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[Josephus]

Rules

Non Combat Encounter Rules

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A non-combat encounter is any situation that doesn't involve anything shooting at you or trying to tear into your flesh and put you in its mouth. A non-combat encounter could be something as inane as trying to talk a baby into giving you its candy, to something as inherently ridiculous (but awesome) as parasailing on the surface of the sun.

Mundane situations that don't carry a risk of failure proceed as normal, but anything with a significant chance of failure is a test. During a test, the player (or in this case, the GM) takes the dice provided by their character's relevant skill or attribute and rolls them – or if they have none, the GM just rolls a single die. If they surpass the target number set by the GM, the action succeeds.

Doing Things
You'll want to make your character do things. Two actions per post, which should keep things going at a nice pace. Actions here are defined as the things that have an effect on the game - regardless of whether or not they require a test. For example,

Trevor walks to the corner table, looking around warily as he does so. He opens the drawer to see what's inside.

There's three actions in that, but only two Actions.

Skills, Attributes, and Tests
Generally these are all things that are good to have more of, and bad to have less of. The nature of player characters is that you'll have the same amount of points to distribute in these areas. Every point in a skill or attribute gives you an additional die to use in tests.

Generally we're using the same principle behind most target number based systems. Surpass the target number, and your action succeeds. Fail to surpass it, and your action... doesn't succeed. Fail to surpass it by a lot, and your action both fails and something potentially amusing could happen. Of course, you don't want to fail those tests. To maximize your chances, use as many dice as you can.

Attributes give you a bonus towards related skills, while the skills themselves give you more dice to roll when the time comes for it. Attributes, however, can also be used for checks. For example, a strength check for lifting a heavy object or an endurance check while running a marathon. Unlike skills, attributes can suffer from strain, temporarily reducing the number of available dice you have for tests.

Strain occurs when you use more than one dice for an attribute check. You effectively lose one point from that attribute until your character has had some rest. This means that you temporarily don't have access to the die provided by that attribute point and the bonus that point would have provided to the relevant skills.

Skills don't suffer strain because that would be kind of silly. Intelligence also doesn't suffer strain.

Non-combat skills and combat-specific skills differ slightly. Combat skills are not, typically, used for skill tests, due to the fact that combat resolution is resolved differently than non-combat encounters.
 

Combat Encounter Rules

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A Combat Encounter is any situation that involves something shooting at you or trying to tear into your flesh and put you in its mouth. Combat resolution uses a different, but simple, system for resolving conflict. Whenever combat is initiated, the following steps take place.

1. Everyone makes an Initiative check
2. Turns proceed in order determined by Initiative
3. Repeat until combat ends

Combat ends when one side manages to kill or subdue all other sides. Assuming there are sides at all and everyone's not just trying to kill each other.

Initiative
Initiative is an Attribute test based on your Agility or Perception that determines turn order in a round of combat. Higher initiative acts sooner. Because it's a test, the same rules apply - you can stake as many or as few dice as you want. The difference between the initiative test and regular tests is that it does not have a target number.

Attacking and Defending
So let's say you want to blow a hole in some guy. In order to do that, you need to Attack. Attacking with a weapon or your bare hands allows you to do that weapon's rated damage to your opponent - but he won't just take it lying down. The guy being attacked also Defends himself.

When you Attack someone capable of defending, two dice are rolled. These are the Attack die and the Defense die. If the value on the Attack die is higher, the defender takes the hit, and if the value on the Defense die is higher, the attacker misses, or the defender dodges. A weapon does full damage if the Attack value is higher than the Defense value by 1, or critical damage if it is more than 1. A weapon does glancing damage if the Attack and Defense values are equal, and misses entirely if the Attack value is lower than the Defense value.

All attacks strike the torso region (or equivalent center mass) unless the attacker specifically targets an extremity. Targeting an extremity penalizes the attack roll by 1 (or 2 for the head).

Injury and Death
There are five specific sections of a humanoid body in this game, each of them up for targeting: Torso, Head, Left and Right Arms, Left and Right Legs. Each effectively have six 'hit points', and significant injury to any part of a character's body will impair them in both combat and non-combat encounters.

Getting hit by a weapon is bad. Blood gets everywhere. The damage a character takes to a specific body part is rated in six steps:

        [1]: No Damage/Cosmetic damage
        [2]: Lightly Wounded
        [3]: Wounded
        [4]: Heavily Wounded
        [5]: Mangled
        [6]: The body part is ripped off/smashed beyond recognition/cut off/disintegrated/various other violent things depending on the action

However it's not necessary to gruesomely dismember a foe to kill them. A character reduced to wound level [4] or wound level [3] to the head must make an endurance test at the GM's discretion. If they pass, they stay standing, but if they fail they fall unconscious and commence dying slowly (unless aided).

Character Creation

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Boasting numerous unexplored worlds with the promise of bountiful resources and raw materials – and housing the sad husks of a once mighty alien civilization –  Judecca Sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in Terran Confederation space. New immigrants from other parts of the TC arrive at Dwinson 4, the Sector’s de facto capital, every Standard week, flown in by private concerns and mining firms like Harrison Transports or by Confederation government ships, making sure everything is correctly bundled in piles of red tape.

Frontier sectors tend to be violent and crime ridden, and Judecca Sec is no exception. On Dwinson 4 and its three space stations, you’re more likely to meet a man wearing a sidearm than one wearing a hat. Bounty hunters scour the Sector’s systems in search of fugitive murderers, thieves, and seditionists while the governor, Alan Sartry, tries desperately to keep the peace. The local detachment of the famous Solar Rangers find themselves confounded – in Judecca Sector, the public they’re sworn to protect from criminal elements is, in fact, composed of those criminal elements.

However there are riches for the taking. Salvage is a good business for those who know the right people, and there are plenty of prospectors who spend their time scouring asteroids and scurrying about in alien ruins seeking to make a quick buck. The giant Teuthids that ply the solar wind are prime targets for wannabe pest control agents. And there’s always money in working for the government – or against it.

It’s in this milieu you find yourself in. One way or another, you've found your way onto a ship heading into the Judecca sector – and in a few days you’ll be docking at Dwinson 4. What you're going to do when you get there is a different question entirely.

The form is simple:

Name:
Description:
Attributes
Strength:
Endurance:
Intelligence:
Perception:
Agility:

That’s all you need. For the purposes of this game I’ll be filling out your skills based on your character background, so keep it light but informative.  Only four skills are going onto the final sheet at any rate, with opportunities for improvement later. You get two points to put into Attributes, and each of them, if invested in, give a bonus to a related Skill the character possesses, aside from being used for raw attribute tests, so pick em wisely.

[IronyOwl]

Yeah, sure. Either of the first two sound good.

[Josephus]

Character Sheets:

IronyOwl/Alice Tekov

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wound Status
Head
Torso
Left Arm
Right arm
Left Leg
Right Leg

Inventory
Worn
Traveling Clothing

Carried
Shock Pistol: [1:2:4] [8/8]
Shock Pistol Reloads [2]
Credit Chit [Wealth 1]

Skills
Research and Investigation 2
Cajolery 1
Handguns 1

Stats
Intelligence +2

Haspen/Elizabeth D. Ahling

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wound Status
Head
Torso
Left Arm
Right arm
Left Leg
Right Leg

Inventory
Worn
Uglopp's Token
Hunter's Leathers [Torso] [3/3] [Armor 1]
Pants
Boots

Carried
Collapsible Spear: [2:3:4] [4/4]
Large Knife: [1:3:3] [3/3]
Pistol: [1:4:5] [8/8]
Pistol Reloads [1]
Credit Chit [Wealth 0]

Skills
Tracking 1
Infiltration 1
Handguns 1
Melee Weapons 1

Stats
Agility +1
Perception +1

Strife26/Jack Hiyat

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wound Status
Head
Torso
Left Arm
Right arm
Left Leg
Right Leg

Inventory
Worn
Traveling Clothing

Carried
Hand Cannon [2:5:6] [6/6]
Hand Cannon Reloads [2]
Credit Chit [Wealth 1]
SRC Pay Voucher

Skills
Small Arms 1
Cajolery 1
Pilot 1
Research and Investigation 1

Stats
Intelligence +1
Perception +1

Elfeater/Joseph Hartman

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wound Status
Head
Torso
Left Arm
Right arm
Left Leg
Right Leg

Inventory
Worn
Travelling Clothing

Carried
Battle Rifle [2:4:6] [20/20]
Credit Chit [Wealth 0]
Micktal Campaign Medal
Jormack Certificate of Field Commission

Skills
Small Arms 1
Survival 1
Command 1
Cajolery 1

Stats
Intelligence +1
Perception +1

[IronyOwl]

Well, right time right place and all.

I guess I'm leaning towards Space Opera.

[Haspen]

I might be interested in that space opera thingy.

It really boils down to how much free time I will have and how/where it will be play(tested).

Also, kinda welcome back after one and half year of posting absence, Josephus!

[Josephus]

It really boils down to how much free time I will have and how/where it will be play(tested).

Also, kinda welcome back after one and half year of posting absence, Josephus!

Like, here dude. Play by Post, means I'll be running it on Bay12.

Never had much appetite for Skype or IRC games, honestly.

Also, kinda thanks for the welcome. You can leave Bay12, but Bay12 never leaves you.

[Doomblade187]

Space Opera sounds fun. I think I'll join.

[Strife26]

Heck if coming back after a leave of absence doesn't seem to suit me just fine right now. I'm perfectly game, and the grand ole space opry sounds fun as well, if there's space for me.

[Josephus]

That's four people, sounds about right. I guess I'll hold out for maybe one more and start the game thread in a few hours or so.

Woo, Space Opry!

[Elfeater]

Count me in, like strife ive been gone a while.

[Josephus]

Right then, that's five. Give me a bit to throw the thread together and I'll link it here.

[IronyOwl]

I don't think you needed a whole separate thread just to check for interest, you know.

[Josephus]

I don't think you needed a whole separate thread just to check for interest, you know.

It really depends. Some fora do interest checks/game recruitment and games proper in separate threads, and I got used to doing it that way. It occurs to me that it works differently here though.

[Elfeater]

I need to sleep, have school tommorow, so ill post tommorow.

[Strife26]

I'm not honestly up to what the normalities are nowadays here, but a thread slowly sinking down into the depths of the forum really doesn't hurt anything thing, depending on if the trouble of ooc/ic differentiated threads would be worth it (and I generally towards them not, but that's just my hazy remembrances of never ever having finished a forum game)