Sci-Fi Starter Set¶
Content used
- The d100 Ruleset — percentile, roll-under resolution
- Basic Combat — the optional combat module
There is an adventure for this set¶
The Great Exchange is a written adventure built on the set below. A bonded warehouse holding sixty thousand tonnes of other people's property, one lot that ships in nine days, and a buyer who has already paid half to have it before then. The way in is bought in advance out of eight Angles, and everything after that is three gates and a number called Lockdown that only ever goes up. It runs at any level between 1 and 5, but is built for 1, 3, and 5.
Read the adventure The six pregens
This is an example, not a product.
It is a science-fiction game built on the d100 Ruleset, written to show what that Ruleset produces when a designer stops hedging and commits to it. It is playable, and a table can run it. It is not exhaustive, not exhaustively balanced, and not pushed to its extremes. Nobody has run a hundred sessions of it. There are gaps a finished game would close, and places where a table will have to rule something on the spot.
What it is good for is showing how the d100 feels once the numbers on the page are real ones.
It is the granular one. Every Target is a percentage you can read off the sheet, every bonus is a number you can weigh before you commit, and the arithmetic is visible at all times. If you want a game where the odds are hidden and the dice are a surprise, one of the other Rulesets will suit you better. This one lets you look: at where a designer has to make a decision the core rules deliberately leave open, and at what happens downstream once they do. It runs from Level 1 to Level 5, which is enough to watch growth work without pretending to be a full campaign.
Liberties have been taken. Four of them are departures from the base rules rather than choices within them, and each is listed below with the reason for it. Everything else is the d100 as written.
Read it as a demonstration. Take it apart, disagree with it, and build the version you would rather play.
Looking for a different Starter Set?¶
Each Starter Set demonstrates a different Ruleset. This one is the d100.
Wasteland — "the d18" Fantasy — "the d20"
The three sets are not three settings sharing a rulebook. Each one takes the Ruleset it is built on and leans into the thing that Ruleset is good at, so they play differently before a single word of setting is read.
| Ruleset | Leans on | Plays like | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fantasy | d20 | A flat die and a Gradient rolled apart from it | Wide swing. Any roll can turn a scene |
| Sci-Fi — this set | d100 | Targets written as true percentages | Exact and tactical. You can see the odds before you commit |
| Wasteland | d18 | A Resolution die that changes size with your condition | Attritional. Most of the game is not a fight |
What This Set Changes¶
Where this set departs from the base d100. Four rules behave differently here than the Ruleset says they behave. Everything not listed is the base rules unaltered.
| # | Change | Base rule | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Combat resolves at the Challenging tier | Attacks are Routine unless an ability states otherwise | At Routine a Score of 80 and a Score of 100 produce the same Target, so growth stops paying. Challenging keeps every point worth something all the way to 100, and makes the early game hard |
| 2 | ✚ HP does not grow with Level. Node steps supply all of it | The base pool gains an increment each Level | A base Level 1 pool is three to nine points, too thin to carry a starter set. Moving that growth onto Nodes also makes durability a build decision |
| 3 | Chassis carry no ϟ Demand. Each permanently reduces maximum ϟ Energy by 1 | Equipment holds a Demand measured against a Capacity | Augmentation is not a reach you grow out of. The hardware occupies the space for good, and a flat cost says so in one number |
| 4 | Maximum ϟ Energy rises every Level to a cap of 6 | 3, then +1 at each even Level | Every Level then offers the same choice: keep the point, or spend it permanently on a Chassis |
Applying a rule somewhere new is not changing it. Restricting Marks to one of each type per Level, dropping the Category line from ability cards, naming the identity pieces, setting a creation spread, defining what per-track ϟ Capacity references, using Loadout, and the Skill, gear and adversary lists are all things the base Ruleset either leaves open or already permits. None of them are departures, and none belong in the table above.
Frontiers Sci-Fi¶
Everything from here is the game itself. It assumes no other document: every rule it uses is written out below, in full, in the order you need it.
What You'll Find¶
| Part | Covers |
|---|---|
| 1 — The Rules | Resolution, the modes of play, Attributes, health, Skills, abilities, combat, and gear. The whole engine |
| 2 — Building a Character | Chassis, Background, Attributes, and your first three Node steps |
| 3 — Chassis, BKGs & Abilities | The lists you pick from at creation, plus the shared ability pool |
| 4 — Nodes | Protocols and Calibrations: the twelve tracks a character is assembled from |
| 5 — Weapons, Armor & Items | The gear list: general items, weapons, and armor |
| 6 — Advancement | Marks, Levels, and what five Levels of growth looks like |
| 7 — Running the Game | Calling difficulty, handing out circumstance, and building a fight |
How Much Is Here¶
Enough for Levels 1 through 5, which is four Party Pursuit resolutions and around twelve sessions at the suggested pacing.
That pacing is a suggestion rather than a rule, and it is the thing most likely to differ at your table. Levels come from the Party Pursuit, so a crew that resolves theirs quickly climbs quickly. Marks come from Individual Pursuits, so a table that leans on personal goals hands them out faster than one that does not.
The number that actually runs out is the Node budget. By Level 5 a character holds seven guaranteed steps and up to twelve with Marks, which is enough to max two Nodes and branch into two more. Past that there is nothing left to buy, and the set stops having answers.
None of that is a hard limit. Write a sixth Level, extend the ✚ HP table, and keep going.
What a Character Looks Like¶
Four Attributes on a hundred-point scale, totalling exactly 200, so every strength is bought with a weakness. A Chassis of augmentations bolted into the body, permanently, at a permanent cost. A Background that says where you came from and who still owes you. And a stack of Node steps spent across six Protocols, what you know how to do, and six Calibrations, what you know how to use.
There are no classes here and no packages. You assemble a specialist out of parts, and you live with whatever gaps that leaves.
1 — The Rules¶
The Resolution System¶
The Resolution System answers any question the fiction cannot settle on its own. When the outcome of an action is uncertain and the result matters, you resolve it here. When it is not uncertain, or the result does not matter, nobody rolls anything.
A resolution uses the Resolution Dice: two ten-sided dice, one read as tens and one as units, together giving a result from 1 to 100. They answer two questions at once:
- Does it succeed? Answered by the pair read together as a percentile result.
- How strongly does it land? Answered by the units die alone, read as the Gradient Die.
Both answers come from a single throw.
Reading the Dice¶
The tens die gives the first digit, the units die the second. A tens die showing 4 and a units die showing 7 reads as 47. A pair reading 00 counts as 100, the highest result there is, and in a roll-under system that makes it the worst.
If your dice are marked 1–10
Percentile d10s ship marked two ways. On a die numbered 0–9, read the faces as printed. On a die numbered 1–10, read the 10 as a 0. A units die is never worth ten; it is the second digit of a two-digit number, so its lowest value is 0 and its highest is 9.
Targets Live on the Sheet¶
Each of the four Attributes carries three pre-computed Targets, written on the character sheet when it is made. Difficulty selects which one is in play. Nothing is calculated at the table.
| Tier | Target | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|
| Trivial | Score × 1½ | 99 |
| Routine | Score | 75 |
| Challenging | Half Score | 50 |
Round up. A natural 100 always fails whatever the Target, which keeps anything from being certain.
The ceiling clamps the Target derived from the Score, while adjustments made afterward stay unclamped, so gear and training still have somewhere to go.
Example¶
A character with ✩ Deft 60 writes Trivial 90 / Routine 60 / Challenging 30 on their sheet, and never does that arithmetic again.
Difficulty¶
The GM calls the tier before the dice come out.
- Trivial — well within competence, and reserved for work that would only be interesting if it went badly.
- Routine — ordinary application of skill, under no particular pressure.
- Challenging — the work is hard, or the situation is.
| Example task | Tier |
|---|---|
| Recall something your training covered; read a cooperative person; climb a ladder in a hurry | Trivial |
| Force a jammed hatch; patch a breach with the right tools; talk past a bored checkpoint guard | Routine |
| Spot the one crate that was opened and resealed; land a shot in a firefight; talk past a guard who was warned about you | Challenging |
| Hotwire an unfamiliar drive core while it spins up; talk down someone who wants you dead | Challenging, with Disfavor |
Where a task sits between two tiers, close the gap with a circumstance adjustment or with Disfavor rather than inventing a fourth tier.
Challenging is the house tier
Most tables running the base d100 attack at Routine. This set attacks at Challenging, and calls it for anything attempted under real threat. That halves the Target and pushes an unassisted attack to roughly 30%.
The intent is to make the tactical layer, Skills, Calibrations, position, preparation, decide a fight rather than decorate one. It also keeps advancement paying: at Routine, a Score of 80 and a Score of 100 produce the same Target, so growth flattens. At Challenging, every point keeps mattering all the way up.
Adjusting the Target¶
Once the tier is chosen, the situation adjusts the Target, in this order:
- Subtract Defense, if the action is against another character.
- Apply circumstance, positive or negative.
- Add numeric bonuses from Calibrations, gear, and Protocol features.
- Subtract ⊖ Fatigue, at 5 per point held.
A Target is never reduced below 1, so there is always a chance, however poor.
\"Roll against a Defense\" means subtract it
Abilities and weapons throughout Frontiers are written as a Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense or ⛉ Mental Defense. That phrasing is shared across every Ruleset so the same card works in all of them, and each Ruleset defines how it resolves.
Here it means: take your Target for the action and subtract that Defense from it, then roll under. A Defense is never something you roll against directly, and nothing else about the card changes.
| Circumstance | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| Minor help or hindrance | ±5 |
| Real advantage or obstacle | ±10 |
| Overwhelming | ±20 |
Total circumstance is capped at ±20 in this set, so that the sheet drives the roll and the scene only modifies it. A GM stacking past 20 should reach for Favor or Disfavor instead, or reconsider whether the action needs a roll at all.
Modifiers can be negative
Circumstance runs both directions, and darkness, cover, bad footing, and unfamiliar equipment are all ordinary. A character who never checks whether the situation is against them will be surprised by how often it is.
The Gradient Die¶
The units die is read a second time to say how strongly a result landed.
| Units die | Gradient |
|---|---|
| 0 – 1 | Positive |
| 2 – 7 | Standard |
| 8 – 9 | Negative |
Because the units die is one digit of the same two-digit number, the Gradient is only loosely tied to the verdict. A success reads Positive about 20% of the time, and so does a failure. Positive and Negative each come up on one roll in five.
The Gradient never reverses the verdict
A Negative success remains a success and a Positive failure remains a failure, since the Gradient colors a result without ever overturning it.
Reading it is optional and costs nothing, since the die is already on the table. Consult it when the texture of the result matters and leave it alone when it does not.
What the Gradient sounds like¶
| Positive | Standard | Negative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| On a success | Clean and fast, and it buys you something extra | It works | It works, and it costs you: noise, time, a broken tool |
| On a failure | You fail, but you learn something or keep your footing | It does not work | It does not work, and the situation gets worse |
Favor and Disfavor¶
Favor and Disfavor apply to one physical die, never to the pair.
- Favor: roll one extra die of the chosen kind and keep the better result for that die.
- Disfavor: roll one extra die of the chosen kind and keep the worse result.
The other die stands exactly as rolled, and you never reroll the whole percentile result. Better and worse are judged on the final percentile reading rather than on the face of the die alone, remembering that a pair reading 00 counts as 100.
| Placed on | Effect |
|---|---|
| The tens die | The strongest way to shift whether the action succeeds |
| The units die | Shifts success slightly, and shifts the Gradient substantially, since that die is read twice |
Favor is placed before the die it affects is rolled: choose the die, then roll it. It is never added to a die already on the table. Disfavor is placed by whatever imposes it, or by the GM. An effect that grants Favor without naming a die puts it on the tens die.
Each side stacks up to 3. Cap each side at 3 first, then cancel one against one, so the two never apply together.
What Favor is worth here¶
At a Target of 30, Favor on the tens die raises your odds of success from 30% to 51%: a value equivalent of about +20. Use that as the conversion rate when pricing anything.
| Target | Plain | With Favor | Value equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | 24% | 42% | +18 |
| 30 | 30% | 51% | +21 |
| 35 | 35% | ~58% | +23 |
Stacking diminishes sharply. At Target 30 the first Favor is a value equivalent of +21, the second +15, the third +10.
Numbers for what you built, Favor for what the world gives you
This set separates the two tools.
Calibrations, gear, and Protocol features grant numbers. They pay out linearly and reward long investment in a single direction.
Skills, cover, position, and preparation grant Favor, which swings hard but caps out quickly.
The two stack. A specialist using both is roughly two and a half times as likely to land a hit as someone working outside their training, and that gap is where the tactical game lives.
Rolling the Dice¶
A full resolution runs in order:
- Declare intent. The player says what they are trying to accomplish.
- Find the Attribute. The GM identifies which of the four governs the attempt.
- Choose the difficulty. Combat, and anything under real threat, is Challenging.
- Adjust the Target. Defense, then circumstance, then bonuses, then ⊖ Fatigue. Never below 1.
- Check for a Skill. If trained technique applies, gain Favor and place it before rolling that die.
- Roll the Resolution Dice. Read them as a percentile result. Meet or roll under to succeed.
- Read the Gradient Die if the degree matters.
A Resolution, Worked¶
Ander is braced behind a cargo container. A boarder is crossing the bay toward him, and he fires.
- Declare intent. Ander's player says: "I put two rounds into the one coming through the hatch."
- Find the Attribute. Steadying a rifle is ✩ Deft. Ander's is 60, so his sheet reads Trivial 90 / Routine 60 / Challenging 30.
- Choose the difficulty. A firefight is Challenging. Target 30.
- Adjust the Target. The boarder's ⛊ Physical Defense is 6, giving 24. Ander bracing against the container is a real advantage: +10, giving 34. His Ballistics Calibration sits at step 3, granting +10: Target 44.
- Check for a Skill. Ander has no Skill covering gunnery, so nothing from his sheet. But the boarder is silhouetted against an open shutter, and the GM allows that as Favor. Ander places it on the tens die.
- Roll. Ander rolls two tens dice, 8 and 3, and a units die showing 1. Keeping the better tens gives 31, under 44. Hit.
- Read the Gradient. The units die shows 1: Positive. Under the combat rules, that is a Critical.
Unassisted, that shot was a 24% proposition; braced, calibrated, and with the light on his side it was 68%. Nothing about Ander changed between those two numbers except what he brought and where he was standing.
A Scene, End to End¶
Three crew are aboard a derelict hauler looking for a flight recorder. The GM has decided the ship is dark, the atmosphere is thin but breathable, and something else came aboard before them.
Kell has ◉ Acuity 60, so her sheet reads Trivial 90 / Routine 60 / Challenging 30. She has the Systems Skill. Ander has ❖ Vigor 60 and ✩ Deft 50, with Athletics. Vitt has ◬ Resolve 60 and ◉ Acuity 40, with Rapport.
"Can I tell which way the crew went?"
The GM decides tracks in the dust are visible to anyone who looks. No roll. She describes scuffed decking leading aft.
"I want to know what the ship was carrying."
The manifest terminal is dead but intact. Kell is trained on this and nothing is pressing her, so the GM calls Routine ◉ Acuity, Target 60. Her Systems Skill applies, so she takes Favor and places it on the tens die.
She rolls tens dice of 7 and 3, units 4. Keeping the better tens gives 34, under 60. Success. The units die shows 4: Standard. The manifest opens, and it is unremarkable.
"Anything odd about it?"
The same terminal, but now she is looking for what somebody hid. The GM calls Challenging ◉ Acuity, Target 30. Same Skill, same Favor.
She rolls 6 and 5, units 8. Keeping the 5 gives 58, over 30. Failure. The units die shows 8: Negative. She fails, and it costs her, the terminal locks her out and logs the attempt somewhere.
"I force the aft hatch."
Ander braces against the frame. This is ❖ Vigor, and the hatch is warped rather than sealed, so Routine, Target 60. Athletics applies: Favor on the tens.
He rolls 2 and 8, units 1. The 2 gives 21, under 60. Success. Units die shows 1: Positive. It opens without a sound, which is rather better than merely opening.
"I'd rather talk to it than shoot it."
Something is standing in the dark on the other side. Vitt tries. Nerve rather than knowledge is what the moment asks for, so the GM calls Challenging ◬ Resolve, Target 30, and subtracts nothing because this is not a Contest yet. Rapport applies: Favor.
He rolls 9 and 4, units 9. The 4 gives 49, over 30. Failure, units 9: Negative.
It moves. Play becomes an Encounter.
What the example is showing
Four rolls across four different Attributes, with the difficulty changing twice on the same terminal because the question changed. At no point did anyone roll to see whether they could see the floor.
Contests¶
When two characters oppose one another directly, both roll, each against their own adjusted Target, at the same tier, even when the two sides use different Attributes.
- Both succeed, or both fail: whoever rolled further under their Target wins, having managed it more cleanly.
- One succeeds and one fails: the one who succeeded wins.
- Exact tie of margin: favor the defender.
Only the winner's Gradient is read, since a Contest produces one result and needs one reading.
Flow of Play¶
Play runs in three modes, each defined by how fast time moves. The mode sets the tempo, and the tempo decides what kind of effort a character can bring to bear.
| Mode | Time | Economy |
|---|---|---|
| Encounter | Seconds | ✦ Action Points, ⇉ Movement, turn order |
| Exploration | Minutes | None |
| Endeavor | Hours or days | None |
✦ Actions and ✽ Activities¶
- An ✦ Action is quick enough to happen inside an Encounter Round. Firing a weapon, triggering an implant, vaulting a rail.
- An ✽ Activity takes longer than a single Round. Repairing a coupling, searching a hold, resting, traveling. ✽ Activities cannot be performed during an Encounter.
✦ Actions can happen in any mode, but they are only metered, paid for with ✦ Action Points, inside an Encounter.
Encounter¶
Seconds matter. A boarding action, a firefight, a scramble for an airlock that is already closing.
An Encounter runs in repeating Rounds. In each Round every participant takes one Turn in ➤ Initiative order. When all have acted, a new Round begins. A Round is roughly 10 seconds.
When play shifts into an Encounter, everyone determines ➤ Initiative and a fresh Round begins. Nobody starts with ✦ Action Points or ⇉ Movement already spent.
Turns¶
At the start of a Turn:
- ✦ Action Points refresh to maximum.
- ⇉ Movement refreshes to maximum.
- Effects that expire "at the start of your Turn" resolve.
At the end of a Turn:
- Unspent ⇉ Movement is lost.
- Unspent ✦ Action Points remain available for Reactions until your next Turn.
- Effects that expire "at the end of your Turn" resolve.
➤ Initiative¶
Each participant chooses one method at the start of an Encounter, and it holds for the whole Encounter.
- Flat. Take a standing value of 10 + ✩ Deft Rank.
- Rolled. Roll
1d10, either die of the pair, + 5 + ✩ Deft Rank.
Participants act in descending order. Ties break on the higher ✩ Deft Rank, then a roll-off. Once set, the order holds unless an effect changes it; a change takes effect at the start of the next Round and never reorders Turns already taken.
✦ Action Points¶
Each participant begins their Turn with 3 ✦AP. An ✦ Action costs 1 ✦AP unless stated otherwise.
Declare an ✦ Action, pay its full cost, and resolve it completely before declaring another. You cannot begin an ✦ Action you cannot pay for, and partial payment is not allowed.
✧ Free Actions¶
A ✧ Free Action costs no ✦AP. Two limits apply:
- Each individual ✧ Free Action may be used once per Turn.
- A participant may use at most 3 ✧ Free Actions in a single Turn.
✧ Interact is the single ✧ Free Action covering all item handling: drawing, Stowing, Equipping, picking up, handing off. Because all handling shares one ✧ Free Action, you may Interact once per Turn, whichever item is involved. Drawing a sidearm and stowing a cutting torch in the same Turn is two Interacts, and therefore not possible.
Reactions¶
A Reaction is an effect used outside your own Turn, in response to a trigger. Reactions are paid from your current ✦AP pool, the same pool you spend on your Turn.
Because unspent ✦AP persists through the Round, every Turn carries a choice: spend freely now, or hold points back to react. A participant with no ✦AP available cannot react.
⇉ Movement¶
On your Turn you may move up to your ⇉ Movement in ⌗ Units, equal to 5 + ✩ Deft Rank, never less than 1. ⇉ Movement refreshes at the start of the Turn and any unspent is lost at its end. It may be split freely before, between, and after ✦ Actions.
One ⌗ Unit is 5 feet, or one square or hex on a map. ⌗ Units measure movement, ranges, and areas alike. Movement forced by an external effect costs nothing and happens immediately.
ϟ Energy in an Encounter¶
Most ✦ Actions cost only ✦AP. The demanding ones cost ϟ Energy as well. How ϟ Energy is sized, spent, and recovered is covered under Vitality, Exertion & Death.
Exploration¶
The ordinary business of play between crises: moving through the world, dealing with the people in it, working out what to do next. It is the default mode and the vast majority of a session.
Exploration runs on choices. The GM describes a situation, the players decide what their characters do, the fiction updates, and it repeats. Most decisions resolve through description alone. A roll enters only when the outcome is uncertain and the result matters.
There is no ✦AP tracking, no turn order, and no ⇉ Movement budget. Time is loose. When a situation tightens so that order and position suddenly matter, play becomes an Encounter. When it stretches into a long, uneventful span, it becomes an Endeavor.
Three shapes come up constantly.
Interaction¶
Talking with people: negotiating, gathering rumors, buying passage, reading a room. Most of it is pure roleplay and needs no dice.
There is no social Attribute. A social action uses whichever Attribute fits the approach: ❖ Vigor to lean on someone physically, ✩ Deft or ◉ Acuity to charm or misdirect, ◬ Resolve to persuade through sheer conviction. Training is applied on top as Favor from a Skill, so a naturally intimidating character and a trained negotiator can reach the same goal by different routes.
One roll usually settles a social beat. Save repeated checks for a situation that has meaningfully shifted.
Investigation¶
Searching a place, examining a component, piecing things together. What is plainly visible needs no roll: the GM simply says what the characters see. What takes a moment's attention is a Trivial ◉ Acuity check. Finding what is deliberately hidden is Routine or Challenging, depending on how well it was hidden.
Traversal¶
Moving through a space that is not a fight: a station concourse, a derelict, a stretch of surface. Outside an Encounter there is no ⇉ Movement budget; characters go where they choose and a check happens only at a real obstacle.
| Approach | How it works |
|---|---|
| On a grid | Position and distance tracked in ⌗ Units, with no ✦AP or ⇉ Movement limit outside an Encounter |
| In narrative | The GM tracks position loosely, and calls a roll only when an obstacle demands one |
Endeavor¶
An Endeavor commits a long stretch of time, hours or days, to a single pursuit, handled as one compressed span. The GM narrates it, pausing for a beat of roleplay or a single roll when something is worth zooming in on.
Endeavors run almost entirely on ✽ Activities. No ✦ Actions are spent and no economy is tracked. The character is committing time.
Rest and Recovery¶
The most common Endeavor, and the only one with fixed rules. Rest must be uninterrupted and taken somewhere free of pressure.
For each uninterrupted hour:
- Regain 1 ϟ Energy.
For each 3 uninterrupted hours:
- Regain half of maximum ✚ HP. This stacks at rolling intervals, so 3 hours restores half and 6 hours restores all of it.
- Remove one ⊗ Wound or one ⊖ Fatigue. Not both in the same interval.
If rest is broken by danger or significant exertion, only the current unfinished interval's progress is lost. Anything already recovered stays, and the count toward the next interval restarts from zero.
The three pools mend at different speeds, which is what keeps them meaningfully separate: ϟ Energy returns steadily, ✚ HP is back inside six hours, and ⊗ Wounds and ⊖ Fatigue come off one point per three hours, and only one or the other in that span, so a character carrying a full ⊗ Wound track needs most of a day to clear it, and longer if they are exhausted as well.
Injuries follow you out of the fight, where the buffer does not.
Downtime¶
Time spent on a pursuit rather than recovery. Rough scopes, all of them tunable:
| Pursuit | What it is | Example scope |
|---|---|---|
| Training | Improve a capability | About a week of focused effort per step |
| Project | Build, repair, or modify something | A simple job in a day; a complex one over weeks |
| Work | Take a contract, run cargo, hire out | Earns resources across the span |
| Study | Research a question | The answer emerges with the time invested |
Anything that permanently changes a character's sheet runs through Advancement.
Travel¶
Measure a journey in days, then apply the conveyance's pace. What a day covers is the table's to pin down.
| Conveyance | Pace |
|---|---|
| On foot | Baseline |
| Ground vehicle | About 5× |
| Atmospheric flight | 10× or more |
| Orbital transfer | Hours to days, depending on the setting |
| Interstellar transit | Days to weeks, depending on the setting |
One event per leg is a reasonable default. A dangerous route warrants more, a safe one fewer.
Attributes & Derivatives¶
Every character is defined by four Attributes. An Attribute measures a fundamental capacity, what a character is innately capable of before training, tools, or circumstance are taken into account. Almost every roll draws on one of the four, and most other values on the sheet are calculated from them.
The Four Attributes¶
| Icon | Attribute | Capacity |
|---|---|---|
| ❖ | Vigor | Bodily power and endurance: strength, stamina, toughness |
| ✩ | Deft | Bodily precision and speed: coordination, agility, reflexes |
| ◉ | Acuity | Mental sharpness and reach: perception, reasoning, memory |
| ◬ | Resolve | Mental fortitude and steadiness: willpower, composure, conviction |
❖ Vigor is the body's power and durability. How much force you exert, how long you sustain it, and how much punishment you absorb before it tells. Drives: Max ✚ HP, Max ⊗ Wounds. In play: forcing, hauling, enduring, close-quarters violence.
✩ Deft is the body's precision and tempo. Accuracy, speed, balance, reflexes. Drives: ⛊ Physical Defense, ⇉ Movement, ➤ Initiative. In play: shooting, dodging, stealth, fine work, acting first.
◉ Acuity is the mind turned outward. Perception, deduction, recall, technical grasp, and seeing a lie coming. Drives: ⛉ Mental Defense, extra Skills. In play: noticing, diagnosing, investigating, resisting deception.
◬ Resolve is the mind turned inward. Willpower, composure, and how firmly you hold under fear and strain. Drives: Max ⊖ Fatigue, ⛉ Mental Defense, and lends to ✚ HP. In play: resisting coercion, holding focus, outlasting pressure.
Telling them apart¶
| Power & Endurance | Precision & Reaction | |
|---|---|---|
| Physical | ❖ Vigor | ✩ Deft |
| Mental | ◬ Resolve | ◉ Acuity |
Breaking a hatch is ❖ Vigor. Bypassing its lock is ✩ Deft. Spotting the lie is ◉ Acuity. Refusing to break under the interrogation is ◬ Resolve.
Score and Rank¶
Every Attribute is read two ways.
- The Score is the number on the hundred-point scale. It is your chance, in percent, of succeeding at Routine work, and it is what you roll under.
- The Rank is the same Attribute compressed into steps, used to build derived values.
Rank = (Score − 50) ÷ 5
| Score | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | −4 | −2 | +0 | +2 | +4 | +6 | +8 |
Rank is never added to a Resolution roll. It only appears in the values it produced. The single exception is rolled ➤ Initiative, which is not a Resolution roll.
Ranks can be negative
A Score below 50 gives a negative Rank, and it subtracts everywhere Rank is used. In this set, where Scores start as low as 30, that matters more than it does in the base rules. A few derived values are floored so they cannot break.
As a rough reading of the scale: 30 is unpracticed, 50 is competent, 70 is skilled, 90 is exceptional.
Derivatives¶
| Derivative | Formula |
|---|---|
| Max ✚ HP | 10 + ❖ Rank + ◬ Rank + total Node ✚HP |
| ⛊ Physical Defense | 3 × half the sum of ❖ and ✩ Ranks, round up, min 0 |
| ⛉ Mental Defense | 3 × half the sum of ◉ and ◬ Ranks, round up, min 0 |
| Max ⊗ Wounds | 3, +1 per 2 ❖ Rank. Max 5, min 1 |
| Max ⊖ Fatigue | 3, +1 per 2 ◬ Rank. Max 5, min 1 |
| ⇉ Movement | 5 + ✩ Rank, min 1 |
| ➤ Initiative | 10 + ✩ Rank, or 1d10 + 5 + ✩ Rank |
| Starting Skills | 3, +1 per 2 ◉ Rank, min 1 |
| Slots | 10, flat |
✚ HP is live, and never recalculated
In the base rules ✚ HP accumulates an increment each Level, so raising ❖ Vigor later means recomputing the history. Nothing accumulates in this set, since ✚ HP is simply the formula, read whenever it is needed. Raise ❖ or ◬ and it updates on the spot.
Defense rewards balanced pairs¶
Defense sums a pair and halves it, so dumping either Attribute in a pair costs you protection across that whole track.
| Pair | ⛊ or ⛉ |
|---|---|
| 60 / 60 | 6 |
| 60 / 50 | 3 |
| 50 / 50 | 0 |
| 60 / 40 | 0 |
| 40 / 40 | 0 |
A character who maxes ❖ Vigor and dumps ✩ Deft is no harder to hit than one who is average at both.
Vitality, Exertion & Death¶
Three separate tracks, mending at different speeds, measuring different kinds of harm.
✚ HP¶
✚ HP is the buffer: grit, near-misses, and glancing blows that soak an ordinary hit before it does lasting damage.
Harm reduces ✚ HP first, and it never drops below 0. Excess harm from a single blow is lost rather than carried over: a hit for 12 against 3 remaining ✚ HP empties the buffer and no more.
When ✚ HP reaches 0, the character takes one ⊗ Wound and is downed. They take no further ⊗ Wounds from that blow, however large it was. A downed character gains more ⊗ Wounds only if something strikes them while they are down, one per instance.
✚ HP returns quickly with rest, and it is meant to be spent and refilled often.
⊗ Wounds¶
A ⊗ Wound is serious injury: the harm that lands once there is nothing left to absorb it. The track is short at every Level of play.
Every ⊗ Wound held degrades both Defenses, at 5 per point, read at the current total and never accumulating across them.
| ⊗ Wounds held | Penalty to ⛊ and ⛉ |
|---|---|
| 1 | −5 |
| 2 | −10 |
| 3 | −15 |
| 4 | −20 |
| 5 | −25 |
A Defense reduced by ⊗ Wounds never falls below 0, so a badly wounded character stops contributing protection without ever making an attacker's Target better than swinging at nothing.
Because ⊗ Wounds are taken at the moment a character is downed, the penalty is usually felt in the next fight rather than the one that caused it. You carry your injuries forward until they are treated.
Harm that would push a character past maximum ⊗ Wounds is death.
⊖ Fatigue¶
⊖ Fatigue is depletion: a body and mind pushed too hard.
Every point of ⊖ Fatigue applies a penalty to every Target the character rolls against, at 5 per point, read at the current total.
| ⊖ Fatigue held | Penalty to every Target |
|---|---|
| 1 | −5 |
| 2 | −10 |
| 3 | −15 |
| 4 | −20 |
| 5 | −25 |
A character at maximum ⊖ Fatigue is still conscious and can act, heavily impaired. The point that would push them past maximum drops them unconscious.
The two dials are asymmetric on purpose
⊗ Wounds are felt later, and by your enemies. They make you easier to hit, next fight.
⊖ Fatigue is felt now, and by you. It makes you worse at everything you attempt, immediately, and it is felt by every character regardless of build.
Overspend forces a choice between them, point by point, and that choice takes a genuine read of the situation.
ϟ Energy¶
ϟ Energy is the reserve a character spends to reach beyond their normal limits.
Everything usable has a Demand: the level of power it operates at. Every character has a Capacity: the level they sustain without strain.
ϟ Energy cost = Demand − Capacity, minimum 0.
- At or below Capacity, a thing is native: using it costs nothing.
- Above Capacity, it costs the difference. Reaching strains you.
An ability's cost is paid each time it is used. Equipment holds its cost for as long as it is Equipped, reducing the ϟ Energy maximum rather than spending from the pool.
| Character Level | Max ϟ Energy |
|---|---|
| 1 | 3 |
| 2 | 4 |
| 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 6 |
| 5 | 6 |
Character Level sets the size of the pool and nothing else. Capacity, the number that decides what is free, is read per track, below.
A character's ϟ Energy maximum can never be reduced below 1 by held drain. Gear whose combined drain would take them below 1 cannot be Equipped at all until something else is set aside, or Capacity rises to afford it.
Capacity is per-track in this set
The base rules invite systems with multiple progression tracks to define which Level their Capacity references. This set does exactly that:
- Protocol abilities reference your steps in that Protocol. An ability granted at step n carries Demand n + 1, so the step that grants it never quite covers it.
- General Abilities reference your highest single Node, whichever that is, so depth pays here where breadth does not.
- Gear references the Calibration governing its family. A Demand-4 rifle is free at Ballistics 4, and drains 2 at Ballistics 2.
- Chassis reference nothing. Each takes 1 off your maximum ϟ Energy, permanently.
- Character Level sets the size of the ϟ Energy pool.
In practice this means your newest ability costs 1 ϟ and everything below it is free. See Part 4.
Overspend¶
A character may spend more ϟ Energy than they have. There is no ceiling on how far past 0 they reach, but the shortfall is paid immediately: each point spent below 0 becomes 1 ⊗ Wound or 1 ⊖ Fatigue, chosen point by point as it is paid.
Held equipment drain can never push a character into Overspend; only abilities can do that.
Overspend needs no cap of its own, because the tracks run to 5 at most and often to 2 or 3 here, so reaching a few points past empty is frequently enough to drop a character.
Unconscious and Death¶
A character is put out of the fight in one of two ways:
- Downed by harm. ✚ HP reaches 0. They take one ⊗ Wound and drop.
- Collapsed by exhaustion. ⊖ Fatigue would be pushed past maximum. They are held at maximum and drop.
Either way they cannot act, cannot move under their own power, and are left at the mercy of the scene. Harm inflicted on a character who is already down adds a ⊗ Wound for each instance, and enough of those will kill them.
A character downed by harm returns as soon as any ✚ HP is restored. A character collapsed by exhaustion returns the moment their ⊖ Fatigue falls below maximum.
A character dies when ⊗ Wounds would be pushed past their maximum, with no dying timer and no bleeding out. The track is itself the edge.
Skills¶
A Skill is trained technique, and having one is binary. When a Skill applies to a roll it grants Favor, and that is its entire mechanical effect. One Skill per roll; they never stack.
The groups below carry no rule of their own. A Skill may apply to any roll the GM agrees it covers, including an ability's roll.
Body¶
| Skill | Covers |
|---|---|
| Athletics | Climbing, hauling, running, holding on when something is trying to shake you off. |
| Survival | Shelter, water, weather, and staying alive somewhere that wants you dead. |
| Stealth | Not being seen, not being heard, and not being on the log. |
| Piloting | Small craft, ground vehicles, loaders, and hard docking. |
| Vacuum | Suit work, tethers, and moving in nothing without wasting air. |
| Sleight | Palming, lifting, and fine work done where someone is watching. |
Mind¶
| Skill | Covers |
|---|---|
| Engineering | Drives, hulls, power, and the ten thousand things that fail on a ship. |
| Systems | Networks, intrusion, and reading a machine's mind. |
| Medicine | Trauma, toxins, surgery, and telling someone how bad it is. |
| Science | Analysis, chemistry, biology, and knowing what a reading means. |
| Navigation | Routes, transits, charts, and where a thing is going to be. |
| Security | Locks, alarms, cameras, and the habits of the people who installed them. |
| Salvage | Appraisal, scavenging, and knowing which piece of a wreck is worth carrying. |
Voice¶
| Skill | Covers |
|---|---|
| Negotiation | Terms, contracts, prices, and finding the deal that closes. |
| Deception | Lies that hold up, and the paperwork that supports them. |
| Intimidation | Making the consequences legible without having to demonstrate them. |
| Command | Being obeyed by people who have a choice about it. |
| Streetwise | Ports, black markets, and who to ask about what. |
| Rapport | Reading a room, and being someone people want to talk to. |
Abilities¶
An ability is a specific thing a character can do that the ordinary rules do not cover. Abilities come from Protocols, from the shared General pool, and from equipment, and every one of them is written on the same card.
Reading an Ability¶
The badge on the left of a card is the step that grants it. The line beneath the name carries everything else: the ✦AP cost in gold, how the ability is used, and its ϟ Demand.
| On the card | Means |
|---|---|
| ✦ Action | Costs 1 ✦ Action Point |
| ✦✦ Action | Costs 2 ✦ Action Points |
| ✦ Reaction | Used outside your own Turn when its Trigger is met, at the ✦AP shown. Reacting means holding points back on your own Turn |
| ✧ Free Action | No ✦AP. Each may be used once per Turn, and only 3 per Turn in total |
| ✽ Activity | Longer than a Round, so it cannot be used during an Encounter |
| ϟ Demand n | Costs n minus your steps in that Protocol, minimum 0. In practice your newest ability costs 1 ϟ and the rest are free |
A Trigger, set apart in its own box, means the ability waits for a condition rather than being declared freely.
Once against a target per day¶
Some abilities carry this line, and it means what it says: you may use the ability on a different person, system, or place freely, but not on the same one again until a day has passed.
Inside an Encounter, ✦AP is the limiter, three points a Turn is a real budget. Outside one it is no limiter at all, because nothing stops a character repeating a Free Action until it works. Abilities that mostly operate outside combat are held in check by time and by this line instead.
No Categories in this set
The base rules let an ability carry a Category, Body, Mind, or Voice, with (opt.) or (req.) marking whether a Skill in that Category is needed, and the ability then naming a specific improvement the Skill unlocks.
This set leaves them out and keeps abilities and Skills separate. An ability does what its card says, and a Skill grants Favor on any roll the GM agrees it covers, including an ability's roll. Nothing on a card gates on what is written in your Skill list.
The cost is small, a lost hook for tying training to a specific ability, and in exchange both systems mean one thing each, which matters more in a set this size.
Pursuits & Advancement¶
A character advances on two clocks that do not feed each other. One is theirs. One belongs to the whole crew.
The Two Pursuits¶
| Whose | What it is | Earns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual Pursuit | One character's | What that person wants, written by the player rather than chosen from a list | 1 Mark, to that character, about once a session |
| Party Pursuit | The whole crew's | What the crew is trying to do, agreed between everyone | 1 Level, to everybody at once, about every third session |
What They Buy¶
A Mark is one entry from this menu. Maximum three per Level, and only one of each type per Level, so three Marks means three different rows. Marks are spent when earned and never banked.
| Mark | Effect |
|---|---|
| Attribute | +5 to two different Attribute Scores |
| Skill | Gain one Skill |
| Ability | Gain one General Ability |
| Resilience | +1 maximum ⊗ Wounds or ⊖ Fatigue, to a cap of 5 |
| System | Advance one Node step. Grants no ✚ HP |
A Level goes to everyone at the same time and grants:
| On a Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| ϟ Capacity | +1 on every track |
| Node step | One step, and the ✚ HP that Node grants |
| ϟ Energy | +1 maximum, to a cap of 6, or a new Chassis instead |
| Loadout | +1 at Levels 3 and 5 |
Full rules in Advancement.
Combat¶
Combat uses the Basic Combat module. Its own weapon and armor cards are written on a twenty-point scale. The damage transfers cleanly, since damage is measured against ✚ HP and ✚ HP is the same in every Ruleset; the Defense numbers do not, because a Defense here is subtracted from a percentile Target and a flat +2 is worth about an eighth of what it is worth on a d20. The gear in Part 5 is written to this chassis instead.
How an Attack Resolves¶
Before anything else, the numbers a fight runs on:
| ✦ Action Points | 3 at the start of each Turn. An ✦ Action costs 1 unless it says otherwise |
| ⇉ Movement | 5 + ✩ Deft Rank, in ⌗ Units, refreshed each Turn |
| ➤ Initiative | 10 + ✩ Deft Rank, or 1d10 + 5 + ✩ Deft Rank, chosen once per Encounter |
| ⌗ Unit | 5 feet, or one square or hex |
| Reactions | Paid from the same ✦AP pool, so reacting means holding points back |
Full definitions in Flow of Play.
An attack is an ordinary resolution, and it uses the same rule everything else does.
- Choose the Attribute you are attacking with. Every weapon card suggests one or two, and those are suggestions.
- Take its Challenging Target.
- Subtract the defender's Defense, then apply circumstance and your Calibration bonus.
- Roll under. The weapon supplies the damage, the reach, and any rider.
Any Attribute, if you can argue for it¶
The four Attributes describe four ways of being good at something rather than cataloguing what a weapon is for, and an attack works like any other action: the player says how they are doing it, and the Attribute follows from that.
Putting a blade through a gap in someone's armor is ✩ Deft. Driving the same blade through the armor is ❖ Vigor. Firing a mounted gun by reading where a target will be is ◉ Acuity. Holding your nerve and firing anyway while something enormous walks toward you is ◬ Resolve.
The tag on each weapon card names the one or two that need no argument, and anything else is available where the player can say why and the GM agrees.
- Critical — the Gradient reads Positive. Double the damage dice.
- Graze — the Gradient reads Negative. Half damage, and no riders take effect.
With the bands at 0–1 and 8–9, Criticals and Grazes each occur on one landed hit in five. A miss reads its Gradient too, but neither rider applies to it.
Pacing Targets¶
The whole equipment list is tuned to these figures, which is why the numbers come out where they do.
| Target | Value |
|---|---|
| Average foe drops in | ~2 rounds against 3 characters |
| Attacks per character per round | 2, holding 1 ✦AP for Reactions |
| Damage per landed hit | ~25% of an average foe's pool |
| Unassisted hit rate | ~30% |
| Trained and calibrated hit rate | 50 – 75% |
Character pools run about 22 ✚ HP at Level 1 and 38 at Level 5, so weapon damage climbs with Calibration rather than sitting still.
Adversary Defense Bands¶
| Role | ⛊ / ⛉ Defense |
|---|---|
| Rabble | 0 |
| Average | 3 – 6 |
| Elite | 12 |
| Boss | 18 |
Statblocks and a four-line build rule are in Adversaries.
An Attack, End to End¶
Ander is carrying a Service Rifle (Demand 2, 1d6, Medium 16 ⌗) and holds Ballistics 3, so the weapon is native and costs him nothing to carry. His ✩ Deft is 60.
Across the hold, a boarder in a Plate Carrier is advancing. Average foe: ⛊ Physical Defense 6 from its band, +6 from the carrier, so 12 in total. It has 25 ✚ HP.
| Step | Target | |
|---|---|---|
| Choose the Attribute | Firing a braced long arm is ✩ Deft | |
| Take the Challenging Target | half of 60 | 30 |
| Subtract the Defense | −12 | 18 |
| Apply circumstance | he is braced on a rail: +10 | 28 |
| Add the Calibration bonus | Ballistics 3: +10 | 38 |
He rolls 38 or under, a 38% chance.
Ander has no Skill that covers gunnery, so no Favor from the sheet, but the boarder is silhouetted against an open shutter, and the GM allows that as Favor. He places it on the tens die.
He rolls tens dice of 6 and 2, units 3. Keeping the 2 gives 23, under 38. Hit.
Damage is 1d6 plus +2 from Ballistics 3. He rolls a 4, for 6 damage. The units die shows 3: Standard, so no Critical and no Graze. The boarder is at 19 of 25.
The same shot, without the work¶
Take away the brace and the silhouette, and take away his Calibration:
| Target | Chance | |
|---|---|---|
| Braced, silhouetted, Ballistics 3 | 38 + Favor | 61% |
| Braced, silhouetted, no Calibration | 28 + Favor | 48% |
| Nothing but the rifle, no Calibration | 18, and Disfavor for using an untrained family | 3% |
Same character, same weapon, same target, with the whole difference coming from what he brought and where he was standing.
Equipment¶
Item States¶
Every item is in exactly one of four states.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Stowed | Packed or carried. Costs Slots, cannot be used until Equipped |
| Equipped | Worn or held, ready to use. Costs no Slots |
| Active | Currently doing its work: a torch cutting, a shield powered on, a dose taken |
| Removed | Out of reach: dropped, disarmed, confiscated, left behind. Costs no Slots and grants nothing, but still exists |
Moving between states is the ✧ Interact Free Action, once per Turn. Going Active is the same ✧ Interact unless an item's own card says otherwise, so lighting a lantern competes with drawing a blade for the one handling action a Turn allows. Putting on or removing armor is an ✽ Activity, and cannot be done inside an Encounter.
Slots¶
Every character has 10 Slots. They do not measure weight and are not derived from any Attribute; they measure what you can practically distribute about your person.
Each item costs Slots while Stowed only, and Equipped items cost nothing, so Slots track the pack rather than the person.
| Item | Typical Slots |
|---|---|
| Small item, tool, or dose | 1 |
| Weapon | 1 – 2 |
| Armor | 3 – 4 |
| Large or awkward gear | 4+ |
| Negligible items | 0 |
Negligible items are not tracked. Rations, a coil of line, a light source, a handful of credits. Ammunition is handled the same way: a magazine is a single item, individual rounds are never counted, and a magazine is Consumed after an Encounter in which it saw heavy use.
Items Carry Their Own Actions¶
The engine has no generic attack Action. Weapons carry their attacks, and items carry their uses, written in the same format as an ability and available only while the item is Equipped.
That lets two weapons of the same type behave differently, and keeps a character sheet down to what is in your hands. The weapon and armor lists are in Part 5.
Unarmed and improvised options are assumed throughout. You can always hit someone with whatever you have, and how well it goes is a matter for the combat rules.
2 — Building a Character¶
The Identity Layers¶
A character is assembled from two layers, each with two named pieces.
| Layer | Piece | What it gives | Changes? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | Chassis | Augmentations, carried as 0-Slot Equipped items. Each costs 1 maximum ϟ Energy, permanently | One added per Level |
| Background | Two Skills chosen from three, and one piece of leverage in the world | Never | |
| Archetype | Protocols | Abilities. Each step grants one, and sets your ϟ Capacity for that Protocol | Steps added, never swapped |
| Calibrations | +5 to hit and +1 damage per step after the first, gear access, and your ϟ Capacity for that family | Steps added, never swapped |
Sheets say Chassis, Background, Protocol, and Calibration. Origin and Archetype are category words that never appear on a character sheet.
Both Node categories draw from the same pool of steps, so every point spent on what you can use is a point not spent on what you can do.
Attributes¶
Distribute Scores across ❖ Vigor, ✩ Deft, ◉ Acuity, and ◬ Resolve.
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Total | 200 |
| Floor | 30 |
| Cap | 60 |
| Granularity | multiples of 5 |
Because the total is fixed at 200, total Rank is always exactly 0, so every point of strength gets bought with a point of weakness and 50 across the board is the true neutral. There are 149 legal spreads, and no spread can hold more than one Score of 30: two Scores of 30 would leave 140 to find across two Attributes capped at 60. Only two shapes reach the floor at all — 60/60/50/30 and 60/55/55/30.
What a dumped Attribute costs¶
| Score 30 in | Consequence |
|---|---|
| ❖ Vigor | Max ⊗ Wounds 1. The second Wound kills you |
| ◬ Resolve | Max ⊖ Fatigue 1. One point past and you collapse |
| ✩ Deft | ⇉ Movement 1 ⌗ Unit |
| ◉ Acuity | −2 Skills |
Three sample spreads¶
| ❖ | ✩ | ◉ | ◬ | ⛊ | ⛉ | Base ✚HP | ⊗ | ⊖ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Frontliner | 60 | 60 | 40 | 40 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| Generalist | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 3 | 3 |
| Operator | 50 | 60 | 50 | 40 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 2 |
| Envoy | 40 | 40 | 60 | 60 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 2 | 4 |
No character starts with both Defenses
A Defense only rises above 0 once its pair sums to 105 or more. Two pairs at 105 would need 210 points, and creation gives you 200, so no legal spread has both ⛊ and ⛉ above zero. Every character is open on one side from the first session.
That is the cost of the fixed total, and it is deliberate. Protection has to be bought with armor, position, and allies rather than handed to you by a good spread.
Write the three Targets for each Attribute on the sheet once, and never calculate them again.
Creating a Character¶
- Concept. One line covering what you do and what it cost you.
- Chassis. Choose one augmentation from Part 3. It is Equipped permanently and costs 1 maximum ϟ Energy.
- Background. Choose one from Part 3. It grants Skills and a piece of leverage.
- Attributes. Distribute to a total of 200, floor 30, cap 60. Write the three Targets for each.
- Derivatives. Calculate from the table in Part 1.
- Nodes. Spend 3 steps freely across Protocols and Calibrations. Each grants its ✚ HP.
- Skills. Take your starting Skills, plus any your Background granted.
- Equipment. Take your starting gear from Part 5, and check that its held Demand leaves you at 1 ϟ Energy or more.
- Pursuit. Name what you personally want. This is what earns you Marks.
Rather start playing?
The Pregen Chars are six Level 1 characters built by exactly these steps, one for every Protocol.
3 — Chassis, BKGs & Abilities¶
Chassis¶
Augmentations are 0-Slot items, permanently Equipped. They do not carry a ϟ Demand and they do not scale with anything.
Each Chassis permanently reduces your maximum ϟ Energy by 1.
That reduction never goes away and never gets cheaper. You do not grow out of it, because it is the space the hardware occupies.
Installing¶
Take one Chassis at creation. You may install one more each time you gain a Level, which is the same moment your maximum ϟ Energy rises. Every Level therefore asks the same question: keep the point, or spend it permanently on hardware.
| Level | Max ϟ Energy | Chassis installed | Reserve if fully converted |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 4 | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| 5 | 6 | 5 | 1 |
Maximum ϟ Energy can never fall below 1, so a fully converted character is always left with something, though never with much.
Installing takes a clinic and an ✽ Activity. Removing one restores the point and takes the same.
+1 Loadout.
Everything you have ever prepared is still in there, including the parts you would rather not have kept.
You ignore Disfavor from darkness, smoke, glare, and concealment.
You have not seen an unfiltered color in years and have stopped noticing.
+2 ⇉ Movement. Favor on any roll to lift, force, climb, or hold something shut.
They lock when they overheat. Not often, and never at a convenient time.
Once per Encounter, take a Reaction without spending ✦AP.
It fires on threats you had not consciously registered, which is not always the same as threats.
+3 ⛉ Mental Defense. Favor on any roll to resist coercion, fear, or intrusion.
It dampens everything, not only what you wanted dampened.
+3 ⛊ Physical Defense. A Graze against you deals no damage.
It has to be adjusted as you age, by someone qualified, on a schedule you cannot afford to miss.
+1 maximum ⊗ Wounds, to the cap of 5.
The frame outlasts the tissue around it. You will feel that before you are old.
+1 maximum ⊖ Fatigue, to the cap of 5. You remove ⊖ Fatigue at double the usual rate when resting.
It decides what counts as an emergency, and it is not always wrong.
Backgrounds¶
A Background is where you were before this, and what it left you holding. Choose one at creation.
Each offers three Skills, of which you take two, and one piece of leverage: a person, an access, or a debt that exists in the world whether or not you use it. Leverage is no mechanic. It is a thing the GM now has to account for, and a thread they can pull.
You served, and you left, and the difference between those matters to you.
An old unit that still takes your call. They will do one thing for you — a lift, a name, a door held open — and they will not ask what it is for. They will also remember that you asked, and there is a ledger somewhere with your name at the top of it.
You have spent more of your life in a suit than out of one.
A buyer who asks no questions and pays under value. Whatever you drag out of a wreck, there is somewhere to put it and someone who will take it that week. What you do not have is any leverage over the price, and he knows it.
You left with more than they know, and they are still counting.
Credentials you never surrendered. They still clear one door somewhere, and the logs still read you as staff. Nobody has revoked them because nobody has noticed, and the day somebody does, they will start looking for whoever holds them.
You grew up in the gaps between bulkheads on somebody else's station.
You move through any working port without appearing in its logs. You know which corridors are unwatched, which official is worth paying, and which one will take the money and file the report anyway. It does not travel — every port has to be learned from scratch.
You have told people how bad it is and been right both ways.
Someone is alive because of you and knows it. They are not always glad about it, and they answer anyway. It is one person, not a network, and using them costs something you will not get back.
Everything out here is held together by someone like you.
A workshop on some rock with your name on the lease: tools, a bench, a bunk, and a door that locks. It is also collateral. The debt that came with signing is still being paid, and the people holding it know exactly where the building is.
You went out to measure something and came back with questions.
Archive access nobody has revoked, and a dataset you are fairly sure no one else has read. It answers questions about places, populations, and what was there before. It does not answer questions about people, and the gaps in it are not accidental.
You were what happened when somebody did not pay.
A reputation that arrives before you do. In the right rooms that opens doors and ends arguments early. In the wrong ones it means the conversation is over before you sit down, and you do not get to choose which room you are in.
You have been several people, and at least two of them are still solvent.
Three identities that hold up to an ordinary check: names, histories, and enough paper behind them to survive a bored official. Using one burns it for a while, and there is no fourth.
Backgrounds are the cheapest thing on the sheet to replace
Nothing downstream reads a Background's name. If none of these fit the crew you want, write one: offer three Skills from the list above, and one piece of leverage a GM could complicate.
General Abilities¶
The shared pool an Ability Mark draws from. These belong to no Protocol and are open to anyone.
Because they sit outside the Node tracks, a General Ability's ϟ Demand is measured against your highest single Node, whichever that is. A character with Trooper 3 and nothing deeper has Capacity 3 here.
General Abilities therefore reward depth rather than breadth, and the highest Demands stay costly at every Level, with Demand 7 costing at least 2 ϟ to anyone for the whole set.
General Abilities count against your Loadout like any other. The badge on each card is its Demand.
Touch a downed ally. They return to consciousness at 1 ✚ HP. Their ⊗ Wounds are unchanged.
You gain Favor against ranged attacks until you move or the cover is destroyed. Requires something to get behind.
Frequency — Once against a location per day
The GM names the most dangerous thing present and roughly why. Not the strongest: the one most likely to hurt you first.
Until the end of the Encounter, you and every ally who can hear you ignore Disfavor caused by noise, jamming, or bad comms.
Frequency — Once against a target per day
About half an hour of work. Remove one ⊗ Wound from a willing character.
Choose an ally within 12 ⌗ Units. Until the start of your next Turn they have +5 to both Defenses, and anything attacking them has Disfavor if you could attack it yourself.
Frequency — Once per Encounter
Regain a quarter of your maximum ✚ HP, rounded up.
Trigger — an effect would move you against your will, or knock you down.
You are not moved, and you do not fall. Any rider attached to the movement still applies.
Force, cut, or blow open one door, hatch, panel, or container. It does not close again.
Everything within 6 ⌗ Units hears it.
Ready an attack you could make now. At any point before the start of your next Turn, spend no further ✦AP to make it as a Reaction.
If you have not used it by then, it is lost.
Remove one ⊖ Fatigue. You take one ⊗ Wound.
Trigger — you fail a roll by nine or less.
Reroll the units die only. The tens die stands. This changes the result by at most nine, and always changes the Gradient.
Trigger — you are reduced to 0 ✚ HP.
Before you drop, take one ✦ Action costing 1 ✦AP, paid from your remaining pool. If you have none left, you may still act. Then you are downed as normal.
Your next roll this Turn ignores one stack of Disfavor.
Trigger — an ally within 2 ⌗ Units is reduced to 0 ✚ HP.
Move up to your ⇉ Movement, taking them with you. Neither of you provokes anything on the way.
Move up to triple your ⇉ Movement in a roughly straight line, ignoring Reactions. You take 1 ⊖ Fatigue.
Frequency — Once per day
About an hour of work. Remove one ⊗ Wound from up to three willing characters.
Trigger — an attack against you reads a Positive Gradient.
It is an ordinary hit instead. Roll its damage without doubling.
Block a doorway, corridor, or gap up to 2 ⌗ Units wide with whatever is to hand. Anything wanting through spends 1 ✦AP to clear it, once.
It stays until something clears it.
Frequency — Once against a location per day
A couple of hours picking over a wreck, a body, a workshop, or a ruin. Recover one piece of equipment of Demand 3 or less that the place could plausibly hold.
Frequency — Once per settlement
A day spent working contacts, favors, and paperwork somewhere settled. Obtain one piece of equipment of Demand 4 or less that the place could plausibly have.
The GM names what it cost you. It is not always money.
Until the end of the Encounter you have 4 ✦AP at the start of each Turn instead of 3.
When the Encounter ends you take 2 ⊖ Fatigue.
Frequency — Once per day
An hour somewhere defensible. You and every ally present remove one ⊖ Fatigue.
This does not stack with the ⊖ Fatigue removed by resting over the same hours. It is instead of, not as well as.
Frequency — Once per Encounter
Every hostile within 3 ⌗ Units of a point you can see has Disfavor until the start of your next Turn, and pays double ⇉ Movement to leave the area.
Trigger — a ⊗ Wound would be pushed past your maximum.
Frequency — Once per day
You do not die. You are held at your maximum ⊗ Wounds and downed instead.
Trigger — an ally within 6 ⌗ Units would take a ⊗ Wound.
Frequency — Once per day
They do not take it. Nothing is transferred to you, and nothing else changes.
Frequency — Once per Encounter
You become hidden with no cover, no distraction, and nothing to move behind, in front of anyone watching. You stay hidden until you act against someone.
Trigger — any roll finishes, anywhere in the Encounter, made by anyone.
Frequency — Once per day
That roll is made again from the beginning, both dice, by whoever made it. The second result stands.
Frequency — Once against a target per day
Four uninterrupted hours, somewhere clean enough, on a willing patient. Remove every ⊗ Wound they are carrying.
If you are the patient, remove all but one.
Until the end of the Encounter, every ability you use costs 0 ϟ Energy.
When the Encounter ends, take ⊖ Fatigue equal to half the ϟ Energy you did not spend, rounded up. Past your maximum, you collapse.
Pursuits¶
An Individual Pursuit is what your character wants. You write it rather than choosing it, and it is where your Marks come from.
Writing One¶
The recommendation is to write something that puts you somewhere, in front of someone, doing something specific. A Pursuit that names a place and a person is easier to bring up than one that names a feeling.
Harder to use: I want to be respected.
Easier to use: I want the yard on Kessel Dock back under my name, and Ferro knows what I did to lose it.
Both are workable. The first comes up when the fiction happens to offer it, where the second hands the GM a location, a person, and a grievance, so it can be put on the table on purpose. If your table likes surfacing things slowly, the first is a fine choice.
A Pursuit does not need to be achievable inside five Levels, and most of them will not be.
Where to Start¶
If nothing comes, take your Background and your first Protocol and read them together, since the gap between where you came from and what you do now is usually where the Pursuit sits.
| Background | Protocol | What that person might want |
|---|---|---|
| Fleet Veteran | Trooper | To find out what the order actually was, and who gave it |
| Corporate Defector | Netrunner | To reach the archive that would make the case, before it is scrubbed |
| Ship's Medic | Mechanic | To buy back the hull they had to sign away |
| Dock Rat | Operative | To get one specific person off a station that will not let them leave |
| Survey Scientist | Psionic | To go back and confirm the reading nobody believed |
| Long Con | Diplomat | To retire one of the three names, permanently and on their own terms |
Finishing One¶
When a Pursuit resolves, or stops mattering, write another. Holding onto a dead one earns nothing, and abandoning it costs nothing.
A character between Pursuits still earns Marks from what the crew is doing. They simply earn them more slowly, which is the fiction telling you to write the next one.
4 — Nodes¶
Nodes are the whole of a character's built capability. A step is one point of investment in one Node. Each Node caps at 5 steps.
There are two categories, and steps are spent freely between them.
- Protocols — what you know how to do. Steps grant abilities, and set your ϟ Capacity for that Protocol's abilities.
- Calibrations — what you know how to use. Steps grant numeric bonuses and gear access, and set your ϟ Capacity for gear in that family.
The Step Budget¶
| Source | Steps | Grants ✚ HP? |
|---|---|---|
| Creation | 3 | Yes |
| Each Level gained (2 – 5) | +1 each | Yes |
| System Marks, max 1 per Level | up to +5 | No |
| Total by Level 5 | 7 guaranteed, 12 ceiling | 7 grant ✚ HP |
Every character has exactly 7 ✚ HP-granting steps by Level 5. Only which Nodes they went into varies, so durability is a build decision without being a lottery. Mark-bought steps grant their ability or gear ladder, but no ✚ HP.
Each Node carries a ✚ HP value of 3, 4, or 5, gained each time a guaranteed step goes into it.
A Protocol's step n grants an ability of ϟ Demand n + 1, measured against your steps in that same Protocol. Your newest ability therefore always costs 1 ϟ to use, and every ability below it is free.
Loadout¶
You know every ability your Protocol steps have granted. You can only bring some of them.
Your Loadout is the number of abilities you have prepared at any moment. Everything else is still yours, still on your sheet, and unavailable until you sit down and change what you are carrying.
Loadout by Level¶
| Level | Loadout |
|---|---|
| 1 – 2 | 2 |
| 3 – 4 | 3 |
| 5 | 4 |
Preparation changes during any rest of 3 hours or more, which is the same interval that recovers ✚ HP. Rest is when you decide who you are going to be next.
By Level 5 a character holds up to 12 Node steps. Split evenly that is around six abilities, and a Protocol-heavy build can reach twelve. Calibrations are always on; Protocols are chosen before you walk in.
The Neural Lace Chassis grants +1 Loadout.
Protocols¶
Each Protocol step grants one ability, written on the cards described in Reading an Ability. Step n grants an ability of ϟ Demand n + 1, so step 1 grants a Demand 2 ability and step 5 grants a Demand 6 one. Because a Protocol ability measures its Demand against your steps in that same Protocol, your newest trick always costs exactly 1 ϟ Energy, and everything below it is free.
A character prepares a limited number of abilities at a time, two at Levels 1–2, three at Levels 3–4, and four at Level 5 (see Loadout), whatever they have learned.
You are the reason the others are still standing.
The Trooper holds ground and keeps other people alive on it. Their abilities are shouted, because everyone within earshot needs to hear them.
Trooper owns ⊗ Wounds
Every other character treats a ⊗ Wound as something to avoid. The Trooper treats it as a resource, taking harm meant for other people and getting more dangerous as it accumulates.
Choose a target within 12 ⌗ Units. Until the start of your next Turn they have Disfavor on their first attack, and moving toward you costs double ⇉ Movement.
Until the start of your next Turn you have +10 ⛊ Physical Defense and cannot be moved against your will.
Any ⊗ Wound you take while braced does not reduce your Defenses for the rest of this Encounter. You still carry it afterward.
Ends early if you move.
Trigger — an ally within 3 ⌗ Units is targeted by an attack you can see.
The attack targets you instead, against your Defense. If it reduces you to 0 ✚ HP you take the ⊗ Wound but remain standing until the end of your next Turn.
Until the end of the Encounter, allies within 3 ⌗ Units have +5 to both Defenses.
While you are holding one or more ⊗ Wounds, it is +10 instead.
Ends if you are downed.
Until the end of the Encounter, an ally within 3 ⌗ Units who would take a ⊗ Wound does not. You take it instead.
Each ⊗ Wound taken this way grants you +10 to your attacks for the rest of the Encounter.
You were in the room the whole time.
The Operative moves through a space without being accounted for. Their abilities describe what they are doing, in the flat voice of someone who has done it before.
Operative owns Favor placement
Favor is normally placed on one die, before that die is rolled. The Operative bends all three of those rules: they bank it, split it, and sometimes place it after seeing the other die.
Frequency — Once against a location per day
Study a space. The GM tells you its exits, whatever is watching it, and the most valuable thing in it.
You bank 2 Favor. Spend them at any point this scene, on any die of any roll, yours or an ally's, placed before that die is rolled.
Break line of sight and become hidden, even while observed, provided there is anything at all to move behind. You may move up to half your ⇉ Movement as part of this.
Your next attack from hiding gains Favor you may place after seeing the other die.
Move up to your full ⇉ Movement without provoking any Reaction.
Until the end of your Turn, any Favor you hold may be split across both dice rather than stacked on one.
Trigger — you are targeted by an attack you can see.
The attack fails. You move up to 2 ⌗ Units and become hidden. The attacker has Disfavor until the end of their next Turn, having lost you.
Attack a target unaware of you. Read the Gradient as Positive whatever the units die shows, making it an automatic Critical.
You remain hidden, and the target cannot identify where it came from.
It was going to fail anyway.
The Mechanic keeps failing things running for exactly as long as they are needed. Their abilities are named the way the work gets described afterward, which is to say cheerfully and without detail.
Mechanic owns gear states and ϟ Energy
The Mechanic moves equipment between Stowed, Equipped, Active and Removed at will, and treats a broken item as fuel. They are the only character who can turn gear back into ϟ Energy.
Clear one jammed, fouled, or seized item, or force a stuck mechanism. Fast enough to do mid-fight.
Repairing something actually broken is an ✽ Activity instead, and cannot be done during an Encounter.
You also change any item between Stowed and Equipped without spending your ✧ Interact, for yourself or an adjacent ally.
Strip an Equipped item you are touching for parts. It becomes Removed, and you regain ϟ Energy equal to its Demand.
Build one single-use device from what is on hand. Each takes about an hour, so devices are made before trouble rather than during it.
You may carry two built devices at a time. Building a third means stripping one of the others for its parts.
Choose as you build:
- Breaching charge —
2d6to everything within 1 ⌗ Unit, and opens any ordinary barrier. - Screamer — Every hostile within 6 ⌗ Units has Disfavor until the end of your next Turn.
- Patch kit — An ally regains a quarter of their maximum ✚ HP.
- Cell tap — One ally regains 2 ϟ Energy.
- Beacon — Favor on every roll made to find or reach its location, for an hour.
- Deadfall — 1 ⌗ Unit of ground. The first creature entering takes
1d8and stops moving.
Choose yourself or an ally within 2 ⌗ Units. Until the end of the Encounter their equipment cannot become Removed or damaged, and the held Demand drain on their gear is reduced by 2, freeing that much maximum ϟ Energy.
Only one character at a time.
Overclock a piece of equipment you can touch. Its next use has double effect: double damage, double range, or double duration, whichever applies.
The item is then Removed — unless you pay its Demand in Overspend, in which case it survives and you take the ⊗ Wounds or ⊖ Fatigue instead.
Everything out here is listening to something.
The Netrunner works through whatever the world has left connected. Their abilities are named for the commands that run them, which is how they think about it.
Netrunner owns the Gradient die
Everyone else reads the Gradient. The Netrunner rewrites it, on any roll in range, theirs or not. They rarely change whether something worked, only how badly it went.
Every networked device within 20 ⌗ Units reports itself: what it is, roughly where, and whether it is currently doing anything. It does not tell you what any of them contain.
Frequency — Once against a system per day
One system treats you as authorized for as long as you do nothing that obviously contradicts it. Doors open, credentials clear, logs read you as someone permitted.
While spoofed, any roll you fail against that system reads its Gradient as Standard. It does not escalate. It simply does not work.
Trigger — any roll within 12 ⌗ Units finishes, made by anyone.
A Negative Gradient becomes Standard, or a Positive Gradient becomes Negative. The verdict never changes, only how it lands.
Take control of one networked thing within 20 ⌗ Units until the end of the Encounter. It acts on your ➤ Initiative and spends your ✦AP. Something actively defended requires a Contest.
- Turret or fixed weapon — Attacks at your ✩ Deft Target.
2d6damage, 12 ⌗ Unit range. - Drone — 10 ✚ HP, ⇉ 6, can carry, scout, or block a lane.
- Door or bulkhead — Opens, closes, or seals. Nothing passes without cutting.
- Lighting and life support — Darkness, or Disfavor on anything relying on breathing comfortably.
- An implant in a hostile — They have Disfavor and cannot use ϟ-Demand abilities.
- Vehicle — It goes where you say, at its own pace.
Every networked device within 20 ⌗ Units shuts down until the end of your next Turn. Anything with an electronic component does not fire, implants do nothing, nothing records.
Every roll made inside the area during that time reads its Gradient as Negative.
This includes your own gear, your allies', and your own rolls.
The room gets quieter when you are working.
The Psionic reaches out with nothing at all. Their abilities are named for what the other people in the room feel, since there is nothing to see.
Psionic owns Overspend
Overspend is available to everyone and taken by almost nobody, because paying in ⊗ Wounds and ⊖ Fatigue is a bad deal. For the Psionic it is the interface. Their reach is bounded by what they are willing to spend of themselves.
Move an unattended object you could have lifted up to 4 ⌗ Units, or shove a target 1 ⌗ Unit on a Resolution roll against their ⛊ Physical Defense.
Speak once into the mind of any creature you can see, up to a sentence. They know it came from you, and may answer the same way if they choose.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛉ Mental Defense within 12 ⌗ Units. On a success their ⇉ Movement is halved and they act with Disfavor until the start of your next Turn.
You may Overspend deliberately. Each point past 0 adds +5 to the roll and 4 ⌗ Units of range, and is still paid as a ⊗ Wound or ⊖ Fatigue, chosen as you pay it.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛉ Mental Defense within 12 ⌗ Units. On a success deal 2d6 damage that ignores armor entirely, there being nothing physical to stop.
Each point of Overspend adds 1d6.
Until the start of your next Turn, no creature within 6 ⌗ Units may use any ability carrying a ϟ Demand. Weapons still work. Nothing else does.
The radius extends by 2 ⌗ Units for each ⊖ Fatigue you are currently holding.
You are not exempt.
Everyone in this room wants something, and you already know what.
The Diplomat reads a room and then rearranges it. Their abilities are named for the line that does the work, which is rarely the clever one.
Diplomat owns difficulty tiers
The GM chooses the tier. The Diplomat argues with that choice, moving a conversation down the ladder from Challenging to Routine and occasionally to Trivial, which is the largest single swing available to anyone in this set.
Frequency — Once against a target per day
You know whether the last thing said to you was a lie. You do not learn what the truth is, or why they bothered.
Contest your ◬ Resolve against a target's ⛉ Mental Defense. On a win they answer one direct question honestly, once, and know they were made to.
Frequency — Once against a target per day
Spend real time on one person: watch them work, ask around, sit through a meal. The GM tells you what they actually want, which is often not what they are asking for.
For the rest of the scene, your social rolls against them are made at the Routine tier instead of Challenging. Your Target roughly doubles.
Frequency — Once against a target per day
A person who is not actively hostile will do one thing you ask, provided you meet a cost they name. The GM sets the cost, and it is real.
Contest your ◬ Resolve against the ⛉ Mental Defense of every hostile creature within 12 ⌗ Units that can hear you. Resolve it as a single roll against each.
Each one you beat disengages and will not re-enter this Encounter unless attacked.
Against a target already affected by Everybody Wants Something, make the Contest at the Trivial tier.
The Calibration Ladder¶
Every Calibration grants a numeric bonus at its steps, on one shared ladder.
| Step | To hit | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 |
| 2 | +5 | +1 |
| 3 | +10 | +2 |
| 4 | +15 | +3 |
| 5 | +20 | +4 |
One sentence covers the whole ladder: each step after the first is +5 to hit and +1 damage. Where a family deals no damage of its own, only the accuracy half applies.
At the Targets this set produces, step 5 is worth roughly one Favor. Combined with a Skill, a fully specialized character lands around 75% of their attacks against an average opponent. That same character reaching for a family they have no steps in adds nothing and takes Disfavor, which puts them under 12% no matter how good they are.
The damage half is what keeps output scaling with the pool. A 1d6 at Calibration 3 averages 5.5 against a Level 1 pool near 22; a 1d8 at Calibration 5 averages 8.5 against a Level 5 pool near 38. Both sit on the 25% anchor without a spike anywhere on the ladder.
Calibrations¶
Every Calibration runs the same ladder: each step after the first is +5 to hit and +1 damage. The riders are what make them different from each other.
Using a family you have no steps in imposes Disfavor. Step 1 is not a null step: it is the difference between a tool you were trained on and one you are holding for the first time.
Something heavy, swung well.
Governs melee weapons and heavy armor. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | +1 | — |
| 3 | +10 | +2 | A melee hit pushes the target 1 ⌗ Unit |
| 4 | +15 | +3 | — |
| 5 | +20 | +4 | Heavy armor no longer reduces ⇉ Movement, and your melee attacks read a Positive Gradient on a units die of 0–2 |
It is a solved problem. Solve it.
Governs projectile weapons, from sidearms to crew-served mounts. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | +1 | — |
| 3 | +10 | +2 | Reloading happens as part of the attack, not as a separate ✧ Interact |
| 4 | +15 | +3 | — |
| 5 | +20 | +4 | Your ballistic attacks ignore 5 points of ⛊ Physical Defense |
Directed power, and the barriers that answer it.
Governs energy weapons, emitters, and personal barriers. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | +1 | — |
| 3 | +10 | +2 | Your energy attacks ignore cover entirely |
| 4 | +15 | +3 | — |
| 5 | +20 | +4 | Once per Encounter, as a Reaction, a barrier absorbs one hit against you completely |
The part of you that came in a box.
Governs implanted equipment: reflex rigs, weapon mounts, subdermal systems. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | +0 | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | +1 | — |
| 3 | +10 | +2 | Your Chassis Demand is reduced by 1, to a minimum of 1 |
| 4 | +15 | +3 | — |
| 5 | +20 | +4 | +1 maximum ϟ Energy |
Tools, and the things you build with them.
Governs field tools, breaching gear, engineering rigs, and drones. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | — | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | — | — |
| 3 | +10 | — | Any ✽ Activity using this family takes half as long |
| 4 | +15 | — | — |
| 5 | +20 | — | You field a drone: 10 ✚ HP, ⇉ 6, acts on your ➤ Initiative, spends your ✦AP |
This family deals no damage of its own, so only the accuracy half of the ladder applies.
You saw it first. That is usually enough.
Governs sensors, scopes, sights, comms, and surveillance gear. Sets ϟ Capacity for that gear, and grants its bonus to any roll made using it.
| Step | To hit | Damage | Also |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | +0 | — | Access. You no longer suffer Disfavor using this family |
| 2 | +5 | — | — |
| 3 | +10 | — | You ignore Disfavor from darkness, smoke, or concealment |
| 4 | +15 | — | — |
| 5 | +20 | — | As a ✧ Free Action, mark a target you can see. Until your next Turn every ally has +5 against it |
This family deals no damage of its own, so only the accuracy half of the ladder applies.
5 — Weapons, Armor & Items¶
How Gear Works¶
An item is only useful when it is Equipped: worn, held, or installed. Equipped items cost no Slots and their Actions are available to you. Stowed items are in the pack, cost Slots, and do nothing until you get them out. Moving anything between those states is the ✧ Interact Free Action, once per Turn, whichever item is involved.
An item's Level is its ϟ Demand, and it is the number that decides whether carrying the thing costs you anything.
- General items are Level 0. They cost nothing to anyone, ever.
- Weapons and armor measure their Demand against the Calibration governing their family. A Demand 4 rifle is free at Ballistics 4, and holds 2 ϟ Energy against you at Ballistics 2.
Held drain is a standing reduction of your maximum ϟ Energy for as long as the thing is Equipped, not a cost you pay per use. Your maximum can never be pushed below 1, and gear whose combined drain would take you below 1 cannot be Equipped at all.
Using a weapon or armor from a family you have no Calibration steps in imposes Disfavor.
Reading a Gear Card¶
| Where | What it is |
|---|---|
| Badge, left of the name | Slots, the cost of carrying it while Stowed. 0 is negligible and not tracked |
| Line under the name | What kind of thing it is, its Level, its Calibration family, and its reach |
| First paragraph | What the thing is, and what it is like to use |
| ✦ lines below | Actions the item grants while Equipped, and what each costs |
The Actions on a card are examples, not an inventory. They cover what the item does often enough to be worth pricing. If a player wants to do something else with a torch, a line, or a rifle butt, the description is there to make that ruling easy: the GM calls a Target and a cost, and play continues. Nothing here says these are the only things a torch can do.
General Items¶
❖ 55 · ✩ 45 · ◉ 40 · ◬ 45⛊ 0 · ⛉ 0 · ⇉ 5 · ➤ 9
A spool of filament line with a folding claw on the end, driven by a compressed gas charge. The line holds several times a person's weight and cuts skin if you grab it wrong. Everyone who has used one has a scar somewhere.
Cross a gap or scale a surface up to 8 ⌗ Units. Anyone following spends 1 ✦AP to do the same.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 4 ⌗ Units. On a success, pull them 1 ⌗ Unit toward you or drop them where they stand.
A handheld plasma cutter running off a swappable cell. It goes through sheet metal at about the speed of a slow walk, throws light everywhere, and makes a noise like tearing paper amplified through a wall.
Open a lock, a weld, a grille, or a thin bulkhead. Loud, bright, and slow enough that anyone nearby will know.
Resolution roll against a target within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success, deal 1d6 damage. Consumes the cell.
An adhesive square that reads what it is stuck to and pushes coagulants, sealant foam and painkillers through the skin. It closes what is open. It does not care what is broken underneath.
A willing character regains 5 ✚ HP. Does nothing for ⊗ Wounds.
A bitter wafer that dissolves under the tongue. Ten seconds later the tiredness is gone and everything is slightly too bright. The tiredness has not gone anywhere; it is waiting.
Remove 1 ⊖ Fatigue. At the end of the Encounter, take it back, plus one more.
A shaped charge in a flat adhesive housing, keyed to a handheld trigger. Designed to put a person-sized hole in a wall without bringing down what the wall is holding up. Mostly it manages that.
Everything within 1 ⌗ Unit takes 2d6. Opens any ordinary barrier. Everything within 12 ⌗ Units hears it.
A palm-sized cylinder that fills a room with dense particulate in about two seconds. It blocks sight and most cheap sensors. Anything with decent thermal optics sees straight through it.
A 3 ⌗ Unit cloud, centered within 6 ⌗ Units, lasting until the end of your next Turn. Anything attacking through it has Disfavor.
A strike-tipped rod that burns hard and white for several minutes and cannot be put out. Useful for finding people. Equally useful for being found, which is not always what you wanted.
Light out to 20 ⌗ Units for the rest of the Encounter, and mark your position to anyone who can see it.
A folding handful of drivers, cutters, probes and a small torch, worn smooth at the grip. Every working person out here has one and none of them are identical. You can tell a lot about someone from theirs.
Repair, strip, or adjust one mechanical thing. Without it, that work takes Disfavor or cannot be attempted at all.
A canister of expanding polymer and a spreader. It goes into a hole as liquid and comes out as something you can stand on within a minute. It is not a repair and everyone treats it as one.
Seal one breach in a suit, hull, tank, or pipe. Holds for hours, not days.
A soft mask and a filter block that scrubs and recycles whatever is around you. It buys hours in bad air and nothing at all in no air.
While Equipped, you can breathe anywhere with any atmosphere at all, and you ignore Disfavor from gas, smoke, or fouled air.
It does not work in vacuum.
A sealed pressure suit with a day of air, a soft helmet, and gloves thick enough that everything delicate becomes a problem. It is heavy, it smells of the last person in it, and it is the only reason anyone works outside.
While Equipped, you survive vacuum and hard weather, and you can use the Vacuum Skill at all.
Disfavor on anything needing fine manual work. Donning or removing it is an ✽ Activity.
A slab of sensor package with a small screen, about the size of a paperback. It reads density, heat, and composition, and it is confidently wrong about roughly one thing in ten.
Learn one of: what is behind a surface within 4 ⌗ Units, whether something is alive, or what a material is made of.
A rugged screen that syncs whenever it finds a network and hoards everything it saw last time. Out on the frontier that cache is often months old, and it does not tell you which parts.
If the answer exists in any archive you have reached lately, you have it. If the question is about right now, it does not help.
Loops of memory polymer that tighten on contact and stay tightened until the release code, or until somebody cuts them. Light enough that most people carry a pair without noticing.
A downed, willing, or restrained target cannot move or act with their hands. Getting free is an ✽ Activity, or one ✦ Action with the Sleight Skill.
A dense brick of everything a person needs for a day, sealed against everything and rated for decades. It tastes like the packaging.
Not tracked. Assume you have some unless the GM says otherwise.
Weapons¶
A weapon does not carry its own resolution rule. Attacking works the same way everything else does, choose an Attribute, take its Challenging Target, subtract the defender's Defense, roll under, and the Combat section covers it in full.
What the card supplies is everything after that: the damage, the reach, the ✦AP it costs, and any rider. The tag on each Action names the Attribute or two that need no argument.
Damage climbs with Demand, and again with the Calibration bonus, because pools nearly double across the band. A weapon whose Demand matches your Calibration step lands close to a quarter of an average foe's ✚ HP at the Level that gear suits.
| Demand | Typical die | With matching Calibration |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1d6 |
3.5 |
| 2 | 1d6 |
4.5 |
| 3 | 1d8 |
6.5 |
| 4 | 1d10 |
8.5 |
| 5 | 2d6 |
11 |
A collapsible rod with a capacitor in the grip and two contacts at the tip. Station security carry them because they drop people without killing them, which keeps the paperwork short.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success, deal 1d6 damage.
On a Critical, they also lose their Reaction until their next Turn.
A short blade with an edge a few molecules across, held together by a field in the spine. It parts most armor like cloth and it will part you the same way if you are careless putting it away.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success, deal 1d8 damage.
Ignores 3 points of ⛊ Physical Defense from armor.
A long-hafted hammer with a powered head that delivers its mass twice: once on contact, once a half-second later. Built for doors. Used on doors most of the time.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success, deal 1d10 damage and push them 1 ⌗ Unit.
As Swing, against every adjacent target.
On a Graze you are off balance and lose your Reaction until your next Turn.
Articulated shells over the hands and forearms, running off a spinal harness. They multiply grip and impact by an order of magnitude and make anything smaller than a door handle impossible.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success, deal 2d6 damage.
Resolution roll against a target within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a success they cannot move away from you until the end of their next Turn.
A compact slug thrower with a twelve-round magazine. Common enough that nobody looks twice, small enough to bring where you should not, and unremarkable in every way that matters until it is pointed at you.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 6 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 1d6 damage.
No Disfavor when a target is adjacent to you.
A general-issue long arm, gas-operated and stubbornly reliable. There are four decades of them in circulation and parts from any one fit any other, which is most of why they are still everywhere.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 16 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 1d6 damage.
As Fire, with Favor on the roll and 1d8 damage instead.
A wide-bore weapon throwing a cone of flechettes. Devastating in a corridor and close to useless across a hangar, which makes carrying one a statement about where you expect to be standing.
Resolution roll against the ⛊ Physical Defense of every target within 4 ⌗ Units in a rough cone. On a success, deal 1d8 to each.
Disfavor beyond 4 ⌗ Units.
A long barrel, a heavy stock, and optics worth more than the rest of it together. It rewards patience and punishes anyone who brings it into a room.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 30 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 1d10 damage.
Disfavor within 4 ⌗ Units.
A belt-fed weapon meant to be fired from a mount or a braced position. One person can carry it and one person can fire it, and it is rarely comfortable to be that person.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 16 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 2d6 damage.
Resolution roll against up to three targets within 16 ⌗ Units and within 3 ⌗ Units of each other. On a success, deal 1d8 to each.
Consumes the magazine.
A directed-energy sidearm with no report, no recoil and no shell to leave behind. It runs hot enough that a long firefight means holding it in a different grip than you want to.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 8 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 1d6 damage.
Silent, and leaves no round to find.
A stubby emitter that throws a contained discharge along whatever conducts best. In a metal corridor that is frequently more things than you intended.
Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 6 ⌗ Units. On a success, deal 1d8 damage, and it jumps to one other target within 2 ⌗ Units of the first for 1d6.
A shoulder-braced emitter that dumps its whole cell into one sustained line. It goes through cover, bulkheads and everything standing behind them, and then it needs a minute.
Resolution roll against the ⛊ Physical Defense of every target in a line 24 ⌗ Units long. On a success, deal 2d6 damage to each.
Ignores cover entirely.
A weapon pod that clamps to a drone's hardpoint and slaves to your controller. Whatever the drone is looking at, this is pointed at, with roughly a half-second of argument in between.
Your deployed drone makes a Resolution roll against a target's ⛊ Physical Defense within 12 ⌗ Units of itself. On a success, deal 1d8 damage.
Requires a drone in play.
A disc that walks itself into position on three short legs and then waits, listening for a gait that is not on its whitelist. Patient, cheap, and entirely without judgement.
Place it within 1 ⌗ Unit. The first hostile to come within 2 ⌗ Units takes 2d6 damage and stops moving.
You may hold two placed at a time.
Armor¶
Armor is the one place this set hands out a flat number rather than Favor. It earns the exception by being a standing property of the character rather than a circumstance of the moment.
Bonuses are written in multiples of 3, the same units ⛊ and ⛉ Defense are built from. The module's +1 to +3 is rounding error on a hundred-point scale and does not transfer.
A layer of impact-hardening fabric worn under whatever you were wearing anyway. It stiffens where it is struck and relaxes a moment later, and nobody can tell you have it on.
While Equipped, gain +3 ⛊ Physical Defense.
Passes for ordinary clothing. No penalty to anything.
A vest of ceramic plates in a webbing harness, covering the parts that end a fight. It is obvious, it is heavy across the shoulders, and it works.
While Equipped, gain +6 ⛊ Physical Defense.
Disfavor on Stealth. Donning or removing it is an ✽ Activity.
A sealed armored shell with its own air, power and thermal control. You are safe inside it from almost everything, and you are also a slow, loud, unmistakable target with poor peripheral vision.
While Equipped, gain +9 ⛊ Physical Defense, and you survive vacuum and hard weather.
Disfavor on Stealth and Athletics. ⇉ Movement reduced by 1 ⌗ Unit, never below 1. Donning or removing it is an ✽ Activity.
A belt emitter that holds a thin dispersal field a few centimetres off the skin. It blunts everything a little and stops nothing outright, and it hums at a pitch some people cannot stand.
While Equipped, gain +3 ⛊ Physical Defense and +3 ⛉ Mental Defense.
Until the start of your next Turn, attackers have Disfavor against you. The field is then Removed until you have three uninterrupted hours to reset it.
A transparent slab of laminate with a forearm brace and a grip. Meant for holding a line rather than winning a fight, and it is very good at exactly that.
While Equipped, gain +3 ⛊ Physical Defense. Occupies a hand.
Until the start of your next Turn, attackers have Disfavor against your ⛊ Physical Defense, and you cannot be moved against your will.
A collar seated at the base of the skull that floods the local band with noise. Nothing gets in. A great deal of what you would have picked up on your own does not get in either.
While Equipped, gain +6 ⛉ Mental Defense.
Disfavor on anything requiring you to read a person rather than a machine.
A lattice grown under the skin across the torso and forearms. It spreads impact instead of stopping it, and it is invisible until someone tries to cut you.
While Equipped, gain +3 ⛊ Physical Defense. Costs 0 Slots and cannot be removed, disarmed, or taken off you.
It is under the skin, so it is also permanent.
Panels of sacrificial composite over the shoulders and chest. Each one takes a beam once and comes off in a sheet of vapour, which is precisely what it is for.
While Equipped, gain +3 ⛊ Physical Defense.
The first Critical against you each Encounter is an ordinary hit instead. A panel is spent doing it.
A hovering slab of composite on a follow harness. It reads incoming fire and puts itself in the way, roughly a third of the time, which is better than nothing and worse than a wall.
While Equipped and deployed, gain +6 ⛊ Physical Defense against ranged attacks only.
Move the drone up to 6 ⌗ Units. Until it returns to you, an ally it is beside gains the bonus instead.
A collar of emitters that reads targeting lasers and answers them with a pulse across the same wavelengths. It ruins optics, cameras, and anyone who was looking directly at you.
While Equipped, attackers more than 6 ⌗ Units away have Disfavor against you.
Every creature within 4 ⌗ Units that can see has Disfavor until the end of their next Turn. Allies included.
6 — Advancement¶
Two tracks run in parallel. Neither feeds the other.
| Comes from | Rate | Grants | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark | Your own Individual Pursuit | ~1 per session | One entry from the menu below |
| Level | The shared Party Pursuit | ~1 per 3 sessions | Capacity, a Node step, maximum ϟ Energy |
Levels 1 through 5 is four Party Pursuit resolutions, roughly twelve sessions. Marks come to individuals; Levels come to everyone at once, so nobody falls behind on the spine of their character.
Marks¶
Maximum 3 Marks per Level, and one of each type per Level. Marks do not bank.
| Mark | Effect |
|---|---|
| Attribute | +5 to two different Attribute Scores |
| Skill | Gain one Skill |
| Ability | Gain one General Ability |
| Resilience | +1 max ⊗ Wounds or ⊖ Fatigue, to a cap of 5 |
| System | Advance one Node step. Grants no ✚ HP |
Because three Marks per Level must be three different types, no single track runs away. Attribute growth caps at +10 per Level rather than +30, and the System Mark cannot be taken twice.
Resilience is worth most where you are weakest
This set's Attribute floor drops the ⊗ Wound and ⊖ Fatigue tracks to 1–4 rather than the base 3–5, so Resilience Marks have real headroom: one useful Mark at Score 60, four at Score 30. In the base rules a tough character is already capped and the Mark does nothing for them. Here it is a genuine option for the fragile.
Levels¶
Gaining a Level grants:
- ϟ Capacity +1 on every track
- One Node step, and the ✚ HP that Node grants
- +1 maximum ϟ Energy, to a cap of 6, which may instead be spent on a new Chassis
Capacity is the Party Pursuit's real reward
Every Level makes gear and abilities the character is already carrying stop taxing them. A Demand 5 rifle holds four points of a Ballistics 1 character's ϟ Energy maximum against them. Climb that Calibration to 5 and it costs nothing at all. No Mark can do that.
The Progression, Illustrated¶
A specialist putting one Attribute Mark per Level into their combat Attribute, climbing one Calibration, attacking an average foe at ⛊ 6:
| Level | Score | Challenging Target | Calibration | Plain | With Skill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60 | 30 | 3 (+10) | 34% | 56% |
| 3 | 70 | 35 | 4 (+15) | 44% | 68% |
| 5 | 80 | 40 | 5 (+20) | 54% | 79% |
Pacing¶
The rates at the top of this section are defaults, and they are the thing most likely to differ at your table. Both are levers, and they are worth pulling separately, because they buy different things.
| Default | If it feels slow | If it feels fast | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marks | 1 per session | Award on meaningful progress rather than on resolution | Require the Pursuit to actually resolve |
| Levels | 1 per 3 sessions | Break the Party Pursuit into stages and pay one per stage | Set a Party Pursuit with more road between here and there |
A Level 1 to 5 run is four Party Pursuit resolutions and about twelve sessions. Marks are capped at three per Level and one of each type per Level, so a fast Mark pace runs into a ceiling rather than running away with the character.
The Level lever is the one that changes the game. Marks are breadth: another Skill, another ability, a point of resilience. Levels are ϟ Capacity, and Capacity is what makes the gear a character is already carrying stop taxing them. Speed the Levels up and the whole set gets easier at once, because everything on the sheet gets cheaper at the same time. Speed the Marks up and characters simply get wider.
If you want a longer campaign, stretch the Levels and leave the Marks alone. A crew that Levels every fifth session and Marks every session ends up broad, specialised, and still feeling the weight of their best equipment, which is the shape this set is tuned for.
One Attribute Mark per Level is +5 to the combat Attribute each Level, so a character standing at Level 5 has banked four of them: 60 at creation, 70 by Level 3, 80 by Level 5.
The same character reaching for a gear family they have no Calibration steps in adds nothing and takes Disfavor: 6% at Level 1, 12% at Level 5. The Attribute carries them a little; nothing else does.
Growth here is real and narrow. You get better at what you built, and never at anything else.
7 — Running the Game¶
Everything below assumes you have read the rules. This is not a summary of them. It is how they behave once there are people at the table.
You Hold the Numbers¶
This is the part that differs most from running a game where players add dice to modifiers.
In a roll-under system the player does not know the foe's Defense, does not need the difficulty tier, and does not have to hold the circumstance ladder in their head. You do the arithmetic silently and hand them one number.
Player: "I lean out and put a shot into the one by the hatch." You: (Challenging 30, minus Defense 6, plus 10 for the Calibration, minus 5 for leaning out of cover) You: "Roll under 29."
That is the whole interface. One number crosses the table. The tier, the Defense, the cover, the Calibration and any ⊖ Fatigue collapse into it before the player hears anything.
The worked examples earlier in this document lay all of that out step by step, so a reader sees the machinery once. At the table it lives behind the screen, and a round of combat is four or five spoken numbers.
What players do know¶
- Their own three Targets, written on the sheet and never recalculated.
- What their Calibration adds, and what their gear does.
- Whether they have Favor, and which die they are putting it on.
- That a lower roll is better, and that 00 is the worst result there is.
What you do not have to announce¶
You are never obliged to say what a Defense is. Telling them "roll under 29" after they said they were leaning out communicates the cost of leaning out without a lecture. If a player asks whether cover would help, answer honestly: the point is for them to weigh position, not to guess at it.
The Target Lookup¶
The subtraction is small but it happens constantly. This is every combination you will actually meet.
Attacker's Score down the side, target's total Defense across the top. The number in the cell is the Challenging Target before circumstance and before the attacker's Calibration bonus.
| Score | 0 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 15 | 18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40 | 20 | 17 | 14 | 11 | 8 | 5 | 2 |
| 50 | 25 | 22 | 19 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 7 |
| 60 | 30 | 27 | 24 | 21 | 18 | 15 | 12 |
| 70 | 35 | 32 | 29 | 26 | 23 | 20 | 17 |
| 80 | 40 | 37 | 34 | 31 | 28 | 25 | 22 |
| 90 | 45 | 42 | 39 | 36 | 33 | 30 | 27 |
| 100 | 50 | 47 | 44 | 41 | 38 | 35 | 32 |
Add the attacker's Calibration bonus, then circumstance, then subtract 5 per ⊖ Fatigue. Never below 1.
Other tiers: do not scale the cell
The cell already has the Defense taken out of it, so doubling it doubles the subtraction too. For the other two tiers, start from the Score and subtract the Defense once:
- Routine — the Score, capped at 75, minus the Defense.
- Trivial — the Score × 1½, capped at 99, minus the Defense.
A Score-60 attacker against Defense 6 is 54 at Routine and 84 at Trivial, not 48 and 72.
Calling the Tier¶
Three questions, in order. The first one that answers yes sets the tier.
- Is anything actually at stake, and is the outcome uncertain? If not, no roll. Say what happens.
- Is this person under threat, out of their depth, or working against someone? Challenging.
- Is this ordinary work for someone with their background? Routine.
- Otherwise it is Trivial, and you should ask again whether it needs a roll at all.
The most common mistake is calling Routine out of politeness. This set runs hard, and Challenging is the default for anything happening under pressure. A Score-60 character at Challenging succeeds 30% of the time unaided, and that is intended.
The same task, two tiers¶
Difficulty follows the question, not the object. A character at a terminal:
| What they are asking | Tier |
|---|---|
| "What's on the manifest?" | Routine |
| "What did somebody take off the manifest?" | Challenging |
Nothing about the terminal changed. The second question is harder work.
Circumstance, and When to Give Favor¶
You have two tools and they are not interchangeable.
Numbers, in fives¶
Use a number when the situation is a matter of degree, and always in multiples of five.
| Situation | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| A hand from an ally, a decent angle, familiar ground | +5 |
| Braced, prepared, or the target is unaware | +10 |
| Overwhelming: they are restrained, asleep, or cornered | +20 |
| Awkward footing, poor light, working one-handed | −5 |
| Leaning out of cover, at range in the dark, injured tools | −10 |
| Actively opposed, no light at all, doing this upside down | −20 |
Cap the total at ±20. If a scene seems to warrant more, you are describing a different tier, not a bigger number.
Favor, for a change of kind¶
Use Favor when the situation changes what the roll is, rather than nudging it. Ambush rather than a good angle. Full cover rather than a wall nearby. A tool that makes the job possible rather than easier.
At the Targets this set produces, one Favor is worth about +20, and it is far swingier than +20. Reach for it when the moment deserves a swing.
How often to give it¶
More often than feels natural, and always in response to something a player did.
Favor is what carries an unaided 30% into the band where attacks land half the time. If nobody at your table is getting Favor, combat will feel like flailing, and the fix is not to lower Defenses. It is to reward the player who took the high ground, put the light behind them, or spent a Turn setting something up.
Never hand out Favor for a good description alone. Give it for a decision that cost something: a Turn spent, a position taken, a risk accepted. Otherwise it becomes a tax on shy players.
Disfavor¶
Impose it for the same class of reason, reversed, and warn before the dice. "You can shoot into the smoke, but you'll have Disfavor" is a fair offer. Discovering it afterward is not.
When a Skill Applies¶
Say yes more than you say no.
A Skill grants Favor on any roll it plausibly covers, one Skill per roll. The list is nineteen entries and deliberately broad, so a player reaching for Systems on anything with a network in it is using the Skill correctly.
Two habits worth keeping:
- Rule before the dice, every time. Whether a Skill applies is part of what the player is deciding.
- Do not let a Skill gate an action. Anyone may attempt anything. A Skill makes them better at it, never permitted to try.
Reading the Gradient¶
The Gradient is free, because the die is already on the table, and it is optional every single time.
Read it when the texture matters: a first failure in a scene, a hit that ought to have consequences, anything where "it works, but" is more interesting than "it works." Ignore it on the fourth identical shot of a firefight.
| Positive | Negative | |
|---|---|---|
| On a success | It buys something extra: position, information, speed | It works and costs: noise, time, a broken tool, a spent magazine |
| On a failure | You fail but keep your footing, or learn something | It fails and the situation gets worse |
One in five rolls reads each way, so reading it every time means inventing a complication every fifth roll. Pick your moments.
The Party Pursuit¶
The Party Pursuit is the only source of Levels, so it is the clock the whole campaign runs on. It should be large, shared, and slow.
What Makes a Good One¶
Three ingredients. A Party Pursuit is worth having when it names all three.
| Somewhere to be | A place the crew has to reach, hold, or get inside |
| Somebody who cares | A person or faction that gains or loses by it, and who will act |
| Something that stops being possible | A reason it cannot simply be done later |
Get rich has none of them. Buy out the lien on the Anselm before the yard sells her for scrap in six weeks has all three.
Handing It Out¶
Do not write the Party Pursuit and present it. Ask the table what their characters would agree to do together, take whichever answer has the most hands behind it, and then supply the third ingredient yourself. Players are good at naming a place and a person. They are rarely the ones who put a clock on it.
Resolve it as a beat, not a scene. It has taken three sessions. Let the arrival land, then hand out the Level at the table rather than at the end of the night.
When Nobody Can Think of One¶
Give them a debt. Somebody in the crew owes something to somebody who is now asking, the amount is more than they have, and the person asking has a deadline of their own. It supplies all three ingredients, it explains why these people travel together, and it can be paid off in about three sessions.
Tying It to Individual Pursuits¶
The most reliable way to make a session matter to everyone is to put one character's Individual Pursuit on the road to the Party Pursuit. The crew is going to Kessel Dock anyway; Ferro happens to be there.
Do that with a different character each time. Over twelve sessions everyone gets three or four turns of the road bending toward them, and nobody has to ask for it.
Pricing Something That Is Not on a List¶
A player will want something the gear lists do not have. Two questions settle it in about four seconds.
Who would have one? That sets the Demand.
What family is it? That sets the Calibration, or Level 0 if none fits.
| Who would have one | Demand | Looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Anybody, in any market | 0 | Rope, tools, rations, a light. Costs nothing to carry, ever |
| A working professional | 1 – 2 | A sidearm, a good scanner, a decent suit |
| A specialist outfit | 3 – 4 | Military hardware, surgical gear, a drone |
| Something taken rather than bought | 5 | Prototype, restricted, or the only one anybody has seen |
If nothing in the six Calibration families fits, it is Level 0. Most equipment in a science-fiction game is a tool rather than a weapon system, and tools should not cost ϟ Energy.
Do not invent a new Calibration family. Six is the whole ladder, and a seventh would leave every existing character untrained in it.
Building a Fight¶
The whole set is tuned to one figure: an Average adversary drops in about two Rounds against three characters.
Everything else is arithmetic around that.
| Fight | Shape |
|---|---|
| A scrape | 1 Average per character |
| A real fight | 1 Average per character, plus 2 to 4 Rabble |
| Something serious | 1 Elite, plus 1 Average per character |
| The fight | 1 Boss, plus 2 Averages, plus Rabble as the scene needs |
Rabble exist to be cleared. They die to one hit, and their job is to spend the party's ✦AP and force them to choose targets. Three Rabble are a tactical problem. Three Averages are a grind.
What actually makes a fight hard¶
Adding ✚ HP makes a fight longer rather than harder. Fights get hard when the party cannot get Favor:
- Terrain that denies position. Open ground, no cover, nothing above.
- Something that punishes standing still, so the braced shot costs them.
- A second threat that forces someone to spend Turns not attacking.
- Darkness, smoke, or noise, which turns Optics and Signal Discipline from nice into load-bearing.
Take a party from 46% to 30% by making position hard to get, and a two-round fight becomes four without a single extra hit point.
Adversary ✦AP¶
Give adversaries 3 ✦AP like everyone else. A Boss should act more than once per Round; the roster shows one way to write that.
The Two Dials¶
⊗ Wounds and ⊖ Fatigue are not two flavours of the same thing, and you should reach for them for different reasons.
| ⊗ Wounds | ⊖ Fatigue | |
|---|---|---|
| Felt | Next fight | Immediately |
| By whom | Their enemies, who now hit more often | The player, on every roll they make |
| Track | 1 to 4 | 1 to 4 |
| Recovery | One per 3 hours of rest | One per 3 hours, and not both |
| Reach for it when | You want the campaign to carry a mark forward | You want this scene to get harder right now |
⊖ Fatigue is the sharper tool and the easier one to overuse. Four points is −20 to every Target the character rolls against, which is most of a specialist's advantage gone. Use it when you want a scene to close in.
⊗ Wounds do their work out of sight. A character walking into the next fight at −10 Defense is in real trouble and will not feel it until the first attack lands.
When Someone Dies¶
This set kills characters. Attributes total 200, tracks run as low as 1, and combat resolves at Challenging. A table should agree about that before the first session rather than after the first death.
A character dies when a ⊗ Wound would be pushed past their maximum. There is no dying timer and nothing to roll.
The levers, if your table wants less of it¶
Each of these changes the tone. Pick deliberately.
- Stabilize is in the shared pool. If nobody has taken it, the party has no way to pick each other up mid-fight. Point that out at character creation rather than at the moment it matters.
- Downed is not dead. A downed character only takes further ⊗ Wounds if something strikes them while they are down. Adversaries that move on to the next target are the single largest dial you hold.
- Let them see it coming. Announce that something is lining up on a wounded character. Being killed by a decision is very different from being killed by a die.
- Raise the Attribute floor to 40. Tracks start at 2 rather than 1, and nobody dies to a second Wound.
The lever that does not work¶
Lowering adversary Defense. It makes fights shorter without making them safer, because the party was never the thing at risk of running out of ✚ HP first.
A Fight, Start to Finish¶
Three characters against a Boarder and two Dock Toughs, in a cargo bay with containers down one side.
The crew. Ander, ✩ Deft 60, Ballistics 3, Service Rifle. Kell, ◉ Acuity 60, Netrunner 2, Sidearm. Vitt, ❖ Vigor 60, Kinetics 3, Shock Baton. All at Level 1 with 3 ϟ Energy. Their ✚ HP differs with the Nodes they bought; the example runs all three at 22 to keep the arithmetic readable.
The opposition. One Boarder at ⛊ 6, 30 ✚ HP, attacking at 35. Two Dock Toughs at ⛊ 0, 8 ✚ HP each, attacking at 25.
Setting up¶
Everyone picks flat ➤ Initiative. Ander and Vitt are on 12, Kell on 10. The Boarder is on 12, the Toughs on 9. Ties break on ✩ Deft Rank, and the Boarder loses to Ander.
Round 1 — Ander¶
He spends 1 ✦AP moving behind a container and 1 ✦AP firing. Braced, that is Challenging 30, minus the Boarder's 6, plus 10 for bracing, plus 10 for Ballistics 3: roll under 44.
He rolls 51. Miss. The units die reads 4, Standard, so nothing else comes of it.
He holds his third ✦AP.
Round 1 — Vitt¶
Two Toughs are between him and the hatch. He spends his full ⇉ Movement closing and 1 ✦AP swinging: Challenging 30, minus 0, plus 10 for Kinetics 3. Roll under 40.
He rolls 12. Hit, and the units die is 2 — Standard. 1d6 plus 2 for Kinetics is 7 damage against 8 ✚ HP. The Tough is still standing, barely.
Second ✦AP, same again. Rolls 08, hit, units 8, Negative, so a Graze: half damage, 3, and no rider. The Tough drops. Vitt holds his third point.
Round 1 — Kell¶
She has no shot worth taking, so she spends 1 ✦AP on > ping.local. Free at Netrunner 2, and the bay reports two personal comms and a door controller she did not know about.
She spends her remaining 2 ✦AP getting behind the containers with Ander.
Round 1 — the opposition¶
The Boarder fires on Ander: 35, minus Ander's ⛊ 6, minus 10 because Ander is behind a container. Roll under 19. It rolls 44. Miss.
The remaining Tough closes on Vitt and swings: 25, minus Vitt's ⛊ 6. Roll under 19. It rolls 17, hit, 1d6 for 4. Vitt is at 18.
Round 2 — the turn it breaks¶
Ander fires again, same 44, and rolls 09. Hit, units 9, that is Negative, a Graze. 1d6+2 halved is 3. The Boarder is at 27.
Kell spends 2 ✦AP on > inject.payload, Demand 3 against her Netrunner 2, so it costs her 1 ϟ Energy. She takes the door controller and seals the hatch behind the Boarder. It cannot leave and neither can its reinforcements.
Vitt drops the second Tough with one swing.
How it ended¶
Four more Rounds on the Boarder. Two attackers making two attempts each at roughly 45%, for about 6 a hit, is close to 11 ✚ HP a Round, which puts 30 ✚ HP inside the two-to-three Rounds the pacing targets. It ran long because Ander rolled badly twice, which is what the pacing figures are: an average, not a schedule.
Nobody was downed. Vitt finished at 11 ✚ HP, Kell spent 1 ϟ Energy, and the crew has a sealed hatch and a Boarder who would now rather talk.
What the example is showing. Every number the GM spoke aloud was a single Target. The players never learned the Boarder's Defense, only that shooting from behind a container was better than shooting from the open. Two of the three landed hits were Grazes, which is the Gradient doing its ordinary work rather than anything dramatic.
Adversaries¶
Adversaries are built from a band, not from a character sheet. Give one a Defense, a ✚ HP figure, an attack number and one or two things it does, and it is finished. Nothing on the far side of the screen needs Attributes, Nodes, or a Loadout.
Every number on a card derives, so you can improvise from it
The statblocks below use the same formulas characters do. An adversary's ⛊ is its derived Defense plus whatever armor it wears, its ⛉ is derived the same way, and its ⇉ and ➤ both come off ✩ Deft, which is why ➤ is always ⇉ + 5.
That means you can move a number and know what else moves with it. Strip the Hardsuit off a Breacher and its ⛊ drops from 12 to 3; it is a different fight, and you did not have to look anything up.
The band is the target you build toward, not a value you write down. Where a card sits off its band, the Adept is an Elite with an Average's ⛊ 6, that is the card saying where its threat actually lives.
The Four Bands¶
| Band | ⛊ / ⛉ Defense | Attacks at | ⊗ Wounds | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rabble | 0 | 25 | — | Dies to one solid hit. Dangerous in numbers and nowhere else |
| Average | 6 | 35 | — | The ordinary opposition. Two rounds of a party's attention |
| Elite | 12 | 45 | — | Worth a whole fight on its own, or two alongside Averages |
| Boss | 18 | 55 | 2 | The fight. Comes back twice, and should act more than once |
✚ HP by Band and Party Level¶
Fixed ✚ HP does not survive a five-Level band. A party's output roughly triples between Levels 1 and 5, so an Elite written for Level 1 is a speed bump by Level 5. Read the column for the party's Level.
| Band | L1 | L2 | L3 | L4 | L5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rabble | 8 | 10 | 12 | 16 | 20 |
| Average | 30 | 40 | 50 | 65 | 80 |
| Elite | 40 | 50 | 65 | 85 | 105 |
| Boss | 28 | 38 | 48 | 62 | 78 |
These are set against the pacing target: an Average drops in about two Rounds against three characters, an Elite in about three, and a Boss in four or five across all three of its bars.
Only a Boss Has a ⊗ Wound Track¶
Everything below Boss is out of the fight at 0 ✚ HP. Dead, unconscious, fled, surrendered, whatever the scene wants. There is no Wound track, no downed state, and nothing to finish off.
A ⊗ Wound track is an extra health bar. Giving one to every adversary would mean either quadrupling the time a fight takes or quartering the ✚ HP on every card, so adversaries carry their durability in a single number.
A Boss is the exception, and it is written as an explicit rule rather than as a track that has to be read a special way:
When a Boss is reduced to 0 ✚ HP, it takes one ⊗ Wound and returns at half its maximum ✚ HP. Each ⊗ Wound it holds costs it 5 from both Defenses. When it has no ⊗ Wounds left to take, it is finished.
Two ⊗ Wounds means a Boss goes down three times, and gets easier to hit each time. Its ✚ HP column is set at half what a single-bar creature would need, so the whole fight still lands at four or five Rounds.
"Attacks at 35" means: roll under 35, minus the target character's Defense. The same subtraction players make, run from the other side.
Building One in Four Lines¶
- Pick a band. That gives Defense and attack number. Only a Boss gets ⊗ Wounds.
- Read ✚ HP off the column for the party's Level.
- Give it a weapon from Part 5, or just a die:
1d6for Rabble and Average,1d10+3for Elite,2d6+4for Boss. - Give it one thing it does that is not an attack, which supplies its whole personality.
The fourth line does most of the work. An Average that calls for reinforcements plays nothing like an Average that grabs something and runs, and the two share the same three numbers.
A Starting Roster¶
Adversaries run on the same economy as everybody else. Three ✦ Action Points a Turn, ⇉ Movement in ⌗ Units, Reactions paid out of whatever they held back. Nothing on an adversary card is a special case; it is a character sheet with fewer lines on it.
They can carry gear. Anything from the lists can be hung on an adversary, and the Equipped line on each card says what it is holding.
The badge carries ⛊ Physical Defense. Read ✚ HP from the table above rather than from the card, so the same adversary works at any Level in its band.
Each card lists the four Attributes, both Defenses, ⇉ Movement, ➤ Initiative, and what it is carrying. Both Defenses are the total, worked out from the Attributes and the armor in its kit, so you never have to add anything. The Attributes are there for Contests, for anything targeting ⛉ Mental Defense, and for the moments a player tries something the card does not cover.
Band Defenses are typical rather than fixed. The Adept sits at ⛊ 6 and ⛉ 18 because it has never needed to be hard to hit, only hard to reach.
❖ 55 · ✩ 45 · ◉ 45 · ◬ 45⛊ 0 · ⛉ 0 · ⇉ 4 · ➤ 9
Somebody's muscle, paid by the day and not very much. They fight until it stops being worth it, which is usually the moment one of them goes down.
Equipped — Shock Baton, work jacket
Roll 25, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a hit, 1d6 damage.
Breaks. When half of a group has been downed, the rest leave.
❖ 40 · ✩ 60 · ◉ 45 · ◬ 45⛊ 0 · ⛉ 0 · ⇉ 7 · ➤ 12
Picking over the same wreck you are, and unhappy about the competition. Fast on their feet and carrying whatever the wreck provided.
Equipped — Cutting Torch, improvised club
Roll 25, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a hit, 1d6 damage.
Takes one unattended item within 1 ⌗ Unit and moves its full ⇉ Movement away.
❖ 55 · ✩ 55 · ◉ 55 · ◬ 55⛊ 6 · ⛉ 3 · ⇉ 6 · ➤ 11
Trained, bored, and equipped better than they are paid. They fight like people who expect to file a report afterward, and who would rather you surrendered.
Equipped — Sidearm, Shock Baton, Weave Liner
Roll 35, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 6 ⌗ Units. On a hit, 1d6+2 damage.
Roll 35, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a hit, 1d6+2 damage and they lose their Reaction.
Calls it in. On its first Turn it spends 1 ✦AP on the comm. Reinforcements arrive in three Rounds.
❖ 50 · ✩ 60 · ◉ 45 · ◬ 50⛊ 6 · ⛉ 0 · ⇉ 7 · ➤ 12
Came aboard on purpose, knows the layout better than you do, and is not here to negotiate. No interest in your cargo manifest.
Equipped — Service Rifle, Weave Liner
Roll 35, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 16 ⌗ Units. On a hit, 1d6+2 damage.
Every character in a 3 ⌗ Unit area has Disfavor until the start of its next Turn.
❖ 65 · ✩ 50 · ◉ 40 · ◬ 80⛊ 6 · ⛉ 6 · ⇉ 5 · ➤ 10
A maintenance unit whose orders decayed decades ago and which has been improvising ever since. It is not hostile. It has simply concluded that you are in the way.
Equipped — Integral manipulators, worn plating
Roll 35, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a hit, 1d8 damage.
Not alive. Immune to anything targeting ⛉ Mental Defense. A Netrunner may target it with > inject.payload.
❖ 55 · ✩ 55 · ◉ 70 · ◬ 70⛊ 6 · ⛉ 15 · ⇉ 6 · ➤ 11
Arrives with paperwork and leaves with what they came for. Violence is one of several tools and rarely the first.
Equipped — Beam Pistol, Weave Liner, Neural Baffle, three sets of credentials
Roll 35, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 8 ⌗ Units. On a hit, 1d6+2 damage.
Contest against a character's ⛉ Mental Defense. On a win, that character has Disfavor on anything they do against the Fixer until the end of the Encounter.
❖ 60 · ✩ 50 · ◉ 50 · ◬ 60⛊ 12 · ⛉ 3 · ⇉ 5 · ➤ 10
Hardsuit, maul, and a job that consists entirely of going through the door first. Slow, loud, and very difficult to stop once it has decided which way it is going.
Equipped — Breaching Maul, Hardsuit
Roll 45, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 1 ⌗ Unit. On a hit, 1d10+3 damage and you are pushed 1 ⌗ Unit.
Moves up to its full ⇉ Movement in a straight line, through any ordinary barrier, and attacks once at the end.
Hardsuit. A Graze against it deals no damage.
❖ 55 · ✩ 65 · ◉ 65 · ◬ 55⛊ 12 · ⛉ 6 · ⇉ 8 · ➤ 13
Somewhere with a good angle, and there before you arrived. The first anyone knows about it is usually somebody going down.
Equipped — Marksman Rifle, Dazzle Array, Plate Carrier
Roll 45, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, within 30 ⌗ Units. On a hit, 1d10+3 damage.
If it has not moved this Round, it has Favor.
Relocates. After attacking it may move up to its ⇉ Movement as a Free Action, once per Round.
❖ 50 · ✩ 60 · ◉ 80 · ◬ 80⛊ 6 · ⛉ 18 · ⇉ 7 · ➤ 12
Whatever was done to them was not standard and is not on any record. They do not carry a weapon and have not carried one for years.
Equipped — Deflector Field, and nothing else at all
Roll 45, minus your ⛉ Mental Defense, within 12 ⌗ Units. On a hit, 1d10+3 damage that ignores armor.
Moves 4 ⌗ Units without crossing the space between.
❖ 65 · ✩ 65 · ◉ 70 · ◬ 70⛊ 18 · ⛉ 15 · ⇉ 8 · ➤ 13 · ⊗ 2
Runs the wreck, the crew, or the operation, and has run it a long time. Everything else in the room is arranged around keeping this one alive.
Equipped — Lance, Hardsuit, Neural Baffle
Roll 55, minus your ⛊ Physical Defense, in a line 24 ⌗ Units long. On a hit, 2d6+4 damage. Ignores cover.
One allied adversary within 12 ⌗ Units immediately takes one ✦ Action.
Moves its full ⇉ Movement. Does not provoke.
Two Turns. It acts twice each Round, on its ➤ Initiative and again at the bottom of the order.
Reference¶
Icons¶
| Icon | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ❖ | Vigor |
| ✩ | Deft |
| ◉ | Acuity |
| ◬ | Resolve |
| ✚ | HP |
| ⊗ | Wounds |
| ⊖ | Fatigue |
| ϟ | Energy |
| ⛊ | Physical Defense |
| ⛉ | Mental Defense |
| ⇉ | Movement |
| ➤ | Initiative |
| ✦ | Action / Action Point |
| ✧ | Free Action |
| ✽ | Activity |
| ⌗ | Unit |