How to Play

After completing each term of Elite Unit training, the GM will present the players with a mission they have been assigned. A mission briefing will be given; players will then have a chance to purchase any additional requirement they desire, and then the game is on. The players lead, telling the GM what they want their characters to do, and the GM tells them how that works out.

A lot of the time it's up to the GM to decide what happens when the characters try to do something - they know what's around the next corner. For particular kinds of actions the characters want to do, however, there are rules involving rolling dice to decide the outcomes because some element of chance is involved, and that's what the rest of this section is about.

There will also be "non-player characters" (NPCs), who are characters that the GM controls rather than a player.

Crunch Time

In a situation where characters are racing against each other - for instance, a battle where you're racing to kill each other - keeping track of who does what when becomes important.

Time is carved up into Turns in battle, a Turn being three seconds. Different characters have different numbers of Actions per turn, an Action being an attack, spell, motion, etc. If there's any dispute about whether something can be completed in a single action, the GM gets the final say.

At the beginning of combat, all involved must roll for initiative. Initiative is 1D20+character's Initiative, and the person with the highest acts first, all the way down the list (people with the same Initiative will be ranked according to the GM's choice). These dice rolls remain the same through subsequent turns until the battle is over, so the initiative ordering is fixed - if new characters turn up then they will roll for initiative and be added into the existing list. The GM generally keeps track of the initiative list on a bit of scrap paper.

When it's a character's turn, they get to perform as many actions as they get per turn, in order.

Armed Combat

Character A attacks Character B, using a weapon. This might be at short range using a "melee" weapon such as a sword, or it might be a gun, an artillery piece, or a mortar or grenade launcher.

Each weapon has an attack bonus, and damage. Most weapons have different attack bonuses and damage, depending on the range they're used at; we'll look at an example in the Weapons subsection.

Each character has an Attack attribute and a Dodge attribute.

A adds their Attack attribute to the Attack Bonus of their weapon, and rolls 1D20, and adds the lot together.

B adds their Dodge attribute to the resulting of rolling 1D20.

If the attack comes in slowly and they see it coming (eg, a swing from a sword, a fireball, or a thrown projectile, as opposed to a high-velocity bullet, laser beam, etc) they can choose to try and Parry if they are carrying a suitable object. They must Save with Reactions to do this (by rolling 1D20 less than their Reactions attribute). If they succeed, add the object's Dodge Bonus as well (the player must declare this before rolling the 1D20, they can't decide to sneak it in if the roll went bad!).

Inanimate objects are assumed to have 0 dodge, but still get to roll 1D20 (well, the GM will do it for them) to see if A manages to hit them, except when it's obvious they would (or the element of suspense isn't interesting at that point in the game).

To hit, A must roll ABOVE (not merely equal to) B's total.

If A manages it, then they must roll appropriate dice, as per their weapon, to calculate the damage done to B.

If B parried but is still hit, then some of the damage is absorbed by their weapon. Their weapon counts as an additional layer of armour as per the armour rules below.

Near misses

When an attack misses but the weapon has a spread or a blast radius, calculate how far they missed (in metres) by subtracting the attacker's attack roll from the defender's dodge roll, and multiply this number by the distance between them in metres, and divide by a hundred. If it's less than the spread or blast radius, they'll still be caught in the blast. If they're more than half the spread or blast radius away, they only get half damage.

Plasma guns have a different rule for misses: if a plasma gun misses you but you're caught in the spread, then the damage is divided by the miss distance plus two. For instance, if it misses you by 0.5m, then divide the damage by 2.5. This is because the bulk of the spread damage is caused by radiated heat and radiation from the plasma stream itself.

Attack modifiers

Extra attack bonuses (or, if negative, penalties) may be applied to A's roll in different situations.

Guided missiles are immune to these modifiers as they have their own in-flight target-tracking system.

Unarmed Combat

Character A attacks Character B, unarmed.

A rolls 1D20 and adds their Attack attribute.

B rolls 1D20 and adds their Dodge attribute. Inanimate objects are assumed to have a Dodge of 0, but it's rare to attempt to fight an inanimate object.

B may choose to parry with a weapon, as in the Armed Combat rules.

For A to succeed in hitting B, their total must be more than B's.

If A manages to hit B, A rolls for damage: 1D10, and adds their Strength attribute.

If A had wanted to, they could have reduced their Strength for the purpose of this roll, if they want to deliberately reduce damage.

Surprise attacks

If an attacker is in touch range, and the opponent cannot dodge or does not know of the attacker, the attacker can make ANY weapons attack fatal, and if they have at least one level of warrior training, they can make a fatal hand to hand attack. The attack/dodge roll must still be done to see if they succeed (see the attack bonus for a surprise attack); but the attacker can choose to make the attack fatal instead of having to roll for damage.

Damage to Characters

Damage to characters is deducted from Stamina.

If Stamina gets below half its normal healthy value, all the character's attributes are halved.

If it gets below one quarter its healthy value, they are incapacitated and can't perform any actions.

If it hits zero, they're dead.

Whenever damage of more than quarter of the character's normal healthy stamina is taken in one go, roll 1D100 on this table to see what body part is damaged. The effect of a damaged body part is generally that the affected attribute is halved, as per this table - with the exception of certain brain injuries that cause instant death.

If the same part is hit twice, the listed attribute becomes zero. These wounds are not healable (but the body part can be replaced with a prosthetic, as described below). If the trunk is hit twice - reducing Constitution to zero - death is instant.

If a player rolls on the limb damage table and a prosthetic limb is damaged, as well as reducing the attribute, there is a 10% chance (roll 1 on a 1D10) that it will fail, sending the respective attribute(s) plunging to zero. A trunk failure equals death.

Damage to Objects

Damage to objects is deducted from DC, or Damage Capacity. When it reaches zero, the object is no longer operational. Resilience means that any damage below the resilience is completely rebounded by the object, causing no DC reduction.

Walls often have DC per square metre; a bomb doing 100 points of damage to a 10 DC/m2 wall will remove a 10m2 circle. Bullets etc. are also included in this, so a guy with a minigun can simply blow a hole in a wall. Don't be surprised if a single bullet makes a hole larger than the bullet; it is due to crumbling of the wall and reduction of its structural stability due to the shot.

Armour

A character or object hit by damage might be protected by armour, possibly in multiple layers. The interaction between the incoming damage and the armour is calculated for each layer of armour as it is encountered.

If the damage is less than the armour's Resilience, then the blow is absorbed without harm. Otherwise, subtract the Resilience from the damage, and then subtract the remaining damage (permanently) from the armour's DC. If any DC is left, then the armour is still intact, albeit damage, and the damage stops there; no further harm is done.

If all the armour's DC is gone, it's destroyed, and the remaining damage (original damage minus armour Resilience minus the armour's DC before it was destroyed) is transmitted to the layer of armour beneath, or to the target if no more armour remains.

For instance; A does 20 points of damage to B, who parried with a sword that has resilience 5 and DC 150. The resilience absorbs 5 points of damage without harm, leaving 15 points of damage, which are subtracted from the sword's DC, leaving it at 135.

However, if B parried with a packet of crisps that has resilience 1 and DC 5, then the resilience would absorb 1 point of damage leaving 19; the packet of crisps would be destroyed as the DC of 5 is far less than the 19 points of damage, leaving 19-5=14 points of damage delivered to B.

Healing

Stamina heals at 1 point per hour. First aid or Paramedic skills can be used to speed that up if a suitable first aid kit is available.

If a particular body part is damaged due to a roll on the severe damage table (but not completely destroyed by being hit twice), expert medical attention (often involving surgery) and protracted recuperation may return the reduced attribute to three quarters of the original attribute unless replaced. Spending money on a prosthetic body part is the only way to get any better than that.

Poison Level points drain away at their Endurance divided by 3 units per hour.

If attributes are temporarily reduced by some kind of attack (eg, Willpower drained by an Attack program in virtual reality combat), then they heal at one point per hour. That does not apply to reductions caused by spells.

Prowling/Sneaking

Add your Reactions to 1D20 and the Alertness of anyone present to 1D20. If your score is above theirs, they have not noticed you. For example:

Anna wants to creep past Ben, and she has a Reactions of 12. Plus 1D20 is 17. Ben's Alertness is 7, plus 1D20 is 16. Anna sneaks past Ben.

Saving throws

From time to time, you will be required to Save With some attribute. This involves rolling a D20, and if you roll BELOW that attribute, you have succeeded. Players may, at any time, decide to fail a saving throw straight off. This is useful when a spell is being cast upon you for a good purpose, so you don't want to resist. If 20 is rolled, then make another roll, and add that to 20; having an attribute of 20 or more doesn't guarantee you a save!

If you roll EQUAL TO the attribute, the GM may decide that you only just fail it, and get let off lightly in some way. It's up to them.

Recoil

For every round fired from a bullet-firing gun in a turn, Recoil for that weapon is incremented. Aiming the gun returns Recoil to zero, and recoil systems subtract a certain amount from the recoil of a gun, like so:

Bill's fully automatic rifle has fired a burst of 10 rounds. However, his recoil vent unit has a rating of -2, so only 8 is added to the gun's recoil. He then fires a single shot. The vent unit would seem to make the recoil for this -1, but it really only reduces it to zero, leaving the Recoil at eight.

Next time somebody fires their gun, the Attack Bonus has the Recoil subtracted from it. At the end of every turn, Recoil is reduced to zero again.

Vehicle mounted weapons suffer no recoil, nor do Manual firing weapons.

Carrying stuff

All objects have an Encumbrance listed near their name, a number in curly braces. The meaning of the number is indicated on the table below.

If an object is thrown as a weapon, use the Hit Damage as the damage upon impact.

If a character has an object dropped upon them, use the Hit Damage times the square of the distance in metres to calculate the damage - and halve that if they have armour on the point of impact.

If you are carrying something heavy in your hands, there is a penalty to Run Speed, Reactions, Endurance, Initiative, Strength, Attack and Dodge, listed in the Carrying Penalty column. This doesn't apply if it's in a rucksack etc. so the weight isn't on your hands.

Vehicles

Driving activities are generally based around the pilot/driver's Reactions attribute.

Level 0 (civilian) vehicles do not have a Control Port for direct neural linkage, and must be driven using manual controls. Military vehicles up to level 3 have both manual and Control Port controls. Vehicles at level 4 and 5 can only be controlled via Control Port.

The following modifiers to Reactions apply. More than one modifier can apply at once, in which case, they accumulate.

There will also be a bonus or penalty to Reactions associated with the vehicle, reflecting how manoeuvrable it is.

To perform some risky action, the pilot must Save With Reactions, but with their reactions modified by the relevant entry in the table below. A failure means the action was mucked up; the sharp turn was too sharp or too loose, the ram missed, etc.

Crashes do 2D6 damage to the vehicle per 10 kph, and 2D6 damage to each seated occupant per 20kph, and 2D6*4 damage per 20kph to each occupant not in a stea.

A vehicle cannot dodge when attacked (so has a Dodge score of zero), but it can twist and turn if it has enough space, giving it an effective dodge attribute of half the pilot's reactions instead of zero. The pilot must choose to do this BEFORE being attacked, and it halves the vehicle's top speed.

The particular action performed applies a modifier to Reactions as well:

Ramming a character or vehicle (as opposed to a stationary object) counts as an armed combat attack; Use Reactions as the Attack attribute to calculate the aim.

Damage caused by ramming is as per a crash - the same crash damage is done to the ramming vehicle (and its occupants) and the rammed vehicle/character.

Competitive piloting actions (overtaking somebody who doesn't want to be overtaken, getting behind somebody who is trying to keep you in front of them, pushing somebody sideways off the road to make them crash, etc) is handled like an attack: the pilot trying to do it adds 1D20 to their Reactions, the pilot of the attacked vehicle does the same, and if the attacking pilot rolls above the defending pilot, they attack succeeds.

Poisons and drugs

Each character has a Poison Level, initially zero. When harmful toxins enter the body, the Poison Level is increased unless the rules specify otherwise, having the following effects:

Alcohol: a 'unit' of alcohol is 3 poison points.

Weapons

Every weapon is described by a weapon block, which lays out the important characteristics.

The number in {squiggly brackets} is the encumbrance, as described in Carrying Stuff.

The ranges table describes how the weapon functions at different ranges between attacker and target. Up to (and including) the Range for a column, the attributes below apply. Beyond the furthest range in the table, the weapon is ineffective.

As described in Armed Combat, the Attack Bonus modifies the attacker's Attack attribute. Damage lists the amount of damage the weapon does at that range. The final row is either Blast Radius or Spread, depending on the weapon type.

Spread is for weapons whose effect spreads out in a blast, like a shotgun: it's the width of the spread at that range, and any targets within that spread will all be hit with the same damage. The damage continues onwards in a cone, and can hit multiple targets at different ranges.

Blast Radius is for weapons that explode upon impact. Any targets within that range of the impact point are damaged by the blast, but the attack doesn't "carry on" like a shotgun blast; it only explodes at one point.

Ammo explains what kind of ammunition the weapon takes, and how it's fed into the weapon. Weapons that take magazines/clips can be reloaded in a single action, if the character has a loaded clip available. Ammo clips/magazines can be reloaded at the character's Reactions rounds per action, so keep plenty of preloaded spare magazines in your pockets, as refilling them in the heat of battle is time-consuming!

The weapon's parrying attributes - dodge bonus, DC and resilience - are listed next.

Firing modes apply to mechanical weapons. Some weapons have multiple modes; the character chooses which mode the weapon is in when they fire it.

When using a weapon in Full Auto mode, the character may spread the attack across a group of targets standing close together. In which case, they roll to attack as usual, and all the targets must roll to dodge individually; the single Attack total is compared to all their Dodges to see who is and who isn't hit. The attacker rolls for damage, multiplies it by the number of rounds fired in that Full Auto action, but divides it by the number of targets to work out the damage per target.

Finally, the Grade of the weapon is the level of weapons licence required to legally buy and own it (Grade 0 weapons are available to anybody), and the Cost is the cost to buy it.

Physical deterioration

As characters age, they start to lose it. Any attribute that is 3 or less will NOT be reduced by aging, and the effect of aging on an attribute stops when it reaches 3. Also, if an attribute is no longer "natural" because the relevant body part has been replaced by a prosthetic, it does not age using this table.

If a character ages beyond 70, they have 5% times the number of years over 70 chance of dying from natural causes each year, or 3% if the user has a prosthetic trunk.

Prosthetics usually fail suddenly. After five years of use, there is a 10% chance each year that a prosthetic will fail at some point (GM chooses when, usually a moment of high stress.) A trunk failure will result in death. Players can get prosthetics overhauled - starting the five year counter over again - for a cost of 10c. Prosthetics overhauled every five years therefore will last forever, unless damaged.

Magic Spells

NE (Natural Energy)

NE is the raw material from which spellcasting is powered. The wizard will have a certain amount of NE in their body, which is drained when they cast spells. They can regain NE from sleeping, or have some stored up in a staff or NE battery amulet, but tapping this stored power takes an action.

A spell's NE requirement may be a dice roll. If the character attempts a spell and the NE cost the player rolls is more than the character's available NE, then the spell fizzles - half the NE is consumed, but the spell effect doesn't happen.

Sleeping will restore 10 NE per hour.

Magical Chaos

Sometimes a spell is scrambled during casting, causing its effects to be unpredictable. Roll a D20 on this table for the result - as well as the intended effect:

When does this occur? Well, Spell Scramble (See SSCs) can cause this. Also, when the wizard is at less than half their original Stamina (in pain), or at a Poison Level of thirty or above, their spells have a 10% chance (0 on a D10) of being scrambled. GMs may also cause spells to be scrambled in special circumstances - while a spell of immense power is being crafted nearby by Willie the Wonder Wizard, when the group are in the Temple of the Great One during a great ceremony, etc. In other words, situations where lots of other NE is being controlled.