Character¶
Every player character, non-player character (NPC) and creature such as animals, monsters or even robots, etc. fall under this category and are created using the following rules.
Race¶
The race changes some aspects, including inherent abilities, Attributes, Skills, roleplaying circumstances and more.
See Races.
Attributes¶
Attributes are the cornerstone of your character. They define how well your character performs in related Skills, and what Perks are available to him.
An Attribute has either a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12 assigned to it. The average for a human is a d6.
Every Attribute has an initial value of a d4. An Attribute cannot drop below a d4 or be raised above a d12.
Body¶
Body is used for Health, Pace, Natural Healing and resisting bodily effects such as Hazards, etc.
Its associated Skills are Action Skills.
Mind¶
Mind is used for Turn Order, and Perception.
Its associated Skills are Knowledge Skills.
Soul¶
Soul is used to resist mental effects, such as drugs, alcohol, stuns, etc.
Its associated Skills are Social Skills.
Improving an Attribute¶
Raising an Attribute by one step, e.g. from a d4 to a d6, costs 1 Attribute Point. You cannot raise the Attribute above a d12, nor decrease a Attribute.
Traits, Perks & Flaws¶
Traits allow your character to be more unique, in giving them advantages and disadvantages.
Skills¶
See Skills for a list of available skills and more information.
[GM Tip] Special Skills
In some settings you might want to add special Skills, for example Occultism (Knowledge Skill) in a Lovecraftian horror story. Such Skills shouldn’t be improvable with Skill Points, but rather by exploring and unveiling secrets.
Stats¶
Health (HP)¶
Health abstracts how much wounds a character can take before being incapacitated or dead.
For the Body Attribute you roll your die and add it to the Base value. As with any die, the Body die can explode as well. If your Body Attribute is improved by a level-up, you roll your new die and add it to your Health.
See Wounds and Healing for more details.
Health
Pace (PACE)¶
The Pace gives you an estimate how quickly you can go from A to B.
The Pace is used to determine how far the creature gets by using the Move Action. You can use up your Body die’s sides halfed in meters.
The Pace can be lowered by Conditions and Overburdening due to too much Bulk. If your Pace drops to 0, your character is immobilized.
Pace
Parry¶
Parry is used to defend against incoming melee attacks. Per additional enemy
within melee range you suffer a -1 penalty.
If you don’t have a melee weapon equipped, you suffer a -2 penalty.
The value for Parry cannot drop below 2.
Parry
Perception (PER)¶
Perception measures your character’s ability to detect hidden stuff without looking for it actively.
Every Stealth roll is opposed by Perception. Per ally near you, that’s
able to detect, you receive a +1 bonus to your Perception.
Perception
Level (LVL)¶
The Level of a character abstracts his experience, resourcefulness, and skill set.
Experience (XP)¶
Experience Points (XP) are gained throughout a character’s adventuring career.
XP are gained when resolving a Crisis, due to noteable achievements, or by story completions.
Every character starts at Level 1. For a Level-Up you need XP. The higher the Level, the higher the XP requirement.
XP and Level Ups
XP and Level Ups
The XP requirement for Level 2 is 100 XP. The XP requirement for Level 3 is 200. So for Level 3 you require 300 XP in total.
Acquisitions¶
A character’s Level improves the maximum values of his Acquisitions. This does not necessarily make the character stronger, but makes the character more resourceful and adaptable.
Attribute Points¶
Every 3 levels (Level 3, 6, 9, 12, and so on), a character gains an Attribute Point that can be assigned to Body, Mind, or Soul.
Skill Points¶
Every level, a character receives 3 Skill Points.
Acquisitions¶
Acquisitions abstract the resources available to a character.
Acquisitions are limited by a maximum value, and are used to improve your character. This maximum value is modified by Circumstances, Talents, and permanently due to the character’s Level.
The current value for Acquisitions can never exceed the maximum value. All exceeding points are usually lost.
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Loot Loot abstracts the items and clutter looted, which can be sold for a profit. |
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Spare Time Spare Time is used for Spare Time Rolls. Each Spare Time Roll requires one Spare Time Point. |
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Influence Influence is used to acquire and maintain vessels. Influence can also be used for social encounters. You can spend Influence on favors or on meetings with important people. |
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Resources Resources are used to acquire and maintain equipment. |
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Technology Technology is used to unlock equipment for personal use and vessels. It can also be used to develop vaccines, gun-powder weapons etc. |
Loot (LOOT)¶
Loot abstracts the items and clutter looted, that can be sold for profit.
Gained by looting enemies, bases, etc., trading or via quest rewards.
Used to sell for a profit.
Loot is usually stored on a vessel or a player base. 1 unit of Loot takes up 4 Bulk.
Spare Time (ST)¶
Spare Time represents the time a character can invest in activities outside of active play, e.g. in between sessions.
Gained over the course of time. A character gains more ST in between adventures and longer periods of downtime during adventures. A character gains at least 1 ST each session automatically.
Used to recuperate, craft, repair and upgrade items and vessels and to improve a character.
Depending on the task, a ST roll is made with the associated Skill. As with Skills, you can add applicable modifiers to the roll, e.g. assets or circumstance modifiers.
The ST influences the difficulty of the Skill check, and provides a bonus or penalty.
An ST rolls is specified by the following scheme: XtY (Skill), e.g. 2t4
or t6. X represents the number of successful rolls necessary. The X also
represents the ST cost. Y represents the Difficulty Level for each
roll. Skill indicates the Skill that has to be used for the ST roll.
If a ST roll fails, the ST point is lost. If multiple ST rolls are necessary for a certain task and one of the check fails, there are multiple outcomes:
- you can continue it at a later time or spend more ST points immediatly,
- the ST task fails, or
- the ST task does not have the intended outcome.
Maximum Spare Time
Spare Time rolls
Finding a very rare item on the black market might be represented as a 2t4 Spare Time roll.
A character attempts the roll. He needs to spend 2 Spare Time points, and roll the Commerce Skill twice. The roll’s difficulty is a 4; Each roll has to be equal to or higher than this difficulty.
Influence (INF)¶
Influence represents connections, owed favours by others, fame and infamy.
Gained by making a name for yourself in the cosmos, i.e. by helping people and factions. INF is lost by harming and disappointing others (Infamy might also gain you INF based on your reputation).
Used for accessing and buying items, unlocking Perks, vessels, meetings with high ranking characters, etc.
More INF unlocks better equipment, perks and better vessels.
Maximum Influence
Resources (RES)¶
Resources (RES) represent materials used for creating, repairing, upgrading and acquiring equipment.
Gained by looting, or completing missions, adventures and quests.
Used to create, repair, upgrade and acquire equipment and vessels.
RES can also be used to repair vessels. Depending on the damage that’s to be repaired, the character, or group, has to accumalate enough RES to repair the vessel. The RES aren’t lost when repairing.
If RES are spent on equipment, your maximum RES are temporarily lowered by that amount. This abstracts the upkeep and maintenance of a powerful item.
Maximum Resources
Technology (TECH)¶
Technology represents the character’s technological knowledge, which on the other hand allows to unlock new Equipment.
Gained by aiding science missions, acquiring blueprints, spending spare time on researching certain scientific fields, etc.
Used for unlocking experimental equipment and vessels. Once unlocked, the experimental equipment or vessel can be acquired.
Certain upgrades require TECH in order to be unlocked. Upgrades have to be unlocked only once, and can be shared and accumalated between characters. Using TECH permanently lowers this value.
Maximum Technology
Living standard¶
A living standard abstracts and simplifies the micro-management for standard-type campaigns.
Every character has a normal living standard by default. This living standard includes normal accomadations, free food and drinks in populated areas, moving in local traffic and areas, etc. This means you don’t have to pay for normal lodging, etc.
[GM Tip] - Living standards and survival campaigns
If surviving becomes the focus of a session, you can always overrules this and require your players to manage food, drinks and other resources they might need to survive, e.g. wood in a cold setting.
Languages¶
Every character has one native language, that’s at step normal.
Improving a language also counts towards the skill bonus for the Knowledge category.
Learning a Language can be done in three steps. Each step requires you to make a Spare Time roll. Learning the basics of a language requires you to have access to people speaking the language, books and texts written in the language, or other means to learn the language.
Basic¶
You are able to communicate on a basic level. Others might not always understand you, but in general they know what you’re trying to tell them. Additionally you can’t read or write in this language.
- Cost
- t5 (Linguistics)
Normal¶
You have a normal knowledge about the language. You can decipher most texts, and know a good fraction of the language’s vocabulary.
- Cost
- t6 (Linguistics)
Master¶
You are able to have the most sophisticated conversations with others, and decipher every text, even older dialects that might not be around anymore.
- Cost
- 2t6 (Linguistics)
Learning languages at character creation¶
If a character chooses to upgrade the Linguistics Skill, he also improves one of his languages to the next step, or learns a new on at Basic level. Upgrading to Master level requires two Linguistics upgrades however.