jdfjfbglkmnfhnfhbg
jdfjfbglkmnfhnfhbg
I apologize for the formatting being a crime to rival anything done in the Human Civil War. This is an extreme work in progress-- I have yet to fill out the species, balance the stats, or make specifications for items, or add many misc rules. CHANGELOG * v0.0.1: created this page
This game hinges on a relatively simple, custom-made system that requires only d6s and coins.
Actions where the success rate depends on a character's Stats or Skills or their equipment's Qualities are resolved by a Check. All checks have a set difficulty (for scenarios not specified, the GM's discretion applies). That difficulty is how high the roll must be to have a success. In some cases, there may be multiple brackets of rolled values for a partial success or other such results.
The precise mechanics for each of those three types of rolls are different, and they must be rolled independently, then added.
The game hinges on Checks, which are resolved by rolls. Assume that d6s are used unless otherwise specified.
Checks have two variables to them: Effort (E), which is the amount of pips a die must have to be considered a success; and Target (T), which is the amount of successes needed. Effort should represent the raw physical or mental difficulty of a task, while Target should represent technical details.
Effort affects Stress, and for physical tasks can even injure your character (explained later).
There is also Pool (P), the amount of dice rolled for the check. By default, it is controlled by your character's stats and skills, but can be overridden by checks. Some traits or items affect the other two variables.
Example:
Physical:
Str): Raw physical power. Determines things like damage, ability to lift weights, maximum encumbrance, and more: hitting someone with a melee weapon; prying open a door; wearing heavy armor without penalties; carrying extra groceries home.Dex): Agility, flexibility, and reaction time. Determines tasks that require finesse, fine motor skills, or quick actions: climbing up obstacles; soldering a circuit; aiming a gun; typing out an angry comment quickly.
Mental:Int): Analytical ability and ability to apply knowledge. Usually needs a relevant skill to work. Determines many non-physical tasks: solving mathematical equations; making a computer program; making a deduction from pieces of information; playing (some genres of) video games.Per): Eyesight, hearing, attentiveness. Determines tasks that involve noticing or intuiting things: scouring a room for fingerprints; pinpointing the source of footsteps in a dark alley; digging through the web for information; finding your lost socks.Cha): Being good at people. Determines tasks involving communication and/or persuasion: bargaining for a lower price; convincing someone to join your cause; persuading an attacker to stand down; bluffing in a game of chance.Stats have points. Points are the amount of d6s rolled per check. These can be modified by traits, species abilities, and equipment. 0 points is a special case: roll at a disadvantage (roll one die twice and select the lowest). X as a stat can also be used as a special case, for truly incapable characters. It means that the stat is fully unusable, and rolls relying solely on it auto-fail-- it should be treated as a 0 for the purposes of all rules that ask for numerical values of stats.
A baseline, healthy, average adult human is 4 in every stat, with exceptional individuals getting to 7 or so. The strongest species in each stat, or specially-tailored transhuman morphs, are 9 to 11. Stats of 12 are restricted to the best of the best of those species who underwent a lifetime of training and luck. The system is not really built for 13 or above, and the number of die rolls might get tedious in such a scenario.
The system is meant to make large amounts of die rolls tolerable: you never need to add anything, so just throw a bunch of dice and count the ones that passed the roll.
Skills are more complicated. They are split into fixed skill groups, and more freeform skills proper. Both use the a different system from stats-- instead of adding more dice, each point in a skill or skill category allows you to reroll a die from a roll. Note that a skill may be in multiple groups, or be outside of a group!
You are allowed and required to invent new skills within skill groups, but skill groups themselves should probably not be houseruled without a good reason.
For organization and effect tagging purposes, there are physical skills, mental skills, and combat skills. These do not have points.
Do not be daunted by the many different skills! Most of them have no special effects besides what is referred to in other rules, so simply pick what makes sense for your character, and make your own.
Intelligence is a weird thing. A lot of skills here should be group-free.
Note that Str independently affects melee combat in a way separate from skill mod (see Combat Rules). Stat mod on combat skills only modifies hit damage, not to-hit.
[[Stardust RPG - Traits]]
This game does not use a HP system. Instead, like some other RPGs, it uses a "harm" system which is very flexible and freeform.
A "harm" is applied when something negative happens. It is usually an injury, but can be mental as a consequence of Stress (see below) or be something more abstract. There are 3 tracks with 3 "slots" for different harms.
Each track (minor, major, critical) can hold up to 3 harms, filling up as one gains them. If you try to put a "minor" level harm into a full "minor harm" track it gets upgraded (into a stronger version of what it would have been). Harms all have mechanical consequences as well as a narrative description, and can be decided on the spot. Some harms have special conditions to go away, "alerted guards" would be a "harm" (likely minor or major) that would be removed once a character leaves the area for a while. Harms can be recovered during downtime (I have not yet made mechanics for this, will use GM discretion), but it's far easier to get rid of minor harms than major ones, and far harder to get rid of critical ones.
Overfilling the critical track with a physical harm gives you the most deleterious of harms: "Dead". Some harms can also cause instadeath, but the GM is advised to use them sparingly and only as a result of colossal incompetence on a player's part. Overfilling it with a mental harm has different effects depending on the character (extreme panic attack, catatonia, fleeing the situation) but in any case control should be temporarily taken until the character recovers. The effects of abstract harms overfilling depend on GM discretion.
Examples:
As a side note, there are also Statuses, which are like harms but are trackless and are positive or neutral, and are usually timed. Examples:
By default, a character has a stress cap of 100, with three "thresholds" at 30, 60, and 100 Stress that, respectively, cause a minor, major, or critical mental harm when reached (signified either in a relevant rule or, more likely, by GM discretion). They scale with the stress cap and are multiplied accordingly (the relevant thresholds will be provided with every stress-cap-modifying effect). Once the Stress cap is reached, further Stress that goes over it immediately becomes Strain (see below).
Stress decays quicker than harms or strain. By default, a character loses 4 Stress every hour while not in danger, and 8 Stress per hour while recreating (12 if it's the character's favorite activity). A single period of proper sleep, in addition to the usual countdowns, halves Stress upon waking up. A successful Counseling or Encouragement roll immediately reduces Stress by the number of successes rolled if it passes, but only if the GM deems that the situation is appropriate.
Strain usually represents physical exhaustion or very minor, compounding injuries, but it can also potentially represent things like poison or asphyxiation.
It uses similar mechanics to stress: the default cap is 100, the thresholds are 30, 60, and 100, and hitting the thresholds gives the character a corresponding harm. However, Strain can go over the cap. Every 20 Strain over the cap gives another critical harm, and these special extra thresholds (unlike the previous ones) cannot be modified unless stated otherwise. This will most likely kill a character very quickly.
Strain decays much slower than Stress. 1 Strain is lost per hour if the character is active, 2 per hour if the character is resting, and 4 if the character is sleeping. A successful First Aid roll immediately reduces Strain by the amount of successes rolled if it passes, but such a roll may be attempted only once for one injury sustained narratively. A hospital stay in a modern hospital immediately clears all Strain once it is done.
Combat uses the same system as checks. For attacks, the attacker makes a check and compares it to the weapon's accuracy (which is the amount of successes needed to roll to make a hit). The Effort of this check is modified according to table 1 (note that more effects may be added by GM discretion). Then the number of successes rolled is compared to table 2 for the hit quality. Then the hit quality is compared to the weapon specification's table, which then causes a Harm to the opponent or adds Strain or has any other effect depending on the weapon and the GM's discretion.
| Effort | Table 1 |
|---|---|
| 4 | Default |
| +1 | (if ranged) For every Range bracket outside of Effective Range (see Table 3) |
| +1 | Low visibility |
| +1 | (if ranged) Target in weak cover |
| +1 | (if ranged) Either combatant is moving at normal speed |
| +1 | Alien weapon (same body plan) |
| +1 | per Strain threshold reached |
| +1 | Mildly damaged weapon |
| +1 | per Silhouette smaller than attacker |
| -1 | (if ranged) In Close range bracket and not a sniper rifle |
| -1 | (if ranged) Attacker is prone |
| -1 | Attacker is on high ground |
| -1 | Target is highlighted or illuminated |
| -1 | Using a scope and weapon is any rifle |
| -1 | Visibility is low for target but not for attacker |
| -1 | per Silhouette larger than attacker |
| +2 | Attacker cannot see the target |
| +2 | (if ranged) Target in strong cover |
| +2 | (if ranged) Either combatant is moving quickly |
| +2 | Attacker's weapon-wielding limb is crippled |
| +2 | Damaged weapon |
| +2 | Alien weapon (different body plan) |
| -2 | Target is unaware of attacker but is on edge |
| -2 | (if ranged) In Point-Blank range bracket and not a sniper rifle |
| -2 | (if ranged) Weapon is homing |
| -2 | (if melee) Target is prone or crouching |
| C | Target is immobilized and unable to attack |
| C | Target is unaware of attacker and does not suspect anything |
If Effort from the above table would be more than 6, then add one more die at 6 effort for each overflow. If effort would be less than 1, add one more die at 1 effort for each overflow. This is a powerful effect.
C in the table means "instant critical hit". It means that table 2 is skipped and the hit is treated as a critical hit or even instadeath depending on the GM's discretion. This is meant to represent that anyone, for example, could basically instantly kill an unconscious person.
| Difference | Table 2 |
|---|---|
| < -5 | Critical miss |
| -4 to -3 | Miss |
| -2 to -1 | Grazing hit |
| 0 to 4 | Hit |
| 5 > | Critical hit |
| Range | Bracket | Table 3 |
|---|---|---|
| < 1m | Melee | knives, swords, batons |
| 1m to 3m | Point-Blank | polearms, pepper spray, handguns |
| 3m to 50m | Close | handguns, flamethrowers, shotguns |
| 50m to 400m | Medium | rifles, rocket launchers |
| 400m to 1.5km | Far | sniper rifles, rocket launchers, HMGs |
| 1.5km > | Horizon | sniper rifles, homing missile launchers |
Note that these examples are not exhaustive or fully inclusive. Please refer to the individual weapons' sheets or ask the GM. Arguments about how far a given real weapon should shoot can be solved by an Internet search.