Chemistry/alchemy: You need a full lab to really get much from this skill.
Climbing: If you don’t have this high and need to climb, chances are you won’t live to regret it.
Computer use, general: Good for very basic stuff.
Computer use, hacking: If your GM knows little about real life hacking, this skill probably won’t do you as much good as you think.
Conceal/camouflage/holdout: This is good for hiding things either on your person (like weapons) or hiding them out in the wilderness. The opposed skill is usually ‘spot hidden’.
Contortions: TThis allows you to slowly wriggle your way through the hole/gap.
Cooking: Yummy food! May be used for potion making and such as well.
Counter surveillance: You need to be *in motion* to use this skill. This is the ‘is there anyone following me’ skill. Note that this will reveal the presence of only amateur and under funded surveillance individuals or small teams. You will probably never know or suspect a professional team is there – depending on the circumstances. See skill ‘danger sense’.
Cryptography: This is for breaking codes that the PC’s cannot be expected to break. Quite often this skill can be ‘supported’ with ‘advanced mathematics’. It often requires large computers. Note that from time to time the GM may choose to (sparingly) throw in easy codes - letter replacement, word jumble, etc. These the players have to work out for themselves. Note for GM’s - it is best to keep the use of things like codes very sparing because they may destroy the pacing of your game while the PC’s take minutes or hours trying to figure them out. In general, if a teenager can’t do it use cryptography skill instead.
Cthulhu mythos: Depending on the campaign, this may or may not be something you can start with. In some campaigns, it is the limiter to keep you from learning too many spells. In other campaigns, it is like a highly specialized ‘occult’ type skill.
Current events: What is going on in the world today.
Dance: Move without looking like a dork or injuring your dance partner.
Demolitions: If you are trying to use explosives without this skill you will probably kill yourself and others in a dramatic fashion.
Direction sense - that way is generally north. Also, if you go through some various tunnels (or a maze) underground, you can try to use this skill to generally say "I want to go in this general direction." Doing that works less well above ground where you want navigation. It allows you to move on various established routes (roads and shit) instead of 'this is the general direction toward the goal'. Also, if someone is using 'direction sense' they may say things like "Gosh, there is a big canyon here" where as the person with navigation would say "Yes, that is on the fucking map. We should have taken route 38 to go around it."
Disguise: Look like someone different. Opposed with ‘spot hidden’.
Dreaming: If the ‘dreamlands’ is being used this is your ‘get on the adventure’ skill. Within the dreamlands, it has other uses. Within the dreamlands, you can ‘dream up’ an item for a time. The MP the item costs and how long it stays around are generally up to the GM. Dreaming up an item takes about a minute hence this is foolish to attempt during combat. Check to see if this skill is being used before burning points on it.
Dream lore: Knowing about stuff inside of the dreamlands. The GM may require different dream lore for different major areas within the dreamlands. Check to see if this skill is being used before burning points on it.
Drive (specify; examples include air car, ground car, heavy truck, etc): Doing fancy stuff, attempting to avoid stupid people who don’t have the skill but are driving, etc. Note that sometimes an accident simply cannot be avoided. In those cases, a drive roll may merely be to try to mitigate damage or keep everyone alive.
Drive motorcycle: As drive car but without the protection and airbags.
Electronics/electronic repair: Fix that toaster!
Empathy: “Lie detection’s all about asking the right questions.” - “Lie To Me”, S1E7. This will get you the basic emotion that someone you are talking to is feeling or displaying, possibly with use of microexpressions. According to Dr. Paul Ekman, there are seven universal microexpressions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and contempt. They often occur as fast as 1/15 to 1/25 of a second. You need to be able to see the person's face. Hence if they sit around in darkness, with big sunglasses on and so on, it's an easy way to negate empathy skill. The empathy skill will tell you what general emotion (or, if the GM is feeling fancy, microexpression) the individual is displaying but not why. That is where asking the right questions comes in. If the target has no emotions, it doesn’t work. If the target is an unfamiliar creature, it won’t work or be at a negative. This skill is opposed by ‘acting’. If the actor wins, you get whatever emotion they want you to get. What makes this skill interesting in play is that the right questions must often be asked in order to get the microexpression to display. If you don't know what to ask, this skill is much less effective.
Etiquette: How to carry yourself well, possibly with style in a social environment.
Evidence analysis: What does it all mean? Unless the GM is doing a CSI type of module (where all of the evidence is spelled out and the PC’s get to put it together on their own) this will give you a general idea of what happened at the scene of the crime.
Fast talk: Your bullshitting skill. If you are going to use this, I’d definitely having acting. Otherwise, you spin a good yarn but look guilty as hell. Note that the player themselves must be able to BS a little bit in order to actually use this skill. TTRPG’s are a ‘talking’ game. You cannot say “I convince him that I’m nice.” And roll. You need to actually come up with something a bit plausible.
First aid: See HP/healing.
Forensics: You may gather evidence (finger prints, bullets, etc) or if you are a criminal you can hide evidence (put a bunch of bleach on the blood, etc). Note that this skill (either way) takes a LONG TIME to do. You may NOT do a quick forensics roll as you are fleeing the scene – just assume this skill takes HOURS.
Gambling: Attempt to win money. Better if you are ‘the house’. Note that you may actually lose more money than you wanted to bet. That’s just the way gambling often seems to work.
Geography: Where is Canada on the map? Some surveys have showed most American’s can’t find it. With this skill, you just might.
Geology: Better than natural history, you know about rocks and stuff.
Gun-smith: This is good for fixing your gun, clearing a jam or if you have a workshop you might be able to modify your gun.
History: What happened previously.
Interrogation: This is NOT just tying up some unfortunate and beating them till they tell you what they think you want to hear. Actual interrogation has several different methods. Overused (and well known, hence not so good to use) methods are things like ‘good cop, bad cop’. Less known methods include the ‘we know all’, ‘time speed up’ and the ‘we have your family now talk’. Actual interrogation can take hours up to months. In the end, everybody breaks. But if using strong arm tactics, they will just tell you what they think you want to hear.
Intimidation: Making the target feel nervous due to the possibility of impending physical violence. If you are a big guy with brass knuckles and a gun, it is a lot easier than if you are a short bald professor with a pot-belly.
Jump: This is a skill like climb – if you don’t have much in it, you probably won’t live to regret it if you roll it. This skill can negate d6 of falling damage if you were prepared to fall. If you weren’t and the fall took you by surprise, the GM may have you roll at half or some such.
Jury rig: This is the ‘make it work without the right stuff’. Note – you still needs stuff to attempt the roll and it should be feasible. Watch a lot of MacGuiver.
Law: This skill is required (as ‘does it as a living’) by law enforcement professionals (yes, that includes PI’s). It tells you what the law is regarding your secret illegal Swiss bank accounts, your unlicensed weapons and your breaking and entering.
Library use/research: This is your ‘find information out’ skill. The information could be in a library or you could go out and ask people questions – depends on the type of information and how you want to go about finding it out.
Linguistics: This is your ‘what language is this I cannot understand’ skill. This does not allow you to speak or understand the language but it will tell you what it is so you can find someone who does.
Listen: Hear vital conversation or person sneaking up behind me skill.
Lip reading: You must be able to clearly see the persons lips.
Literature: Unless you have some sort of character concept that relies heavily upon this, just like in real life this is an utterly useless skill. If you have a doctorate in it and aren’t teaching it you probably work at Starbucks. Sorry.
Lock lore: This tells you what kind of lock, how many tumblers, etc. Good to use to support your lock-picking.
Lock-picking, electronic: If it has wires hooked to it! This takes under one minute to do.
Lock-picking, mechanical: If it has tumblers! (Note, if it has both wires and tumblers, the GM may have you roll both.) A professional lockpick told me that if he couldn’t pick the lock in under a minute it was time for the drill. This takes anywhere from 1 round (if you are prepared and know fancy stuff about it) to a minute to pull off. [Note: Unless modern day campaign, ‘bumping’ not allowed.] Side note: If you think that scratches on the exterior of the lock mean it has been picked, no, it means inept clumsy people picked or attempted to pick the lock. If the tumblers are out of synch it means your lock has been picked. (You can feel it when you insert the key.)
Mathematics (advanced): This very rarely comes up but everyone will look at you with awe in that one in one hundredth module where it comes up and oh, you happen to have it.
Medicine: See HP/healing.
Meditation: You can be at peace and harmony with all living things. In game mechanics, this is (usually) an utterly useless skill. No, you are not an elf who can meditate for just a couple hours to replace the need to sleep. Don’t even think about trying it.
Memory: If the GM still remembers and you were too dim/lazy to take notes, this skill will allow the GM to remind you of what you specifically ask about. It is not a ‘Gee – what was the important clue again? Can I make a memory roll?’ How about NO. Also, if you didn’t bother to ask about it at the time, you can’t say ‘Do I remember the license plate number on that get away car?’. No, you don’t. Take notes. Relying on the GM to remember and rolling this skill is lazy.
Mimicry: Sound like someone or something else. The human vocal cords must be able to do it and you must have heard it before.
Natural history: This is the ‘skate by’ skill for knowing about plants, animals, rocks and such. It won’t give you nearly as much information as the specific skill (botany, geology, zoology, etc) but you have a basic understanding.
Navigation: land: This is the ‘know where you are going on land’ skill. Works with a map and compass.
Navigation: sea/air: As above but for sea/air.
Occult: Occult is not a replacement for Cthulhu mythos but it can be handy if you are dealing with non mythos critters like witches. Or if you want to make your own flaming pentagram out in your yard to horrify your neighbors.
Operate Heavy Machinery: Allows the PC to operate many large types of equipment such as a crane or excavator. Unless the type of equipment is judged to require some sort of specialized knowledge (nuclear power factory) this skill allows it’s operation. If the thing being operated does require specialized knowledge (such as the nuclear power factory) the GM may allow the character to use this as a ‘supporting skill’.
Parachuting: Everyone can parachute - once. Gosh this is a great skill to have at least as a hobby. Yes, you need a real parachute, your bed sheets just will not cut it.
Pharmacy: Good skill for doctors to have to know what sort of expensive drugs to give their patients.
Philosophy: Rationalize away the existence of God but this probably won’t be of any use. Ever. See also, Starbucks job opportunities.
Physics: About the same as ‘advanced math’.
Pilot: Choose what kind of craft you want to fly. Glider, fixed wing aircraft, passenger jets, rotary wing aircraft, etc. Good to have at ‘does it as a living’ or better if you want to fly. Remember, you have to come in pretty low to land.
Prestidigitation/pick pockets: Snagging little things without people noticing. This can go against spot or feel depending on situation. Keep in mind that real life teams of pickpockets work in teams of three or more so if you are on your own trying to make a living doing it, the GM can penalize your skill and tell you to go get a real job instead.
Psychoanalysis/psychology: This is knowing the fancy book stuff of these trades. This can be used to tone down someone’s insanity if their current sanity total has climbed up higher than the special number. See also ‘sanity’ section.
Religion: General knowledge of religions. Specific religious rites may be at severely reduced score depending on the commonality of the religion.
Repair, mechanical: Fix it! Note - you need to have tools and spare parts.
Ride: Specify what kind of mount. Riding camels is very different from horses. Definitely a good skill to get. Failing your riding roll means you might as well be leading it instead of riding it. Unless you get tossed into a tree upside-down. That hurts.
Running: long distance: Most folks only get sprinting but after a few hundred feet, this skill kicks in. There is nothing more satisfying than chasing down a bad guy for a mile or two and not even working hard at it. This is also a good skill for ‘I need to leave the area quickly and all my vehicles are disabled and mounts are dead.’
Running: sprinting: If you don’t have it, chances are the monster will eat YOU.
Safe-cracking: This skill is like lock-picking but for safes. Some safes take a long time to crack. This is NOT the ‘put my ear to the safe and spin the dial’ necessarily. There may be drilling and high tech gadgets for seeing inside involved. It is often noisy and takes many minutes.
SCUBA: Using fancy gear to dive and not die.
Security systems lore: Knowing about motion detectors, silent alarms, cameras, etc. This is pretty much a modern day skill although some pre-WW2 places might have crude electronic security.
Seduction: Making nice with someone else in hopes of a romantic interlude.
Singing: Comes up a surprising amount and can be darned useful.
Sixth sense/danger sense: In real life, you sometimes enter those situations that you ‘just get a feeling’ that it is dangerous. This is the skill for that. It does not tell you where the marksman is hidden or what the danger specifically is. This is the skill that would be rolled if the bad guys had rigged your door with a laser marker and a couple pounds of C4. There is no other legitimate way to know that opening your door will cause the hotel to explode – no ticking, no wires, no buzzing, nothing. This skill is your last chance to say “Hum. I feel in danger. Maybe I should go to a different hotel.” If you ask for a skill roll you get it at full, if the GM asks for it, you get it at half.
Skiing: Beware of trees! Play James Bond!
Signaling: This covers hand signals, Aldus lamps, smoke signals, etc.
Spot hidden/find: This is your generic ‘notice clue’, ‘notice bad guy sneaking up on you with a knife’ etc. Gets used all the time.
Feel: Your sense of touch, etc.
Smell/taste: Nose, tongue.
Spy lore: This skill is only really useful if the GM knows more about it than you do. In my campaign, this tells you what the ‘by the book’ procedure is for different circumstances. The ‘by the book’ procedure might not be the right one for the circumstance . For example, if you are being followed, what is the ‘by the book’ procedure? If you want to tail someone? If you want to send a secret message? What is a dead letter drop? Etc. [Note - Logan’s spy lore is mostly from the Cold War era.]
Stealth: Being sneaky. This is also known as the ‘don’t get left in the car while we go do stuff’ skill.
Streetwise: A lot of people always like to say things like “Oh, he’s book smart but he’s not *street smart*”. I respond “Do you know where to get an unlicensed Uzi in downtown Chicago right this instant? If not, you aren’t really street smart either.” This is that skill. It tells you where to get hold of illegal things, whose on the take, whose who in crime families, etc.
Surveillance: After setting up somewhere that you can comfortably hang out for ONE WEEK and spending a week there then you get a roll on this skill. Better to have NPC’s do this unless you have a lot of time. Amateurs do this with one vehicle. Professionals use several at the same time and rotate them. Amateur tales are easy to spot unless they are tailing other amateurs. See ‘counter surveillance’.
Survival: A type of area must be specified (jungle, desert, urban, etc). This allows you to survive (barely) in that area for an extended time. Having other nifty skills like carpentry, natural history, etc really can make your life more comfortable.
Swim: If you don’t have it, you get to discover the drowning rules!
Tactics: Detailed planning, surprise, entry, speed and ‘violence of action’. Read more at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_quarters_combat Within the game, this also allows (assuming everyone has similar weapons and a decent plan) the PC’s not accidentally shoot each other and so on. If one person has a sword and the other two are using shotguns and the sword guy closes to engage while the others stand back and shoot, he is probably fucked and should have bought a shotgun. Or covered the back door. Note - this use to be split into ‘police’ and ‘military’ tactics but they have gotten close enough in recent years I’m happy to have the same skill cover all of them.
Teaching: If you have at least hobbyist (30%) in a skill, you can attempt to teach it to others.
Tracking: If it isn’t humans and you don’t have natural history etc you probably won’t know what it is but you can tell where it went for at least a short way. If the tracks have been sitting around for a week or it’s rained in the meantime, you are probably out of luck.
Trapping: This is a good skill either if you are out in the wilds and need to eat or if you are one of the rare PC’s who plans ahead. Traps can take from minutes to hours to set up depending on what type. This covers anything from placement of trip wires to digging out a punji pit.
Zoology/animal lore: You know more about animals than someone skating by with natural history.
Third skill sheet:
Heavy weapon skills: I wouldn’t expect to find these sitting around. The police are pretty harsh on people who own rocket launchers or artillery. In ‘war torn’ countries you can probably get some of these through the ‘streetwise’ skill.
Languages: You start with your native language. This is always denoted by an “N” – I don’t make people roll to see if they can speak their native language. Any other language must be bought separately. I know several languages have the same base/root – I don’t care. Buy them separately. Also, if you have less than a 60% (do it as a living) you are not fluent. Any time you want to speak or understand it is a separate roll. If you have 60% or better, you roll once for the adventure. Good to have 60%. If you fumble in the language, you not only say/understand something extremely rude/insulting/vulgar but you are done attempting to roll that language for the entire adventure. In order to get around certain ‘cheesyness’, I require players to make some sort of hand sign/wear a special hat/something obvious when they are speaking in a different language. This keeps people from saying something highly inappropriate then attempting to cover their tracks by claiming they were saying it in a different language. I don’t allow the ‘oh, we are always speaking in Gaelic’. Nope. Go buy special ‘these are our Gaelic speaking hats’ and wear them. Watch NPC’s become confused when you address them in Gaelic! No end of fun.
Write in Skills:
These can really, really make your character SHINE. Nothing is better than having some odd write in skill that nobody knows about then – when that one in twenty adventure comes along that it is the ‘daddy’ skill for UNLEASHING it.
Any skill that can be done from golf, knitting, drinking beer with your feet (seen it) etc can be a write in skill. No, you can’t have ‘decapitate foe with one swift strike’ or any of that ‘I’ve played too much D&D silliness’. GM has the right to veto any write in skill. Certain write in skills may only become available after very specific things happen, GM’s discretion.
LANGUAGES
For some campaigns, spoken and written are split up. For example, ‘Egyptian hieroglyphs’ would be ‘read Egyptian hieroglyphs’ because nobody knows how to speak Ancient Egyptian.
Unless you go there and learn it - which may be possible in some campaigns. That would then allow you to build the new skill ‘Speak Ancient Egyptian’.
Additionally, some GM’s might specify that for certain very complex languages which many people can speak but fewer can read (example Mandarin) that the player must buy spoken and written separately.
How languages work: First, you say what you are trying to say then you make your roll. This allows hilarity for the GM when you fail or fumble your roll.
If the player rolls a critical, the GM may not ask them to roll again for awhile.
For a success, the idea the player is attempting to communicate is passed.
Failure indicates they are either trying to make up words that nobody recognizes or garbling it so badly the listener cannot understand what they are saying.
Fumbles are hilarity for the GM. Maybe insulting the listener, maybe volunteering for something dangerous, whatever. Also, you are done attempting that language for the adventure or session - whichever ends first.
A special rule with languages is that once a player has a 60% or higher in a language, they need only succeed once per session to communicate for the entire session in that language. Conversely, if the roll is fumbled, you seem to have forgotten how to speak that language for the adventure or session - whichever ends first.
SANITY - AND WHY YOURS IS SLIPPING
LOSING SANITY
There are bunches of ways to lose sanity. Doing horrific acts, witnessing scary monsters, going to war, etc all cause people to lose sanity.
Sometimes, people will lose sanity based on what their party members do - whether they witness or condone it or not.
“Well, I’m going to go out and gather firewood because I suspect you might torture this guy for information…”
Yeah - you’re losing sanity toward ‘torture’ either way. Ways of trying to get around it don’t work.
Although in this game, PVP is strongly discouraged, we don’t have any players who are completely selfish dicks. Those sort of people don’t tend to last. Hence, if you want to try to talk someone out of an action that causes sanity loss, you generally can do it.
GAINING SANITY
Generally, doing actual ‘good guy’ stuff will help the PC’s gain sanity. Also, things like defeating the kind of monsters that cause you to lose sanity will gain some sanity back. (Defeating a bear won’t gain you sanity but killing a ghoul will.)
GETTING USE TO IT
When someone takes sanity loss, they can record it on their character sheet. Once they hit the ‘max’ number, they no longer lose sanity toward that specific thing, though they may still toward other related things until they max that out as well.
Example: A certain young lady likes to torture victims. They just wish she’d ask questions. Eventually, she and her companions lose enough sanity (20) to max that out. Unfortunately, she is super messy with the victims as they are being tortured, hence, everyone gets to work on maxing out their ‘human gore’ (20), maybe ‘gross out’ (20) and because she doesn’t like to leave any witnesses, ‘cold blooded killing/guilt’ (60).
THE SPECIAL NUMBERS
40, 30, 20. Once your sanity gets down to - or below - any of those numbers, you pick up a new ‘permanent’ insanity. Some examples - won’t use firearms, won’t use currency, beat anyone who screams, etc.
For new players, it is vital to talk to the GM and other players and bounce ideas off of them about what is and is not a good insanity.
Remember, your insanity should - in some way - fuck you at least once per session. If it doesn’t, you will get assigned a new insanity. Your insanity should not fuck the other characters.
A good way of ‘testing’ out insanities before you are stuck with them is to give your character ‘quirks’. These are not mandatory and are much less severe than insanities. Examples - dislikes using guns, doesn’t like to buy anything unless they have to (or always ‘forgets’ wallet at home), screams at people who are screaming to ‘be quiet’. You can pick these up and drop them as desired.
CURING YOUR CRAZY
If your sanity had dipped down to 38 (gaining you the insanity at 40) then risen back up over 40, it is possible to get psychoanalysis (skill) to move the insanity down to a ‘strong quirk’. Not nearly as severe. If you dip down again, you can pick it back up as an insanity. If your sanity has gotten high enough you don’t think you will be in danger of getting the insanity back, you can get more psychoanalysis and move it to a mild quirk or even remove it altogether. Then, if your insanity goes back down, you can either pick back up the same thing (relapse) or go for a new insanity.
MAKING SANITY ROLLS
Sanity is a slippery slope. The more sanity you have, the slower you lose it. The less you have, the quicker it goes. All creatures/actions/things that make you crazy have two different numbers. The first is if you succeed in your sanity roll, the second if you fail your sanity roll.
Example: Fred is forced to kill a guard, not in the heat of combat. He was just standing there. The GM asks for a sanity roll, 1/d6. That means if Fred’s character makes his sanity roll, he loses one point (probably toward cold blooded killing - the GM will let you know) but if he fails his sanity (see stat - sanity) he loses d6 sanity. If Fred fails his sanity roll and loses five or more sanity at once (or in a short time), he may ‘lose his shit’.
LOSING YOUR SHIT
Sometimes, you lose a bunch of sanity at once. The GM will ask for some sort of willpower roll to avoid ‘going crazy’. Generally, willpower x3. If this is failed, roll d20. That’s how many rounds you are not in much control (if any) of your character. Then, roll a d4: fight, flight, freak, freeze.
Fight: If there are bad guys around, you will go after them whether you want to or not. No bad guys? Someone else. Maybe the GM will roll at random, maybe you will attack a bystander, someone’s horse (you always hated that horse) or another PC. You don’t have to spend any Hero Points during the combat but you will use (at minimum) whatever weapon is in hand. If you have a loaded pistol in hand, you are going to start shooting - not try to knock someone out with your fist because it’s a PC. You’ve gone berserk.
Flight: You run. So long as it is ‘away’ from whatever made you crazy, the GM usually lets you pick your route.
Freak: You don’t get to do anything useful. You are freaking out. You can go at walk speed where ever you want, usually ranting about how the ‘lib dems are responsible for the flat earth’ and so on.
Freeze: You’re just fucked. You will stand there like a statue until your d20 rounds are done. If you were hiding when you saw whatever made you crazy this is the best possible result. Otherwise, not so good.
RUNNING OUT OF SANITY
If your character ever reaches zero sanity, they instantly, immediately and irrevocably become an NPC. Make a new character.
SANITY THOUGHTS
It all depends on play style. Some people always seem to be between 90-99 sanity; others under 40. Figure out what is right for you.
No sanity bonus (COC) for getting a skill high. You’ll just have to be content with your high skill and being crazy.
MAGIC
MAGIC POINTS
Your magic points are equal to your Essence stat.
After a good night of sleep, you gain them all back.
CASTING SPELLS
All spells use your mouth and hands and it’s obvious you are casting them. No secret spell casting.
Tied up and gagged means no spell casting for you or your enemies. Depending on who is tied up.
Monstrous abilities might still work when people are tied up and gagged - best just to kill the monsters quickly.
Spell casting has a lot of rules. If the player does not know how part of spell casting works off the top of their head and holds up play with needing to look up something, the GM should rule their magic has failed for the day and move on.
Does this mean players who can’t memorize the magic system (or at least look it up and have it ready to go before they try to use it) can’t cast spells?
Yes. Stick to simpler stuff if you can’t remember how the system and your spells work.
MAGIC/TECH ITEMS
For some zones, magic (or tech) always works. In these zones those items can be used normally.
In other zones, a willpower roll is needed to try to get the magic item or tech item to work.
Making it work takes one round. Even for items which would be normally 'always on', in areas they don't work, you have to spend a round (and make the appropriate Willpower (stat) roll to 'make them work'. [The GM sets the difficulty at anything from 'make a crit' up to x5 depending on the zone.]
That makes some items pretty much useless. Example: A ring of feather fall. The average person (100kg) can fall a bit over 100m in five seconds. Hence, unless your fall is further than that, your ring of feather fall when not in a ‘high magic’ zone is simply jewelry.
FULL MAGIC RULES
COMPLEXITY
The spells are a very complicated (comparatively) part of the game. Simply put, if the player cannot understand the spells, know the rules and know their spells as well or better than the GM they should not be casting them. If you don’t get it, stick to melee or shooting stuff. You can still make a good contribution to any fight. If the player regularly causes combat to slow down due to arguing about spell effects or simply not knowing what their spells do, the character will soon lose the ability to cast spells. Does this mean that clever players can cast spells while ‘not as clever spells cannot’? Yes. Spell casting has long been the domain of the clever. There is no ‘intelligence’ stat for the characters - their intelligence is equal to the players. Sorry but I am not willing to slow down everyone for the sake of the slow trying to do complicated things. Stick with simpler stuff. Spells are complicated. If this causes only NPC’s to be casting spells, I can totally live with that - but don’t think it will actually happen.
DISCLAIMER
These magic rules apply to most of the zones. Should special zone rules be in place for certain zones, those take precedence. [For example: Wearing metal armor normally does not interfere with spell casting. If there is a special ‘D&D parody zone in which it does, then those zone rules apply.]
CASTING SPELLS WHERE YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO
The modifiers for each zone vary between ‘no roll needed’, some multiplier of willpower (will x3, etc) or ‘spells and magical effects do not work here period’.
CASTING TIMES
Anything with a casting time of more than two rounds is generally an idiotic spell to cast during combat. Better to cast it before or after combat. When casting a spell, ‘casting’ is your full action each round.
Casting time of one round - on your turn they are cast and the effect is done.
Casting time of instant - in the description it will say whether it goes off at the beginning of the round or beginning of your turn. (Though I should examine these spells and see if that can be standardized.)
DURATIONS
Some durations are a number of rounds or hours.
Till sunset or sunrise - this is whichever comes next. If you cast a spell an hour before sundown and it has this duration, your spell will only last for an hour.
Also, killing the caster of a spell (or knocking them out) is usually a great way to turn off any and all spells they have cast as those spells have no life of their own UNLESS Essence was sacrificed to give the spell life. (Or other special things were done, consult the GM).
Combat: This means the spell ends when there is a ‘lull’ in combat or the GM announces combat is over.
Concentration: Some spells require concentration. That takes one full action each and every round. Unless you are hasted (etc) aside from simple actions and free actions, that is your entire round. Should concentration be broken or given up, the spell ends and must be cast anew in the future. Note - you do not need to be able to speak to maintain concentration - just glare balefully. Note that (unless hasted) moving or being moved breaks concentration. Concentration means ‘you do nothing but keep the spell going’. BEING DAMAGED BREAKS CONCENTRATION.
WEIRD DURATIONS
Certain spells may be broken by certain things - a rooster’s first call (which sucks because they actually often go all night - best to slit their throats ahead of time), first ray of light, water (crossing or getting splashed by), true love’s first kiss, etc.
These are usually odd spells NPC’s cast or special ‘zone specific’ spells.
DUMB VS SMART DEFENSES
These are categories of magical defense. Dumb automatically trigger. Smart defenses trigger when the caster wishes them to trigger.
FAILING OR FUMBLING SPELLS
Fail means half the MP of that spell are gone.
Fumble means you pay the full MP cost of that spell and you may not cast that spell again until the next sunup or sundown. In addition, the GM may have it go off, hit the wrong target, give bonuses to enemies, explode or whatever his sadistic mind comes up with.
LEARNING NEW SPELLS
One hour of someone telling them how a first rank spell works. Only the first spell from the chain may be taught.
The teacher must roll under their spell skill and under their ‘teaching’ skill. You can try once per day till you make it or fumble. Should either roll be fumbled (even if the other is crit) then you can never teach that skill to that student ever again.
Even if the teacher is teaching multiple students the same spell, they must make a teaching roll for each student. It is possible to have some get it and others not understand the material. Despite the teacher failing their teaching roll, it is best to blame the student.
[As always if the teacher forgets what stuff exactly they can’t teach to a particular student, then they can no longer teach ANYTHING to that student. Keep better notes.]
Should the roll succeed (crits don’t really matter) then the PC picks up the level 1 spell at their ‘learn’.
As normal, the only way to get higher ranking spells is to get a crit on casting the one they have. They either then get the next higher rank at ‘learn’ or if it is TBD, they have to (between game sessions) figure out a spell, get GM approval (on a probably nerfed version) then they get that one at learn when they next make a crit. You can’t save up crits. Best to work on the spell as soon as you find out it is a TBD.
One attempt may be made per day to learn a spell, whether that attempt is successful or not. You may not make multiple attempts to learn spells in a single day. One day, one attempt.
LIMITATIONS
In some more elemental lands, the caster can’t do the opposite element of their main and may be limited to half way up the chains on the other two.
Depending on the specific zone, a player that knew opposing magics might either have some of them (usually the lower skill ones) suppressed while they were there or they might be able to ignore the limitation all together.
MAGIC POINTS
When are the magic points spent? When you first begin your spell. Example: If you are casting a spell that requires ten magic points and ten rounds to cast it, you have lost five magic points (same amount as ‘failing’ a spell) even if you stop casting after the first round. If you continue through the whole spell and fail it, you are still down five magic points.
If you run out of MP (IE your MP=0) you fall unconscious and cannot be revived until your Magic Points regenerate (usually 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep). If this happens while casting a spell the spell does not go off. You can also be brought back to consciousness with a 'wake up' spell or card effect. This puts you at 1 magic point. Note - unless the specific zone rules differ, sleeping for four hours does not regenerate half of your MP. It’s an all or nothing thing. For this reason, it is not unheard of for people who imprison casters to have them woken up every few hours by the guards.
In some zones, there may be other ways to regain MP.
MAKING MAGIC ITEMS
Figure out what is needed to make an item that while holding it and using a particular type of spell (or a specific element spell or any damage spell) and it moves up the damage one place on the damage track. We can have it where the ‘wood carving’ (for a staff as an example) needs to be done with a certain type of wood and a ‘crit’ wood carving roll needs to be made to pull it off. Certain things might require an object with a lot of skills put in to it - maybe all of them needing a critical roll, or perhaps just normal successes, depending. Anyone who wants to make magic items (in the event those spells ever get done) will need to get great at lots of crafting skills. Lots and lots. Making magic items (for obvious reasons) will be a huge pain in the ass of such a magnitude that only the most stubborn players even bother with it. If the rules ever get done for it.
Given how often the players lose all of their possessions within the campaign, I doubt this is going to become a huge thing. Unless the players learn what ‘cache’ means.
MERGING SCHOOLS
When someone has two different schools at ‘do it as a living’ they might start making hybrid styles of magic. It is important though to make sure one spell has one and only one effect. (Water plus air might equal steam, for example).
Rules on this have not been made and if they are, it will probably be a ‘zone specific’ thing.
MP COST
Why are they all even numbers? Because if you fail, you lose half round up. Easier to make it so rounding is not required. [Why? Many PC’s suck at simple math.]
If your spell goes off successfully, but someone resists it, you are still stuck paying full MP cost for the spell - it was successfully cast.
SPELL EFFECTS YOU WON’T EVER SEE IN THE CAMPAIGN:
Divination: One day, all of the players may spontaneously decide they want to own, operate and stock a Pottery Barn store. I will then be stuck making Pottery Barn plots. There is no way I could know what the players are going to do ahead of time. Augury works well in books where the author knows what will happen and has a lot more control of the characters. They can then come up with some clever formula. Hell, some cryptic NPC may even give a prophecy from time to time within the campaign but I’m not going to have any magic for it. Within games it is often either useless or over powered. Also never going to happen include spells to locate things or people. Or figure out ‘who dun it’.
Illusion: Not happening. Anyone who has any subtly and brains will quickly make this over powered.
Memory alternating/annihilating: Nothing but fucking trouble and gas lighting down the road. Suck up your own actions and find different ways to get clever.
Spells that compel you to tell the truth. Holy shit does that put a dent in murder mystery adventures.
More effects will get added to this list as time goes on.
PLAYER RESPONSIBILITY
If the player has to stop and look up how their magic spell works - especially during combat - the spell just fails and costs the caster the MP. If they don’t even know how many MP it costs, congratulations the player has only 1MP left. That keeps you conscious and unable to cast more spells and we can all move on with our lives. There is nothing worse than some idiot who can’t remember their own spells dragging all of the action to a stand still because they need to look it up. If you can’t remember your spells without hesitation, use a sword or something instead.
The player must keep a copy of the spell at hand in case the GM wants them to read it or have a question on it. In other words, if you want to do something more complex than swing a sword, it’s your responsibility to be able to know your spells without hesitation.
During the game session is NOT the time to work on magic. This includes both asking questions about how a spell works or trying to develop new spells. Work on magic when the campaign is not going on - contact the GM privately.
RANGE
Unless otherwise stated in the spell, ‘touch’ spells may be cast on oneself. By…er…touching yourself.
Self is understood to mean ‘your self and a reasonable amount of gear’. Many spells will not work if you are holding on to someone else, even if they are dead or unconscious as they are not a ‘reasonable amount of gear’.
Touching someone else takes an action. If they are trying not to be touched, roll ‘unarmed’.
SPECIAL EFFECTS
The GM may choose to add in whatever special effects to any spell they wish. These may change depending on their whim.
No spell may be cast covertly. Otherwise, we get NPC’s sitting around and ‘staring daggers’ at the PC, the PC dying and not even knowing who was attacking them. Or vice versa. Not a good fit. Magic is always obvious. Sometimes super obvious. Some magicians of sufficient power may even be able to tell when someone starts throwing around magic within their area.
Note that in some zones, casting any spell will result in problems - even if you are casting them at hostiles with no neutral parties around. The experienced players know what sort of problems. In general, casting spells is best done in private to avoid these problems.
SPELL CAPABILITIES
All spells have one effect. [Later or in certain zones, there might be some wild chain casting of various spells in order to have different effects but that is down the road a ways.]
SPELL CASTING
All spells have verbal and gesture components. Few have material components as well.
Also, be sure to note that you can always tell who is doing a spell against you - no hidden guy staring intently at you. Possible exception when someone is doing a ritual spell with a connecting thing - they’ve got your hair or something. But those need to be much weaker like ‘your luck is fucked’ type spells.
Note that if you cannot speak and/or make gestures (your hands are tied up and/or you are gaged) you cannot cast spells. There may also be other things (a silence spell) which will keep you from being able to cast spells.
Different other things (Faraday cages, being bound with a silver chain, anti-magic collars, some circles of power, etc) may cause different problems. Anything from completely suppressing someone’s spell casting ability on to ‘if you try to cast a spell your head explodes’.
On the HC deck, some rounds are also marked ‘no magic’. No spells may be cast during those rounds. In addition, any ‘concentration’ or ongoing effects are turned off. Other magic (such as bonus damage which is ‘permanently’ on a weapon) may be suppressed for the round or destroyed permanently. Ask GM. Generally, stuff that has a duration of less than a year is destroyed, greater than a year is suppressed for a round.
SPELL CHAINS
Chain - this starts off with the least powerful spell of the type and leads to stronger spells. Chains may fork. Once a spell is unlocked, the player may be given a choice of two or more spells. If the player rolls a future critical on the same spell, they then get to learn another.
Example: Getting a critical on purple leads to three possible paths - dinosaur, case or soft. The player opts for soft. Later, they are using the spell purple again and get another critical. This time they choose dinosaur to unlock that chain as well.
Certain new spells will be come up with and put into various chains. For example - Let us say with have the chain:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
A new spell, Juice is come up with. The decision (GM and players, GM gets final word) is made to place it into this chain and the new chain becomes:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Juice - Ghost - Uncle - Meat
If the player knew Night and Fox before then yes, Uncle is pushed a little further out. You’ll get over it. Since spells beyond the basic ones will be mostly player made we’re all hoping they’re useful and wanted.
Let’s say the player was up to Ghost however. They then get a choice of their personal chain looking like:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Meaning they have to learn it next or they can simply ignore and not take Juice. No freebies but no punishment for creating a new spell.
Note that eventually, spells might become more standardized and even get assigned ranks and such. This may break already existing chains apart and make some of the spells unlearnable until some bright spark comes up with a new spell. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon -Ghost - Juice - Uncle - Meat
Let’s say the GM has decided Uncle is too powerful and wants to ramp it up two notches.
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
Those that already have Uncle and Meat are unaffected but someone at Juice or earlier now needs to invent two spells which are agreed to fit into the sequence before Uncle or Meat may be learned. Yeah, it sucks but game balance and better design trump ‘fairness’.
At the GM’s discretion, new spells may be added to existing chains, branch from existing chains or become parts of new chains.
Spells which do not fit into existing chains but are too powerful to form their own chain will be undiscoverable until weaker spells are created to make the chain.
Some spells may be taken off of one chain and moved to a different chain - or even a whole new school by the GM if they feel it would fit better within a different school. This may prevent the character from working on the next spell in that chain though they will still keep the spell they have. Or, if they are able to learn the new chain, the GM may have them unlock all lower level spells before preceding in that new chain. Example:
Night - Fox - Ribbon - Ghost - Juice - [Filler] - [Filler] - Uncle - Meat
At some future point in the campaign it is felt that Juice would better fit into a different chain so it is removed from the above chain and put into:
Fliver - Nox - Juice - Roman - Roam - Rum
Before being able to learn Roman, the GM may decide the PC must learn Fliver - Nox.
The player may not learn a spell further along a chain unless some weird stuff has happened - see GM - or until they have unlocked it by working their way up the chain.
WHAT IF TWO DIFFERENT CHAINS HAVE THE SAME SPELL?
Though I try to avoid this, I’m sure it will come up. In that case, they already know it. There is no value to learning three different ways to do the same thing. Since all of the spells are meant to be single effect, meh. If you crit that spell, you can pick up the next spell on the chain.
SPELL LEVELS
Each spell has ten and only ten levels per spell. While some people may not consider level 10 to be powerful enough this is by design. Spells need to keep lower powered.
Because I’d rather spend my time working on plots than spells - and most PC’s are unwilling to work on anything unless it directly affects their character (and even then it might be iffy) the first release may have several ‘broken chains’. It will be up to the PC’s to forge new links in these chains if they want to continue on with the spells. If they don’t, then getting those spells may not be possible for PC’s. NPC’s will run around shooting flames out of their rears and so on.
What if spells from one chain are substantially stronger than spells from another? Submit ideas to build something more balanced that the GM likes.
TAKING DAMAGE WHILE CASTING A SPELL
You fail the spell and half the MP of the spell are gone.
TAKING DAMAGE WHILE MAINTAINING A SPELL THAT IS ‘CONCENTRATION’ DURATION
Spell effects end as soon as you take damage.
VARIOUS CREATURES AND MAGIC
Lots of creatures can only cast one school of magic and usually do so decently if not great. The PC’s can learn to cast whatever they can find if someone is willing and able to teach.
WHY SPELLS ARE LOW POWERED
In other systems, like D&D, the power curve is such that after the wizard starts casting third level or higher spells, the fighter is left well behind. That’s bad game design. The only solution? Keep spells low powered. Even then, you will have magic users become more powerful than those who don’t use magic. It will just be by (hopefully) a smaller degree.
Also, unlike that woefully designed system, in this one anyone can learn magic. Realizing that armor isn’t much of a balance to the ability to cast spells (especially when you have magic armor) it doesn’t matter if someone wears armor or not for casting spells in most zones.
In addition, all of my campaigns are fairly ‘low powered’. Magic (and ‘parkour’) are not solutions to everything.
UNLOCKING NEW SPELLS
In order to get the next spell up, the player must roll a critical on their spell. If they do, they unlock the next level at their ‘learn’ skill.
Example - if the spell chain is:
No smell -> No smell other -> Breath -> Breath; other -> Gust of wind -> Summon air elemental
If they have the ‘no smell’ spell and make a critical on it, they unlock ‘no smell other’ at ‘learn’. When they eventually get a critical at that, they pick up ‘breath’ at ‘learn’.
POSSESSIONS
10/20/40kg. Not encumbered, moderately encumbered, heavily encumbered.
Extended shopping trips often lead to time spent buying equipment that is often ignored and abandoned.
Why carrying more than what people usually do is not realistic unless it is ‘tool up time’.
ACTIVATING MAGIC ITEMS
Unless otherwise stated, ‘activating’ a magical item (make rocket go now) costs 1 MP, usually doesn’t require a roll and takes one action (ie generally a round).
For some specific items, multiple MP, a roll may be required and it may take multiple rounds, minutes, hours, days, months, years or centuries.
For some zones, magic (or tech) always works. In these zones those items can be used normally.
In other zones, a willpower roll is needed to try to get the magic item or tech item to work.
Making it work takes one round.
That makes some items pretty much useless. Example: A ring of feather fall. The average person (100kg) can fall a bit over 100m in five seconds. Hence, unless your fall is further than that, your ring of feather fall when not in a ‘high magic’ zone is simply jewelry.
CHARACTER DEATH
“Although, so far there's no known treatment for death's crippling effects, still everyone can acquaint himself with the three early warning signs of death: one, rigor mortis; two, a rotting smell; three, occasional drowsiness...It is also important to know what to do you when you die. 1) Don't try to drive a car. 2) Do not operate heavy machinery. 3) Do not talk.” - Kentucky Fried Movie
There are three types of death within the current campaign:
Temporary
Permanent (this isn’t detailed out, you simply die and need to make a new character)
Soft
Which one you take depends upon where you are. Once the PC’s have figured out more about life, the universe and everything they can figure out which happens where. Or speculate now.
‘TEMPORARY DEATH’ RULES
STATS
-10 SAN (flat - note, you may pick up a normal insanity due to this but chances are very good you won't get a temporary insanity due to (special). Goes toward dying/death (self) maxes at 50. If this causes your sanity to reach zero, make a new character.
-2 from all the remaining stats. If any stat is zero, make a new character.
SKILLS
-10% from all skills above 80%. If they have only three skills above 80% they are the only ones affected. Should the character have no skills above 80%, they lose no skill points from that death. [If the skill is exactly 80% you dodged a fucking bullet there.]
GEAR
Assume it’s all gone. The GM might allow the player to choose three pieces of gear and do a willpower x3 for each to see if it is retained. If not then like all other gear on the PC at the time of their death it is gone forever. [Note that in some cases if the other PC’s are near the corpse of the PC before it goes to where ever corpses of PC’s go they may be able to save some or all of the gear if they immediately loot the corpse.] Note - if the PC is permanently dead you might have more time to loot their corpse.
RESPAWN
The GM will let you know where and when you respawn. Due to Rule #2, it should be close and soon but subject to the needs of plot. (See Logan’s Rules, Rule #2). Note that the respawn point will be ‘as safe as Logan can get it’ given where ever you are. Figure if you just died, you’re probably already having a rough day. The GM should attempt to get the PC back into play as soon as possible. It is also recommended the players assist the GM by going to somewhere safe and such. This is a bit ‘metagamey’ but if we can prevent a player from sitting around waiting to play it is worth it.
Also, you respawn at ‘residual self image’. All of the stuff the PC’s had before (servitor of AI, cyberware, etc) - gone. The AI may (or may not) choose to again make the PC a servitor (if the PC seeks them out) but if they do not, the power(s) gained should be removed from the PC sheet. If the PC ever again gets into service with that same AI (assuming the AI has undergone no drastic changes), they pick up the exact same power as before, no rerolling.
STARTING HERO POINTS AFTER DEATH
Half remaining Essence (after deduction).
SOFT DEATH
This can only happen in zones where the day is reset over and over. Even if you ‘die’ you simply wake up the next day, like the movie ‘Groundhog Day’.
Every time you die, take SAN d6/d10, max 50
In the ‘soft death’ places you don’t lose stats and skills though gear loss is as per temporary death above.
GM NOTES
NPC’s - how to make and stat them.
How NPC’s are different than PC’s
The Warehouse story (aka ‘why levels suck ass’)
GM PHILOSOPHY
People who do careful (D&D type with minis, terrain, etc) are essentially wargamers (at least part time wargamers) who have either 'some' or a 'thin veneer' of RP to add to their wargaming.
Which is fine. I'm not into wargaming. At all.
So - with combat in a TTRPG you can take hours (maybe even the whole session) doing it. Fine if that's how your group wants to spend it's time. Many do. Easier than coming up with complex plot.
If I want good quick combat of different levels of 'realism', computer games are my go to. It's quick and brutal and it's not all laid out on a flat (yeah, hills are still pretty flat) surface. You can do wild stuff with multiple levels inside of a computer game.
TTRPG's suck for combat.
What TTRPG's are good at is personalized and complex plot. You can't get that from a mass produced computer game. Even the best written plot is not going to take your individual character in mind unless you are on a pretty narrow railroad track.
Also, TTRPG's are much more 'open' than a computer game. If the players suddenly decide they want to run a hot dog stand and are really in to it, then within a session or two the GM can change around the entire course of the campaign to plots about that hot dog stand. Computer games cannot change that radically.
Those are just my opinions. I realize a lot of people like wargaming (though they may call it RP the stuff I've seen in the last four decades is at best a 50/50 mix) but I personally am on the other end of the spectrum. In my system, combat is brutal short and fatal. The players have to make decisions based on partial information and in a huge hurry. Much like real life combat.
MORE PHILOSOPHY - LOGAN’S RULES
Logan’s Rules
These ‘rules’ are either observations I’ve made or campaign rules for my game. The list has slowly shaped up after four decades of running twenty hour gaming weeks (or more).
Rule 1: Any negative - no matter how large or important will be forgotten about almost immediately by the player. Any bonus - no matter how slight - will be remembered forever. This seems to be human nature. All of the rules within my game are set up to reflect that.
Rule 2: Keep the party together. It’s not just for ‘massed firepower’ but the narrative can only be in one place at one time. If you split up, then you have one group active while the other group has to sit and wait. If it is impossible to keep the party together, the GM will try to keep it as brief as possible so that a group doesn’t have to sit around and wait.
Rule 3: Iron sharpens iron. Recruit clever people. Plus, in this style of game that I run, people who aren’t clever do not seem to have a good time.

Rule 4: Roll first, then figure it out. Making other people wait when you don’t have to is disrespectful and needlessly slows down the game. Plus, it breaks up the pacing and flow of the game.
Rule 5: Give the game your full attention. To do otherwise is disrespectful to the other players and the GM who may have spent hours preparing for your fun. If you are drinking strong drinks or on an electronic device doing something other than gaming, that shows you are not really into it. That is fine but we will find people who are willing to give this game their undivided attention.
Rule 6: Finding good players is difficult. Rare is the player who invests time in the game outside of simply playing it. Expecting otherwise is frustrating and futile. To the players that invest their time in the game outside of gaming as well as in it, know that you are making things better for everyone.
Rule 7: What it looks like Logan wants you to do within the campaign could be an elaborate set up for failure. Think sideways at a problem and try to come up with interesting workarounds.
Rule 8: Lots of problems look insurmountable and unsolvable. If obstacles were easy, chances are good some other person would have taken care of it already. See rule 7 for help.
PREP - how logan does it
Scrivener
Scapple
This specific campaign:
Every 50 points of hero point overflow = a special power; if you play a lot you tend to get one per season if you hoard your hero points.
No memories or spotty memories when you start.
No PVP - though messing with each other a bit is normal
Within this campaign, it is possible to be from a wide variety of time periods. Be sure to generally state when your character is from. Medieval period, 1920’s, Cyberpunk, etc.
MALE VS FEMALE
Stats for both are exactly the same. The GM is a simple creature and asks everyone to play their own sex. Partially to be able to easily tell, partially because after four decades of gaming I’ve not seen anyone able to convincingly play the opposite sex.
NAME
If you don’t come up with one, chances are good the other players will assign you one then you may wish you’d come up with one.
AGE
Pick somewhere between 18 and 50. People outside of that age range are generally not believable as adventurers. Note that in some campaigns (or parts of the campaign) a character’s age may be briefly outside of those ranges for plot reasons.
STARTING WITH SPELLS
Nope - though it is super easy to get the other players to teach you a few spells.
FOR NEW PLAYERS
For all new players, I suggest making a character from approximately ‘now’ (it’s easy to know what sort of tech and such you are use to whereas if you find say a 1920’s character who is good with computers you know they’ve either been playing for awhile and learned it in game or they are shitty roleplayers) and have both a melee and ranged weapon. While not everyone wants to do combat, it is dull to sit around unable to do combat while everyone else indulges themselves in it.