D O G S: Ice Pool M Ral Predicament Based Eneric Roleplaying Ystem

DICE POOL AND
MO RAL PREDICAMENT BASED
GENERIC ROLEPLAYING
SYSTEM
Copyright KN Obaugh
CREDITS
This system was developed out of Vincent Baker’s Dogs in the
Vineyard, without which it would not exist. Thank you for giving me
not only a new way to think about roleplaying games, but also the
knowledge that writing this as my own game was even a possibility
Design and Layout by Megan Ellis
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Schuyler, who helped a ton with the very first conversion, did
plenty of playtesting, and was the reason we were even doing it in
the first place
Victor, who created the character sheets that I’ve been using since I
began running DOGS for strangers at cons
Holly, Christa, Alejandro, and my partner Aidan for creating

character art
Schuyler, Victor, Julio, McCarty, Jeff, Jae, Garlen, Steve, Alita, John,
Juan, Josh, Megan, and everyone who has played my game at Gen
Con for helping me out with playtesting
CONTENTS
PREFACE................................................................5
CHARACTER CREATION.......................................7
Backgrounds & Focuses.......................8
Stats.........................................................10
Traits, Relationships, and Powers.......11
Equipment..............................................13
Training Conflict...................................14
CONFLICTS............................................................17
Raises......................................................18
Calling....................................................19
Escalation...............................................21
Winning (Or Losing) A Conflict.........22
Healing...................................................24
Niche Situations....................................26
HOW TO RUN A GAME OF DOGS.......................31

Setting.....................................................32
Example Settings..................................33
NPCs.......................................................37
How to Be An Effective GM................41
What is the world like?.........................45
AN EXAMPLE CAMPAIGN:
FRESHMAN FRENZY.............................................45
Fragments...............................................46
Training Conflict...................................47
What’s really going on?........................48
Conflict Timeline..................................49
What is Axis Mundi like?....................49
NPCs by House.....................................51
Player Characters..................................74
PREFACE
WHAT IS DOGS?
DOGS (Dice pool and mOral predicament based Generic roleplay-
ing System) is a collaborative storytelling game where you and a
group of friends (or just acquaintances) sit down and investigate,
fight, or otherwise work your way through interesting situations as
well as moral and ethical conundrums.
To break down the name:
• Dice pool: The way that you figure out how successful
you are when there is a chance of failing, regardless of
the details, involves rolling polyhedral dice (d4s, d6s, d8s,
and d10s mostly, but some games might include d12s too)
and adding the results (usually the physical dice them-
selves; I recommend having a lot of dice handy!) to a pool
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DOGS
of dice that you bid from. Everyone’s dice pool (includ-

ing the NPCs controlled by the GM) should be visible to
everyone else.
• mOral predicaments: The kind of games that DOGS is
designed for involve the players not just being able to
blunder ahead with no consequences, using their abili-
ties at full strength every time. The players end up being
forced to make decisions about how much force they
should use, and whether it’s more important that they
win or that they not break the law (whatever that means
in your game). It works best when there’s a mystery to
solve, conflicts to mediate, or some other situation that
necessitates care
• Generic: DOGS is setting (and tone) agnostic, which
means that it’s just as easy to play in lighthearted/funny
martial arts game set in a fantastical version of a mod-
ern day country as it is to play religious inquisitors in a
grim, dark game set in a distant nihilistic future. Because
everyone not only describes their actions however they
want to, but writes down their character’s abilities in
their own words as well, DOGS is only really tied to the
principles above (and even then, you can still perfectly
enjoy a game that isn’t—those are just what it was de-
signed for)
• roleplaying System: DOGS is a roleplaying game. If you
haven’t played any (or many) other roleplaying games,
to play all you have to do is decide what your character
does and says, and then communicate that to everyone
else. You can do it in first or third person (every person
and group has a different style), as into or out of your
character as you like. The important thing to consider is
that roleplaying games are collaborative. Your character
will not be able to dictate the whole of the game, but must
work together with the other player characters (and the
GM) to figure out what happens next.
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1
CHARACTER
CREATION
E very character in DOGS is a member of some kind of team, usu-

ally with some kind of authority, depending on your setting.
You may be one magician in a powerful Coven where everyone has
a magical specialty, or you may be a member of a monastic tradition
where each of you is armed with a laser sword. Besides a few small
tweaks, character creation is the same regardless of setting.
During your first session, preferably with all of the other players
and the GM present, everyone makes their characters together. At
this point you should already know the basic details of the setting
so that the characters you create will fit into the world.
The steps for character creation are:
• choose your Background and your Focus
• assign dice to your Stats, Traits, Relationships, and Powers
• decide on your character’s Equipment
• undergo a Training Conflict
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DOGS
BACKGROUNDS & FOCUSES

The background options are Balanced, Specialized, and Rocky. The
Focus options are Trained, Connected, and Spiritual.
Your character’s Background represents your character’s history,
while their Focus represents what they care about. Trained char-
acters have more and better Traits, Connected characters are best
at Relationships, and Spiritual characters have the most Powers.
Together they determine what dice you get to assign for each por-
tion of your character sheet.
Because of how Conflicts work, you don’t have any pure num-
bers on your sheet. Every part of your character sheet that can affect
gameplay is measured in amounts of dice, which you roll when you
can justify their use in a Conflict.
Balanced
Characters with a Balanced background are well-rounded, well
prepared, and tend to have pasts that don’t contain too much
excitement or trauma. They don’t lack training, but the training is
not necessarily the most important thing to them. Balanced charac-
ters are ready for anything, and bad at very few things.
Regardless of which Focus you chose, a character with a Balanced
background gets 18d6 worth of Stat Dice. Divide them however you
like among your Stats
The number of dice you get to assign for your Traits, Relationships,
and Powers is based on your Focus:
TRAINED CONNECTED SPIRITUAL

TRAITS 1d4 1d6 3d8 3d6 1d8 3d6 1d8
RELATIONSHIPS 3d6 1d8 1d4 1d6 3d8 3d6 1d8
POWERS 3d6 1d8 3d6 1d8 1d4 1d6 3d8
Specialized
Specialized characters have spent the majority of their lives think-
ing about their Focus. They tend to be extremely good at the things
they are trained in (regardless of what those things are), but can
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Character Creation
sometimes falter when presented with challenges they weren’t ex-

pecting. A Specialized character can also have the most number of
different Traits, Powers, or Relationships. Choose this Background
if you want to be very focused on your . . . Focus. A Specialized
character gets 13d6 Stat Dice to distribute.

TRAITS 1d4 2d6 3d6 1d8 3d6 1d8
2d8 3d10
RELATIONSHIPS 3d6 1d8 1d4 2d6 3d6 1d8
2d8 3d10
POWERS 3d6 1d8 3d6 1d8 1d4 2d6
2d8 3d10
Rocky
A character with the Rocky background has had some issues in the
past. They may have been kicked out of former communities, or
have been betrayed or grievously injured (physically or otherwise).
Since they have the most d4s as well as the most spread out d4s,
they’re also most likely to suffer Consequences. Play a character
with a Rocky background if you want to be someone who is rising
above their past. A character with the Rocky background gets 15d6
Stat Dice to distribute

TRAITS 2d4 2d6 2d10 1d4 2d6 2d8 1d4 2d6 2d8
RELATIONSHIPS 1d4 2d6 2d8 2d4 2d6 2d10 1d4 2d6 2d8
POWERS 1d4 2d6 2d8 1d4 2d6 2d8 2d4 2d6 2d10
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DOGS
EXAMPLE
For an upcoming game where the players are Resident Assistants at a
magic boarding school where everyone has mythology-related powers,
you create a character, Aamir, whose power is based on an Ifrit trapped in
a metal lighter. You decide that Aamir has had a rough time learning how
to use his powers, so his Background is Rocky and his Focus is Spiritual.
According to the table, Aamir will have 15d6 worth of Stats, 1d4 2d6 2d8
in Traits, 1d4 2d6 2d8 in Relationships, and 2d4 2d6 2d10 worth of Powers.
STATS
A character’s Stats are always represented by some number of d6.
There’s no maximum, but every Stat has to be at least 2d6.
There are 4 Stats in DOGS:
• Body: Body represents a character’s physical strength/size,
health, agility, gracefulness, and/or toughness
• Mind: Mind represents a character’s intelligence, cleverness,
wit, acuity, attention to detail, and/or learnedness
• Soul: Soul represents a character’s charisma, empathy, force
of personality, attractiveness, charm, compassion, and/or
courage
• Spirit: Spirit represents a character’s willpower,
determination to succeed, aggressiveness, and/or tenacity
EXAMPLE
You decide that Aamir is trying very hard to control his powers, so his
Spirit should be high. You go with 6d6 for Spirit, leaving you with 9 dice
left. Next, you think that Aamir is going to be very friendly and open, so
his Soul should also be high, and you choose 4d6. This leaves you with 5d6
to divide between Body and Mind out of your starting 15. Since Aamir is
so laser-focused on learning how to use his Powers effectively, you decide
that he’s probably very thin and not very athletic, so you put 2d6 (the
minimum) in Body, leaving 3d6 for Mind.
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Character Creation
TRAITS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND POWERS

These three sections of your character sheet more or less follow the
same rules for filling out. You can have any number of each, limited
only by the number of dice you have to assign to them. In addition,
you can assign any number of dice of the same size to a particular
one. (The Trait I’m a powerful magician 3d10 is okay, but I’m a powerful
magician 2d6+3d10 is not)
Choose a number of dice and a short, evocative description for
each of these. How you fill out these three sections should be a re-
flection of how your character thinks.
Also, the die size of a particular Trait (or Relationship or Power)
is not necessarily correlated with the strength of that Trait. Instead,
it’s determined by how important or interesting it is to your char-
acter. A Relationship My annoying older brother 1d4 might mean that
your sibling is a minor hindrance, but you don’t often think about
him. However, My annoying older brother 1d10 could signify that he’s
constantly in your way or in your thoughts. This isn’t a strictly
enforced rule, however. A d4 Trait could easily be used to represent
a weakness or failing of your character, since you’re unlikely to roll
higher numbers with lower dice, and the opposite is also true of
higher dice.
Be sure that you spend at least one die as a Trait or Relationship
that binds you to the rest of your party members (dependent on
Setting). Something like I’m a Detective in the NYPD 1d6 as a Trait, or
maybe The freshman class who are at my mercy as an RA 1d8.
Traits
Traits can represent innate physical or mental qualities, special
training, background/history, opinions, or even quirks of your
character. They are one of the easiest ways to flesh out who your
character is. Be as specific or as vague as you’d like to be. Traits
don’t all have to be positive qualities, either. I’m very clumsy 2d8 can
be a powerful Trait in a Conflict, but doesn’t represent something
that your character might be proud of (even if it’s something that’s
very present in their life!)
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DOGS
EXAMPLE
Aamir’s primary characteristic, to you, is that he’s terrified of accidentally
hurting someone with his powers. To signify this, you give him I’m afraid
of using my powers 2d8. This leaves you with 1d4 2d6 to spend, so you split
it into three, going with Constantly optimistic 1d6, Really big eyes 1d6, and
Long-legged 1d4 (he doesn’t really care about being physically active). This
gives you another personality defining Trait as well a few physical Traits
to round him out.
Relationships
A character’s Relationships represent exactly that: some kind of per-
sonal relationship with a person, a place, or group. A Relationship
should include who or what it is with as well as a short sentence
describing the Relationship. Unlike with Traits, you do not have
to spend all of your Relationship dice when you make your char-
acter. You can save them for when you encounter new people, and
assign them on the fly, even during a Conflict. Relationships also
don’t have to be reciprocal. Two characters can have Relationships
with one another with vastly different descriptions or dice size,
depending on how each of the characters feels about one another.
Or one character could even have a Relationship written down with
another character who doesn’t have one with them.
EXAMPLE
You decide that Aamir likes working for the school, so you give him I’m an
Axis Mundi RA 1d8 (Axis Mundi is the name of the school). You figure he’s
nice but maybe not super outgoing, so you want to save most of the rest
of your Relationship dice, but you want to give him a best friend among
the other players. Another player is making a character whose powers are
based on storytelling, and you like that. So you write down Kwame, he’s
so funny but never tells the truth 1d6. You then record 1d4 1d6 1d8 as your
remaining dice on your character sheet, so that you can assign them later.
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Character Creation
Powers
Powers are the portion of your character sheet that is most depen-
dent on setting. In a world where there’s no magic or anything,
simply split your dice for Powers between your Relationships
and Traits. The default is 1d6 plus all of your d8s that would go
to Powers go to Relationships, with the remaining dice going to
Traits, but ask your GM about the exact split. Like Traits, you should
usually use up all of your dice for Powers, but some settings may
allow for spontaneously learning new techniques during Conflicts
and outside of Growth, so ask your GM first. Powers should be the
most descriptive and least up-to-interpretation part of your charac-
ter. You should more or less clearly define with the GM what each
of your Powers represents you being capable of doing.
EXAMPLE
Aamir’s main power is the ability to create fire, and he’s got lots of raw
power doing so, so you write down Pyrokinesis 2d10. In addition, even
though he would like to have very fine control of his powers, that’s not
where he is right now, so you add Douse Fire 1d6, Smoke Manipulation 1d6,
and Fine Control 2d4. In this case, the d4 Powers indicate that when Aamir
uses them, there are likely to be complications (since d4s are not particularly
good in Conflicts), and the d10 Power allows for the possibility of causing
real harm in a Conflict.
EQUIPMENT
Your character’s Equipment represents the items that they normally
carry on them. Some settings may necessitate certain items(like a
cell phone, or a badge of office). Feel free to include the item’s signif-
icance to your character when you record it on our sheet.
All Equipment in the game follows the same basic rules for
assigning dice:
• If it’s an ordinary example of whatever it is, an Item gets 1d6
• If it sucks or is cheap/broken, an Item gets 1d4
• If it’s of excellent quality (as in, someone meeting you would
immediately notice it, and might comment on it), it gets 2d6
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DOGS
• If it’s really big (noticeably so) it gets 1d8

• If it’s both excellent and big, it gets 2d8
EXAMPLE
A cell phone for a game set in modern day. An old flip phone might be
1d4, a more or less current generation smartphone might be 1d6, a new
smartphone in a flashy custom case might be 2d6, a phablet might be 1d8,
and the latest smartphone’s new XL version in an expensive case might
be 2d8
A character can start with any number of Items, as long as the

combined maximum result from rolling the dice for every one of
their Items does not exceed 32. (If as a GM you don’t feel like your
players are the type who will take advantage of an unlimited num-
ber of Items, feel free to play without this rule)
EXAMPLE
The most important thing for Aamir to have is his lighter, which you
decide is engraved with mystical runes to symbolize it as the source of his
powers. You put down Engraved Lighter 2d6. You also decide that Aamir is
going to have weirdly big feet, so you include Gladiator Sandals 1d8. Then,
since you don’t think Aamir would be very materialistic you only want
to include one more thing, and want to make it more personal. You figure
that Aamir probably misses his parents while he’s at boarding school, so
you go with Dad’s Old Watch 1d8. Comparing your Items to the maximum
allowed, you see that you’ve got 2d6 (12), 1d8 (8), and 1d8 (8), putting you
at 28 total, well under the limit.
TRAINING CONFLICT
The final step in character creation is to undergo your first Conflict!
The Training Conflict serves as part tutorial and part introduction
to the setting of the game world, and depending on what the GM
has in store, can either be individual, with everyone having their
own personal Conflict, in small groups, or as one big team.
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Character Creation
Just like any other Conflict, the GM decides the stakes, but,
particularly if the Training Conflict involves smaller numbers of
characters (only you, or you and one other player), feel free to rec-
ommend what you hope your character(s) accomplished during
their training. A Training Conflict, more so than any other type
of Conflict, can have murky sides. The character always represents
themself, but the opposition can represent time, external or internal
pressure, groups of people, environmental effects, etc. Regardless
of the type of Conflict, the GM controls whatever happens to repre-
sent the other side. The GM rolls 4d6 4d10 per participating player,
and there is no Escalation allowed on the part of the opposition.
Otherwise, this Conflict follows all the normal rules for Conflicts,
including Consequences.
After the Conflict, win or lose, each participating character gets
to add a new Trait at 1d6 to represent what happened or what they
learned during / as a result of the Conflict.
EXAMPLE
Since Aamir is going to be one of 6 brand new RAs, the GM has decided
that the Training Conflict is going to represent how each of the characters
responds and adapts to the problems that come their way during the first
month or so of the year, the stakes being whether or not the characters
can juggle their academics, social lives, and responsibilities. During the
Conflict, you decide that Aamir’s strategy is to get to know all the new
kids, and to be as approachable and visible as possible. The characters all
win the Conflict, and afterward you write down the Trait I recognize all the
kids in my House 1d6 to indicate that what Aamir learned is who exactly
he’s responsible for.
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DOGS
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2
CONFLICTS
C onflicts are the resolution mechanic for any situation where

the outcome is in doubt. The nature of the situation or the
medium doesn’t matter—everything is a Conflict, from trying to
argue with someone to a gunfight to trying to break into a building.
At the beginning of a Conflict, first determine who’s involved
and what’s at stake. Your input is important, but the GM is the one
who ultimately decides what the consequences of success or failure
will be. Are you trying to get past a hulking bouncer to get into a
club? Or are you trying to get a recalcitrant witness to tell you what
they saw? Or maybe, are you just trying to survive?
Next, determine what kind of Conflict this is (at least initially).
Are you just talking? Or are you coming out swinging? Maybe
you’re trying to pick someone off from a distance.
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DOGS
• If your Conflict is nonphysical and nonviolent, roll Mind

and Soul.
• If your Conflict is physical and nonviolent, roll Body
and Soul.
• If your Conflict is physical and violent, roll Body and Spirit.
• If your Conflict is violent but at a distance, roll Mind
and Spirit.
• And finally (as well as most rarely), if your Conflict is
violent and based entirely via Powers with no real physical
component (whatever that means for your setting), roll Soul
and Spirit
Once you’ve rolled your stats and added the results to your
dice pool, you can also roll any Traits, Relationships, Powers, or
Equipment you feel might immediately apply to the situation. Don’t
worry about rolling everything that might be relevant, you will
have time to do that later.
The final step of beginning a Conflict is to determine who acts
first. This might be obvious based on the framing, as in the case of a
sneak attack, or it could be that every actor in the Conflict is meeting
on equal footing (like a street brawl involving numerous people). If
it’s not clear who should act first, the character with the highest
possible Raise (the two highest dice results) in their dice pool goes
first, with ties going to the players, and ties between players de-
cided amongst themselves. After every character in the Conflict has
taken an action, use the highest possible raise method to determine
the acting order for all subsequent rounds in this Conflict.
RAISES
Each turn of the Conflict functions the same way. Whoever con-
trols the character whose turn it is describes what they are doing,
decides how many characters are affected by their action (as well
as which characters), potentially rolls some more dice, then chooses
any two dice from their current dice pool. That’s their Raise. Then,
every character who is affected by the active character’s action has
to Call with some number of dice, potentially rolling more dice
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Conflicts
before doing so, needing to at least match the Raise in order to stay
in the Conflict.
EXAMPLE
Malik and Jesse, members of a local coven of magicians, need to get into
a bar in order to ask some questions of an acquaintance who they know
hangs out there. Problem is, they’re both underage so they’ll need to figure
out some way past the bouncer. Malik decides that he’ll talk his way in.
The stakes of this Conflict are whether or not the two of them are allowed
inside by the bouncer. They’re just talking, so everyone involved rolls their
Mind + Soul and adds them to their dice pools. Malik has the Trait Smooth
Talker 2d8, so he also rolls that to start with. Since he’s going to walk right
up to the bouncer, he gets to act first. Jesse rolled very poorly and ended
up with [1] [1] [2] [3] [2] for 5 as her highest raise, and the bouncer got [3]
[2] [5] [5] [5], so the bouncer’s turn this round will be after Malik’s but
before hers, since his two highest dice were both [5]s, for 10 total.
CALLING
• Calling with 1 die is a Counter, which allows the character to
use that die to Raise on their next turn, letting them use the
same die twice.
• Calling with 2 dice is a Block or Dodge, which negates the
effects of the Raise of the acting character.
• Calling with 3 or more dice is a Hit, which has no immediate
effects but results in the character rolling Consequence dice
once the Conflict is finished. When you get Hit, note how
many dice you used as well as the Consequence dice type
based on the Raise
◦1d4
◦ for a nonphysical and nonviolent action
◦1d6
◦ for a physical and nonviolent action
◦1d8
◦ for a physical and violent action
◦1d10
◦ for a violent and deadly action
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DOGS
EXAMPLE
Malik’s dice pool is [3] [4] [6] [5] [5] [4]. He decides his opening action is to
smile nonchalantly and ask how the bouncer’s night is going, Raising with
a [6] and [4]. The bouncer has to Call a 10 (as above, his dice pool is [3] [2]
[3] [5] [5]). He uses two of his [5]s, which is a Block/Dodge. He holds his
hand out and bluntly asks to see Malik’s ID, ending Malik’s turn. Then,
it’s the bouncer’s turn. He turns to Jesse and adds “Yours too,” Raising
with [3] and a [3]. Both Malik and Jesse have to Call here, because he is
addressing both of them. Malik Calls with his [4] and [3], and reaches into
his pocket as if to pull out his wallet. Jesse however has a much worse
dice pool and has to use [3] [2] [1] here, taking a Hit. She stammers out a
nervous “Of course!” and unconvincingly pats her pocket while staring
down at the ground. Jesse marks down 3d4 in the Consequences section
of her character sheet, because she used 3 dice for her Call, and they are
all just talking.
Then, the next character in the acting order takes their turn. At
any point during a Conflict, at the end of a turn or after a Raise has
been made, another character can join in, the same way that the other
characters did when the conflict started, but that character does not
get a turn in the current Round. At the start of the next Round, they
act in the turn order based on their highest possible Raise.
Any time you would Raise or Call, you can roll more dice from
your character sheet. If it’s a Trait, Relationship, Power, or Item, you
can roll its dice if you can justify its use (anything that seems like
a stretch is judged by the table. If the other players think it makes
sense, you can roll it. Otherwise, you’re out of luck).
EXAMPLE
Instead of being Hit, Jesse remembers that she has Quality Fake ID 2d6 as
an Item on her character sheet, so she rolls its dice, getting a [5] and a [6].
As her Call, she confidently pulls that out and extends it, using just the [6],
which is a Counter. Now it goes to her turn. Her action is to look down her
nose at the bouncer and sneer “Now are you done harassing us?” where
she Raises by reusing the [6] and adding a [2].
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Conflicts
A character can also help another character on a Raise or Call by

donating one of the dice from their pool (following the same rules
as rolling more dice from their character sheet and needing to be
justified in the narrative of the Conflict). However, a character that
does this can only use 1 die for their next Raise. A character can
only help once per round.
ESCALATION
Alternatively, you can escalate.
Escalation, or de-escalation, involves moving from one type
of Conflict to another. If you’re unable to talk your way past the
bouncer, try to dart around him by escalating from nonphysical
to physical, rolling your Body (just like with the other parts of
your sheet, each stat can only be rolled once per Conflict, so if
you started the Conflict with Mind + Soul, this escalation would
only allow you to roll Body, even though nonphysical nonviolent
Conflict uses Body + Soul). Or, if talking down the guy with the
gun doesn’t work, go to attack him in order to wrest the gun away
from him and escalate from nonphysical nonviolent to physical and
violent, rolling your Body + Spirit. Alternatively, in a street fight, if
you’re fighting your opponent to a standstill, you can de-escalate
from physical and violent to nonphysical nonviolent ot try and talk
them down, rolling Mind + Soul.
EXAMPLE
The bouncer does not have the dice in his pool to Call Jesse’s 8, and he
thinks these kids seem suspicious, so he really doesn’t want to let them
inside. He’s going to Escalate to physical but nonviolent, and interpose
himself so that they can’t get through. Because he already rolled his Soul,
he only gets to add his Body. He rolls 4d6, getting [6] [5] [2] [2] and making
his pool [6] [5] [2] [2] [2]. He uses [6] and [2] to Call. Because Malik doesn’t
want to cause any trouble (yet), and he still has [5] [5] in his dice pool, he
chooses not to escalate here, and for now Jesse follows his lead.
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WINNING (OR LOSING) A CONFLICT

A Conflict ends when one side has no more characters who remain
in the Conflict. There are two main ways characters drop out of
Conflicts. One, at any time during a Conflict any character can fold.
In addition, if a character ever goes down to one die in their dice
pool on their turn (ie, not enough to make a Raise), or they cannot
Call a Raise that is directed at them, and that character cannot come
up with any more dice to roll, then they drop out of the Conflict.
EXAMPLE
The next Round begins. Malik’s dice pool is [5] [5], Jesse’s is [5] [3]
[2] [1] [1], and the bouncer’s is [5] [2] [2], so Malik goes first, then
Jesse, then the bouncer. Malik uses both his [5]s to make a Raise of
10, saying “Why are you being so aggressive?” The bouncer has
to get Hit, using his whole pool (3d4 in Consequences, because
Malik’s action was still nonphysical). On Jesse’s turn, she chimes
in “Just let us through and we can forget about this whole thing”,
Raising with 7 (her [5] and [2]). The bouncer has no more dice,
and the only escalation left would be if he tried to fight them, so
he Folds and the Conflict ends
When a Conflict ends, first the GM determine the results of the

Conflict, based on what was at stake. Then, any character that had
took any Hits rolls the number and type of Consequence dice they’ve
taken this Conflict (if you took multiple types of Consequences, roll
all of them together).
If you rolled any 1s on any of your Consequence dice, you get
to choose 1 item from the Growth table. Then, take the two highest
results of your Consequence dice. That’s your Consequence Score.
Compare your Score to the Consequences table to determine the
results. In this way, Consequences are both the damage and experi-
ence mechanic for DOGS.
22
Conflicts
Growth
• Add 1 die to any Stat, Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Increase the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power by
1 step
• Create a 1d6 Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Gain a new Item
• Lose a Relationship but keep its dice (to use on one or more
future Relationships)
Consequence Score
• 2-7: Choose 1 item from the Short-Term Consequences list for
your next Conflict:
◦Remove
◦ 1 die from a non-1d4 Stat, Trait, Relationship, or
Power
◦Lower
◦ the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power to
1d4
◦Go
◦ off by yourself. You skip the next Conflict (as in you
cannot participate, because you’re sulking/reflecting)
• 8-11: Choose 1 item from the Long-Term Consequences list
(this change is permanent):
◦Remove
◦ 1 die from a non-1d4 Stat, Trait, Relationship, or
Power
◦Lower
◦ the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power to
1d4
◦Lose
◦ an Item
• 12-16: Choose 1 item from the Long-Term Consequences list,
and you’re Injured.
◦Roll
◦ your Body, and if your highest 3 dice meet or
exceed your Consequence Score, you recover without
medical attention. Otherwise, you become Badly Injured
• 17-19: Choose 1 item from the Long-Term Consequences list,
and you’re Severely Injured. Without immediate medical
attention you will die.
• 20: You die, either immediately or after an appropriate death
scene.
When choosing the results of your Consequences (regardless of
whether it’s Growth, Short-Term, or Long-Term), just like when roll-
ing dice in a Conflict, only choose something that makes sense in
23
DOGS
the context of the Conflict. The other players (and the GM) will be
the arbiters of whether or not a choice makes sense
EXAMPLE
The outcome of this Conflict is pretty simple, since the stakes were whether
or not Malik and Jesse could get into the bar. Since they won, they walk
past the bouncer and go inside. Because Jesse rolled her Fake ID instead
of being Hit, she does not have any Consequences. However, the bouncer
does. Since the bouncer is an NPC, the GM rolls. On 3d4 the bouncer gets
[1] [4] [2]. His Consequence Score is 6, which means he has to take an item
from the Short-Term Consequences list. The GM chooses to lower his Soul
by 1 die for his next Conflict, because he got shamed for so quickly trying
to shove the players. However, the bouncer also got a [1] on one of his
dice, so he gets to Grow. The GM chooses to add a Relationship at 1d6, and
decides to write down Malik, who made me think about my hostility 1d6.
HEALING
To heal a Badly Injured character, start a Conflict where the stakes
are the dying character’s life. The healer rolls their Mind + the
dying character’s Body, as well as any relevant Traits, Relationships,
Equipment, or Powers (Other characters can lend Equipment or use
helpful Powers, allowing the healer to roll those dice). If the healer
is a player, they roll the dice. If the healer is an NPC, the dying
player rolls the dice.
To represent the other side of the Conflict, the GM rerolls all
of the character’s Consequence dice, adding a number of extra d6
to match the total number of Stat Dice that the healer rolled. This
Conflict does not allow for any escalation, the Injury obviously can-
not suffer any Consequences afterward, and the Help action can’t
be taken (because the Conflict only involves the Healer and the
Injury), but the Healing Conflict follows all the other normal rules
for Conflicts. If the healer takes any Hits, use whatever Consequence
dice are appropriate for the situation and the setting.
24
Conflicts
EXAMPLE
After defeating the vengeful spirit, Tal Lin ends the Conflict with 3d8 in
Consequences. They roll [8] [7] [2], making their Consequence Score 15.
They have to take one Long-Term Consequence, and they’re also Injured.
They choose to lower their Spirit by 1 die, because fighting is what got
them here. Then, because of being Injured, they roll Body and compare it
to the Consequence Score. Tal Lin’s Body is 4d6, but their results are [3]
[6] [3] [1]. Since their three highest dice only total 12, now they’re Badly
Injured, and need medical attention. Luckily, Amaroq has Power Healing
1d6, so he’s going to try and heal Tal Lin.
Amaroq rolls 3d6 for his Mind, 4d6 for Tal Lin’s Body, 1d6 for his
Healing Power, as well as his only other relevant Trait, I have something to
prove 1d10. Amaroq’s dice pool is [8] [4] [3] [3] [3] [2] [3] [3] [2]. The GM,
to represent the injury, rolls Tal Lin’s Consequence dice (3d8), and because
Amaroq rolled 8 Stat Dice, the GM rolls an additional 5d6, ending up with
a dice pool of [7] [4] [4] [3] [2] [2] [2] [1]. Amaroq’s (A) highest Raise is 14
vs the injury’s (GM) 11, so he goes first.
A: I’m going to concentrate a burst of Healing energy directly into
Tal Lin’s chest, Raising with [8] and [4]. (Dice pool [3] [3] [3] [2]
[3] [3] [2])
GM: A significant amount of the wound begins to knit closed under
your blast. I’m getting Hit here with [4] [4] [2] [2]. Your healing is
working on the physical wound, but not the spiritual one, and it
begins to undo your work. I’m Raising with [3] and [2] (Dice pool
[7] [1])
A: I use my magic to shield his flesh against the corruption, Blocking
with [3] and [2]. Then, I focus my attention on the spiritual damage.
My Raise is 6, using two [3]s. (Dice pool [3] [3] [2])
GM: The malignant spiritual energy was waiting for you to pour
magic into it, and it sucks up your healing energy greedily. I’m
going to Counter with my [7]. Then, it uses the fuel from your
magic to attack Tal Lin again. I’ll add my last die to the one from
my Counter, Raising with [7] and [1] for 8 total (Dice pool empty)
A: As a last-ditch effort, I use my magic to take the attack into myself
to protect Tal Lin. I use my last dice and take a Hit with [3] [3] [2].
But crap, now that it’s my turn I don’t have any more dice, and if
I don’t make a Raise here Tal Lin will die. I think I’m going to use
25
DOGS
my Trait Good at Tuning People Out 2d4, because all I need are any
two dice. I close my eyes and focus only on my healing magic. I got
a [2] and a [4], so I’ll use those to Raise.
GM: I’ve got no dice left, so you manage to barely heal Tal Lin. Your
Consequence dice are going to have to be d10s however, because
the residual magic is deadly.
Amaroq rolls 3d10 for his Consequences, getting [9] [2] [1]. His
Consequence Score is 11, so he takes a Long-Term Consequence, and he
rolled a [1] so he gets to Grow as well. For his Growth, he increases the
die size of his Healing Power to 1d8, and for his Long-Term Consequences
he gets rid of his Custom-Tailored Hooded Robe 2d6, deciding that the blood
from the injury permanently ruined it.
NICHE SITUATIONS
Since Conflicts are the only resolution mechanic in DOGS, some-
times you may find yourself in situations where the players are in
Conflict with an inanimate object, or the timeframe is very slow or
very fast. Treat Conflicts like this just like any other, just assign dice
to the GM’s side of the Conflict as if the building the players are try-
ing to break into or the passage of time were an NPC just like any
other. And the individual Raises and Calls can be environmental
effects, they don’t have to be the actions of specific people.
FULL CONFLICT EXAMPLE

Holli Wud and Felix Ovidio are in a bar named Club Frenzy, trying to find
some answers about a foreign magical power, when they run into a mutual
friend, Zhi. They ask if he’s heard anything about new magic in the area, but
his response is shifty. When Holli asks about the purple CD-shaped pin on
his jacket he goes stone-faced.
This becomes a Conflict with the stakes of getting answers from Zhi.
They’re just talking, so everyone rolls Mind + Soul. In addition, Holli rolls
her Relationships My Coven 1d6 as well as Frenzy, which has the best dance
floors 1d6 and Felix rolls his Relationship My Coven, the Friend Family I Always
Wanted 1d8. Zhi rolls his Relationship Crono, my best friend 3d6 because Zhi
knows that Crono knows something about the foreign magical power and
wants to protect him.
26
Conflicts
Holli (H): Mind 2d6 + Soul 5d6 + Relationship 1d6 + Relationship 1d6
(Dice pool: [6] [6] [4] [3] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1])
Felix (F): Mind 4d6 + Soul 4d6 + Relationship 1d8 (Dice pool: [6] [6] [5]
[4] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1])
Zhi (GM): Mind 6d6 + Soul 4d6 + Relationship 3d6 (Dice pool: [6] [6] [6]
[6] [4] [4] [3] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1] [1])
Because Holli was asking the questions, she gets to act first. Felix and Zhi
are tied for the highest Raise, and ties goes to player characters, so the acting
order for the first round is Holli then Felix then Zhi.
H: What is that pin about? I don’t remember seeing you wear it before.
I Raise with [4] and [3], for 7 total (Dice pool: [6] [6] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1])
GM: I Call with a [4] and a [3]. Zhi just shrugs, not answering. (Dice
pool: [6] [6] [6] [6] [4] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1] [1])
F: I’m going to smile and raise my hand in a placating way at Zhi. I’m
rolling my Trait I have an infectious, easygoing smile 1d8, and I got a [6].
I’m going to use that [6] as well as a [5] and tell Zhi that it’s okay if
he doesn’t want to talk about the pin, we just have some questions to
ask about some sort of magic we haven’t seen before. (Dice pool: [6]
[6] [4] [3] [2] [2] [1] [1])
GM: Zhi is mollified somewhat, and he looks like he’s about to say
something then stops. I can’t talk about this, sorry. This is him
being Hit, and so I’m going to use [6] [3] [2] to Call, noting 3d4
in Consequences for later. Then, for his turn he’s going to put his
serious face on and say “This conversation topic is over.” This is a
strong Raise, 12, aimed at both of you. (Dice pool: [6] [3] [2] [1] [1])
H: I’m gonna take a Hit here. I stammer in an attempt to respond, and
instead just let my mouth fall closed. My Call is [6] [3] [2] [1], so my
Consequence dice are gonna be 4d4. (Dice pool: [6] [2] [1])
F: I’m also going to take a Hit, letting the smile drop off of my face at his
intensity. [6] [4] [2] for my Call, marking 3d4 Consequences. (Dice
pool: [6] [3] [2])
GM: Okay, so that’s the round. Felix and Zhi are tied for the highest
Raise, so the turn order is going to be Felix then Zhi then Holli.
F: I’m going to take a moment to study him, rolling I’m hyper-observant
1d6 and I’m suspicious of everyone so not a lot slips past me 2d6. I got [4]
[2] and [2]. I’ve got a Raise of 10, and it’s going to be me asking him
who he’s protecting, and reminding him that we’re not his enemies.
(Dice pool: [3] [2] [2])
GM: He gets Hit here with [6] [3] [1], putting his total Consequences up
27
DOGS
to 6d4. He goes silent for a moment, then grits his teeth and reiterates,
angrily this time, that he can’t tell you what you want to know, and
that you better stop asking. He’s going to Escalate to physical and
turn around and try to get away from you two. His Body is 5d6, and
wow that was a good set of rolls ([5] [5] [6] [5] [5]). So, his Raise will
be 11 as he darts away. (Dice pool: [5] [5] [5] [2] [1])
H: I’m going to Escalate too, since I’m a Rhythmancer too so my Body is
also high (5d6), but oof my rolls weren’t nearly so good ([5] [4] [2] [1]
[1]), so I’m going to roll I have no bubble of personal space 1d10 as well as
my Sync Up 2d8 power to slide in between people as they’re dancing,
moving in tune so I don’t smash into them. Sweet, I got [3] [4] [8]. I’ll
use a [5] and [6] to Call. Then, as my action I’m going to slide under
him as he takes a step and end up blocking his path so that he runs
into me, with a Raise of 12! (Dice pool: [3] [2] [2] [1] [1])
GM: Ouch. Um . . . okay, Zhi’s going to use one of his Rhythmancy
Powers, B-boy Tornado 2d10. [9] and [5]. So, you get in front of him,
and he immediately drops into a spin and generates a gust of wind
that launches him right over you, Calling you with . . . I guess [5] [5]
and [2], as a Hit. We’ll say he launches over you but hits the ground
hard when he lands, so that he can keep the [9] handy. Now it’s the
next round, so the turn order is Zhi then Felix and Holli. Zhi’s just
going to try and lose you two in the next room’s dancefloor, with his
highest Raise of 14. (Dice pool: [5] [1])
H: I don’t even remotely have the dice to Call here.
F: I’ve got an idea. I’m going to roll my Body as well as use some of my
Genremancy Powers. Sift 2d8 to try and find him in the crowd, and
Control Emotions 1d10 to get the crowd to be more low energy, so he
stands out more. Awesome! I got [8] [5] [9] for my Powers and [6] [1]
for my Body, so I’m going to yell out where in the crowd he is so that
I can donate my [9] to you, then I guess I’m going to get Hit and Call
with [6] [5] [3], marking 3d6 now that I’m chasing after him too. (Dice
pool: [8] [2] [2] [1])
H: With your [9] and my [3] and [2] I can Call, but I also have to take a
Hit. (Dice pool: [2] [1] [1])
F: Since I’ve got better dice, I’ll go before you. Now that I’ve got the
crowd docile and my magic has his position fixed, I’m going to run
up to him and grab his wrist, Raising with just an [8], since I donated
my other die to Holli.
GM: Zhi doesn’t have enough dice to Call here, and I don’t think he
28
Conflicts
wants to fight you, so he Folds. Zhi tells you that his friend Crono
started showing off some new magic recently, talking about how he
had something big in the works, and also started giving out these
pins to his friends to form some kind of dance club to power a ritual.
He doesn’t know more than that, but Crono is supposed to be here
later tonight. Now, time for everyone to roll their Consequences.
Zhi rolls 6d4+3d6, getting [3] [3] [4] [3] [1] [1] [5] [1] [6], just outside
getting Injured. So he gets a Long-Term Consequence as well as a
Growth. We’ll say his Long-Term Consequence is going to reduce his
Relationship with Crono to 2d6 because he snitched on him, but his
Growth will be represented by a new Relationship with Felix at 1d6.
H: I’ve got 4d4+3d6, and I ended up with [1] [1] [2] [3] [6] [2] [3]. So I take
one Long-Term and I get to Grow. We’ll say that I’m embarrassed
about making a scene at Frenzy so I’ll lower my Relationship with
the club to 1d4, and then since Felix and I worked together really well
here I’ll increase the die size of My Coven to 1d8 from 1d6
F: My Consequences are 3d4+3d6, and I rolled [2] [3] [4] [4] [6] [6].
Ouch! An Injury, and not even a [1] to soften the sting. So I roll my
Body, which is only 2d6. Yes! I got two [6]s, so my Injury doesn’t
increase. I guess I just rolled my ankle pretty bad. For my Long-Term
Consequence, I’m going to drop I keep my distance from people
(physically) 1d8 to 1d6, since I got up close and personal here. Now,
let’s find Crono and see what he knows!
29
DOGS
30
3
HOW TO RUN A
GAME OF DOGS
B ecause DOGS is a generic system, games can vary wildly in

setting and tone. That said, there are a few constants that you
should try and stick to regardless of all else. One, the players should
all be a group that makes the characters officially affiliated with one
another in some way. And two, they should have some modicum of
authority and/or respect, but not be beyond reproach. In addition,
the system works best when the players have to solve some sort of
mystery / are put in the position where they have to make moral/
ethical decisions. These goals work together to make the players not
just mindlessly spend their two biggest dice each turn in a Conflict,
and think about the consequences of their actions. As long as you
stick to those goals, make your game as dramatic (or comedic) as
you want and set it in any world. The fact that character abilities are
31
DOGS
all written in combined with the nature of being able to describe

your character actions however you’d like means that DOGS will
work for just about any setting you can think of.
SETTING
One of the first things you need to decide when running a game of
DOGS is what the setting will be like. Who are the players? Do they
exist in a hierarchy of some kind, or do they operate independently?
Do the characters in this setting have powers of some kind? If so,
what kinds of powers? What kind of story are you trying to tell?
The nice thing about DOGS being a generic system is that it
can accomodate games of almost any kind. And if the system as-is
doesn’t accomplish what you want it to, there are many ways that
you can tweak it to fit your setting and game. Here are some com-
mon setting-specific rules:
• Each character has to have a certain piece of Equipment
or multiple pieces of Equipment to start with, such as a
cell phone, a particular article of clothing or uniform, or
transportation of some kind
• Each character has to have a specialty that they choose
during character creation that limits what types of Powers
they can use (like an element, or a school of magic, or similar)
• Your setting has no supernatural elements (or at least the
player characters don’t have access to these supernatural
elements) so characters cannot have the Spiritual Focus, and
the Powers dice that your players would get instead added
to their Relationship and/or Trait dice (I recommend adding
all of the d8s and 1d6 to Relationships, with the rest going
to Traits, but pick the split that you think is best for your
setting)
• Characters are either born with Powers or not, and characters
without them add their starting Powers dice to Traits and/or
Relationships and cannot gain them as a part of Growth
• Characters can only access their Powers during certain
specific conditions (like only at night, or only when you’re
physically wounded, or only if you perform a ritual with a
certain object)
32
How to Run a Game of DOGS
• Using Powers comes with some kind of drawback, such as

increasing Consequence die size or even causing a character
to automatically take Consequences. Alternatively, non
mechanical things such as causing them to become very
tired, or causing physical harm as a side effect
And here are some variant rules that you might also use:
• Consequence dice that go up to d12s, for situations that cause
you to be more vulnerable to taking damage. Or for that
matter, Trait/Relationship/Power dice that go up to d12s,
representing extremely powerful (or dangerous) effects
• Consumable Items that you erase from your character sheet
after using
• Items tied to Powers in some way, that allow you to increase
their dice past 2d8
• Player characters can have a pool of unused Powers dice (just
like Relationships), and can learn new Powers in the middle
of Conflicts and/or Powers can be erased like Relationships
can and added back to your pool to be spent on new Powers
as a choice for a Growth
• Alternatively, Powers are hard to learn, and you can’t add
them as a result of Growth except via special training that
takes up in-game time
• Extra effects based on your Powers, reducing the number of
dice you get to spend on them (or not) such as rerolling dice
at the start of a Conflict, or outside of Conflict effects (like
codifying increases to your speed or your range)
EXAMPLE SETTINGS
Here are some example settings that utilize one or more of these
rules:
1
The party are members of a mercenary company in a fantasy set-
ting that is actually the remains of an extremely futuristic world,
long after some sort of apocalypse event. There is magic as the char-
acters understand it, but all magic is just old technology, or muta-
tions from radiation, or similar. Powers are all based on this fact, so
you can have a character who is telekinetic as a result of drinking a
33
DOGS
mysterious liquid they found in a cave, or a character who stepped

into an unmarked test laboratory and now are actually composed
of an army of tiny drones with their consciousness uploaded into
each one.
There’s only one variant rule, and it’s that in this world it’s very
common to find one-use ‘magic’ items that cause a specific effect.
They all do something specific, like create a wall of ice or cover a
10-foot radius in slick oil, and range in dice size from d4 to d12.
Characters intuitively understand what each item does, find them
frequently, and also can only hold onto 2 at a time so they are incen-
tivized to use them often.
2
The world is the same as ours, with one notable difference; there is
an element that is contained in several meteorites that have fallen
to earth that, when humans are exposed to it, either kills them or
allows them to manifest their will and gain superpowers. The party
are all detectives for a police department set in a city where a bomb
composed of that mineral went off a few months prior (meaning, it
killed a lot of people and also gave a lot of people powers).
Each player character has Powers, and the Powers are custom-
ized for each character. They are represented by manifesting an
external being or an empowered object, with each character’s pow-
ers conforming to at least a loose theme. Powers can be upgraded
to d12 dice (including NPC Powers), and anytime a character uses
their Powers during a Conflict, the die size for any Consequence
dice they roll afterward increases by one (up to d12s) because using
your Powers makes you more vulnerable. In addition, each player
has to have a badge of office, a cell phone on a private network, and
a motorcycle or similar means of conveyance.
3
In this early 1900s analogue world, people can be born with the
power to manipulate one of the 4 elements (Air, Earth, Fire, or
Water). The player characters are all members of one or more sports
teams who compete in quasi-gladiatorial battles using their chosen
34
elements to defeat the opposing team. The teams are comprised of

3 people with each using a different element, which means that the
player characters have to decide who claims what element if they
want to be on a team together.
Each team has to wear a uniform with their logo and in their col-
ors, and each character has to have one Power dedicated to manip-
ulating their chosen element, with each element having sub-powers
that can also be chosen and are more individualized/customizable.
4
The party are members of a clerical order that functions as com-
bination missionary/sheriffs in a fictional Wild West / American
Frontier, in an area under the control of a spread out but monolithic
church. Their goal is to travel from town to town solving disputes
and rooting out sin (however you so choose to define that).
The players have access to no supernatural powers (the only
Powers that exist are evil), so their Power dice are split between
Traits and Relationships as described in the Character Creation
section. They all have customized well-made church uniforms and
pistols, as well as horses. And since they were all trained by the
church, each character’s Training Conflict is a literal training mon-
tage with a goal chosen by each player.
5
The party are members of a coterie of vampires (from whichever
vampire mythos you like best) in an extremely hierarchical soci-
ety that functions in the shadows of modern day, which most peo-
ple are unaware of. In addition to physically fighting their clan’s
enemies, they have to interact politically with the members of
other clans, with many Conflicts stretching over weeks (or even
months) to encompass these political machinations. Consider even
switching back and forth between moment-to-moment action and
longer durations for political moves in the same Conflict. Powers
just represent the kinds of things that vampires are capable of that
are beyond normal humans.
There are no variant rules from the base game in this setting.
35
DOGS
6
The party are a group of diplomats in a high fantasy world who
travel around from country to country (or maybe city to city), osten
sibly to secure treaties and cement alliances, but who have secret
missions to pull off in every city that they’re assigned to.
Powers are magic, which can either manifest innately, be studied
at a sort of magic college, or be bestowed by divine/otherwise un-
worldly beings. When being created, characters who aren’t magical
just add all of the dice that would go to their Powers to either Traits
or Relationships, depending on their Focus.
7
The party are teenagers who are recruited as a group by benevolent
alien beings to fight evil aliens who are secretly attacking earth.
The evil aliens primarily possess other humans in order to accom-
plish their goals and rarely are involved in direct confrontation.
Each player character’s Powers can be accessed once they trans-
form into an alternate form, and one of their Powers has to indicate
their alternate form in some way. Each character has an ideal or set
of ideals that their alternate form represents, and a special custom-
ized object or weapon that they have access to while transformed.
8
The party are high schoolers who are recruited by benevolent aliens
to defend the earth against giant evil aliens. To stand a chance, each
player character has a special vehicle that only they can summon
and pilot, and each player’s vehicle can combine into one bigger
vehicle. When the party is all combined, you can still have them all
roll separate dice pools; if someone has to fold, you can just have it
be that their section of the transformed vehicle stops working (like
the left arm hanging limp)
The player characters’ Powers are all related to their vehicles,
and can all only be activated while piloting their individual vehicle
or when everyone is combined. The Powers can either be usable
when combined or not combined (but not both), and when com-
bined, each vehicle adds +2d6 to one of its pilot’s Stats, chosen at
character creation.
36
NPCS
To have characters for the players to interact with and get into
Conflicts with, you need to have NPCs (nonplayer characters).
NPCs have all the same sections in their character sheets as player
characters do, but filling them in is way simpler.
Creating an NPC has two parts: 1) creating a list of blank NPC
character sheets with dice, and 2) creating a list of NPCs with their
names, Traits, Relationships, Powers, Equipment, and goals/role in
the story/how they feel about the player characters. Until the play-
ers actually get into a Conflict with an NPC, all you need to know is
how they will act around the players in the situations you put them
in (ie, you only need the half of the NPC that indicates their traits,
etc). Then, if the players come into Conflict with that NPC, look at
your list of blank NPC sheets and pair the NPC with one that seems
appropriate, applying the NPC sheet’s Trait dice, Relationship dice,
and Power dice, in that order, to the NPC’s Traits, Relationships,
and Powers.
There are no special rules for coming up with NPC Traits,
Relationships, or Powers (although I would recommend choosing
things that would be relevant/able to be rolled in a Conflict), but
here’s how to create blank NPC character sheets:
Create them in groups of 6. To get the NPC sheet’s Stats, roll 1d10
and 1d4. Use the result of the 1d10 to get a Stat array:
1 2d6 2d6 3d6 4d6 6 3d6 4d6 4d6 4d6

2 2d6 3d6 3d6 4d6 7 3d6 4d6 4d6 5d6
3 2d6 3d6 4d6 4d6 8 4d6 4d6 5d6 5d6
4 2d6 3d6 4d6 5d6 9 4d6 4d6 5d6 6d6
5 2d6 3d6 5d6 5d6 10 4d6 5d6 5d6 6d6
Then use the 1d4 and which NPC slot you’re currently using to
determine how to assign them (you can do this part manually in-
stead of randomly if you’d like, or if you want to assign each totally
randomly, use 1d6 instead of using the NPC slot):
37
DOGS
1 2 3 4
NPC Body > Mind Body > Mind Body > Soul > Body > Soul >
1 > Soul > Spirit > Spirit > Soul Mind > Spirit Spirit > Mind
NPC Body > Spirit Body > Spirit Mind > Body Mind > Body >
2 > Mind > Soul > Soul > Mind > Soul > Spirit Spirit > Soul
NPC Mind > Soul > Mind > Soul > Mind > Spirit Mind > Spirit
3 Body > Spirit Spirit > Body > Body > Soul > Soul > Body
NPC Soul > Body > Soul > Body > Soul > Mind > Soul > Mind >
4 Mind > Spirit Spirit > Mind Body > Spirit Spirit > Body
NPC Soul > Spirit > Soul > Spirit > Spirit > Body Spirit > Body >
5 Body > Mind Mind > Body > Mind > Soul Soul > Mind
NPC Spirit > Mind Spirit > Mind Spirit > Soul > Spirit > Soul >
6 > Body > Soul > Soul > Body Body > Mind Mind > Body
Then, to create an NPC’s Traits, Relationships, and Powers (the

default is 4 Traits, 2 Relationships, and 1 Power, but you might de-
cide to mix that up for certain NPCs), roll 7d10 and write down the
results in order:
1 1d4 6 1d8
2 2d4 7 2d8
3 1d6 8 3d8
4 2d6 9 1d10
5 3d6 10 2d10
Finally, for each group of 6 NPCs roll 3d8 and write down the
results to create some extra dice to be used when you need to on the
fly add some power to an NPC in mid-Conflict:
1 2d6 3 4d6 5 2d8 7 1d10

2 3d6 4 1d8 6 3d8 8 2d10
A single NPC from an NPC sheet might look something like this:
38
STATS Body 5d6 > Mind 4d6 >

Soul 4d6 > Spirit 5d6
TRAITS 1d6
1d8
2d10
2d4
RELATIONSHIPS 2d4
1d6
POWERS 2d6
Then, paired with these notes about a character who is possibly

going to be an antagonist to the players:
Name: Salif Sadio

Traits: Strategic and tactical thinker, Ruthless, Strong sense of justice, good
with words
Relationships: Minh, who I’m working with to give more kids powers
Nallely, who I’ve gotten contraband from
Powers: Temporary Distraction
Goals: He’s been working with a teacher at the school he works at to
increase the number of Powers that exist, but his ultimate goal is to train
his Power to be able to kill, to trade one researcher’s life for giving Powers
to everyone on the planet
Together, you get this:

TRAITS Strategic and tactical thinker 1d6
Ruthless 1d8
Strong sense of justice 2d10
Good with words 2d4
RELATIONSHIPS Minh, who I’m working with to give more 2d4
kids powers
Nallely, who I’ve gotten contraband from 1d6
POWERS Temporary Distraction 2d6
39
DOGS
Groups
If the players get into a Conflict with a group of people, first create
dice as if you were creating a normal NPC. Then, for each member
of the group past the first, add 2d6 to one of the group’s collective
Stats. Finally, for each member of the group, give the group a Trait
with that person’s name and a descriptive word or phrase about
them, or maybe a Power or Item they’re adding to the group. If you
get past 7, use 1d6 for each of the rest of the members of the group.
If your group is fewer than 7 people, use the extra dice however
you’d like.
For example, 6 members of a biker gang that’s chasing the play-
ers might start off getting Body 3d6 Mind 5d6 Soul 4d6 Spirit
4d6, and 2d8 2d4 1d8 1d4 1d8 1d10 2d10 for everything else. With
6 people total, that’s 5 Stat boosts so we’ll add 2d6 to Spirit and
8d6 to Body, to represent the physical nature of this threat. And
since this is fewer than 7 members, with our extra dice we’ll create
a Relationship to the gang. After assigning everyone Traits, we end
up with this:

TRAITS Gunner—the muscle 2d8
Rivet—the mechanic 2d4
Fox—the best fighter 1d8
Buzz— the quick one 1d4
Ryder—the tactical one 1d8
Cueball—he’s got a baseball bat 1d10
RELATIONSHIPS The Erinyes gang, which we’re a part of 2d10
When a particular member of the group first takes an action

during the Conflict, roll their dice. Assign any Consequence dice
to whoever it makes the most sense to do so for, and resolve the
Consequences as if they were an individual and not a part of the
group afterward.
40
Alternatively, if NPCs want to group up with the players, and

they’re not important enough to the Conflict to take up a whole
NPC sheet, have each one add +2d6 to one of the player’s Stats just
like when creating a group, but don’t create any Traits (unless you
want to, using your Extra dice)
Non-Human NPCs
Sometimes the players will be in a Conflict that doesn’t involve
any opposing humans, such as escaping a natural disaster or deal-
ing with a group of scared animals. In this case, take a blank NPC
sheet like normal and roll whatever dice from it that you feel is
appropriate
HOW TO BE AN EFFECTIVE GM
When running a game of DOGS, you should generally try to fol-
low these principles. They’re not really rules, they’re more like best
practices. Following them usually means your games run more
smoothly, and everyone has a better time (this is a collaborative
game after all!). The principles are:
• Give NPCs motives and plans, but not actions
• Ensnare the players
• Say yes
• Move the spotlight
• Fight dirty, cause trouble
Give NPCs motives and plans, but not actions

This means that you should not come up with a plot for a game of
DOGS. Instead, what you should do is create a group of NPCs who
all have their own motivations and maybe plans of action. Maybe
figure out what they’ll do if left to their own devices (like spy on
the target of their revenge until they can find a good moment to
strike), or even come up with ‘traps’ (like an overly aggressive NPC
with a glass jaw), but the point of DOGS is to allow the players to
decide how things turn out. Essentially, don’t allow your plot to be
a foregone conclusion that the players are just watching, so much as
a situation that they will be forced to resolve.
41
DOGS
Ensnare the players

The players need something that prevents them from ignoring
whatever is going on. The easiest method for doing this is in the
setting itself. Give the players a mission from their superiors, or a
mystery to solve, or have them know that there’s a hidden danger of
some kind that they have to find. Whatever it is, you want both the
players and the characters to be engaged in whatever is happening.
Say yes
Don’t be afraid to say yes to the players. Give them information
freely (don’t be afraid to even just flat out tell them things their
characters couldn’t possibly know) and let them use their pow-
ers to easily accomplish things. And if not, start a Conflict. This
both allows the players to feel like they’re powerful (by not being
able to fail at simple tasks, and by being able to use their Traits
and Powers outside of Conflicts) and also drives the game towards
Conflict—which can endanger the players, draw them more into
what’s hidden below the surface (whatever that may be), or both.
Move the spotlight
Make sure to be fans of the player characters, and to try and give
each of them a chance to shine. If someone hasn’t taken initiative
in a little while, directly ask them what they’re doing. This is espe-
cially important in games with larger parties, as well as in situa-
tions where the party decides to split up. When one group needs to
plan, switch to the other. Then switch back the next time there’s a
lull. Try to avoid two separate groups (or individuals) getting into
simultaneous Conflicts, but if that happens try switching between
the two Conflicts between rounds. The goal is to make everyone
feel like they are one of the main characters
Fight dirty, cause trouble
Design moral problems that are difficult to solve. Make NPCs who
want to kill one person to save many, who will strongly oppose
the players but who have glaring weaknesses, who become enraged
past the point of caring about their own wellbeing, who will cause
collateral damage. Make NPCs who are unafraid to escalate, who
42
will run away rather than answer questions, or who will fight to de-
fend their friends, even if those friends are doing something shady.
While you don’t want to “gotcha!” your players, you do want
them to have to think really hard about whether they should fight
fire with fire, to worry about causing Consequences as a result of
the Conflict. Make it so that they can’t just get away with doing
whatever they feel like, that they instead have to figure out the best
way to deal with the situation instead of the easiest.
Don’t be afraid to hit the players with high Raises, to make
them scramble to Call them, to furiously consider all the parts of
their character sheet, to have to reach out for help from their allies.
Maybe don’t actively try to kill them in every Conflict, but don’t
pull punches unnecessarily because you’re afraid of the possibility.
General Tips and Tricks
This section is for some things that might not seem obvious, but
which can improve your ability to run (and play) DOGS:
• If the antagonists in a Conflict are outnumbered (or even if
they aren’t, but you want to make it more difficult), target
multiple players with your Raises.
• Try and save the antagonists’ bigger dice for their turns
instead of using them on Calls, taking Consequence dice if
you need to. Similarly to the prior tip, this is a way of making
the Conflicts more difficult for the players to just breeze
through.
• Don’t forget to roll Items for NPCs in Conflicts. Since you
don’t need to roll to determine their dice, it can be easy to
forget.
• Try to constantly get the players to make decisions. “What
do you do?” should be the sentence that comes out of your
mouth the most.
43
DOGS
44
4
AN EXAMPLE
CAMPAIGN:
FRESHMAN FRENZY
T his is a fully fleshed-out, playable as-is campaign setting. Feel

free to change any details or not use the sample characters,
but the only thing you actually need to do to run this is to read the
story and generate blank NPC sheets (as a GM) or choose a charac-
ter (as a player).
WHAT IS THE WORLD LIKE?

In the near future, a group of physicists discover a dimension co-
terminous with ours that’s full of pure energy (kinetic and ther-
mal). Immediately they figure out a way to harvest it for easy per-
petual motion—free energy, basically. However, an unforeseen
side effect is that the dimension contains beings that are all power
and no will. Some of them escape into our dimension and bind
45
DOGS
themselves to humans, who then gain supernatural powers. These

powers manifest themselves as mythological figures caught inside
ordinary objects or bodies.
These Fragments, as they end up being called, seem to mostly
target teenagers for reasons unknown. A group of adults, all with
Fragments, agree to operate an international school for these teen-
agers in order to keep them from endangering themselves or oth-
ers, and to keep the knowledge of superpowers not as widespread.
To limit the number of new Fragments that show up, the scientists
only access the other dimension for a few milliseconds at a time.
This generates enough power to keep everything going.
The school is called Axis Mundi, and it has been operating for
a decade now. The school usually contains approximately 300 kids,
divided into 5 years (ranging from ~14 to 18) and 6 houses (Air, Fire,
Water, Earth, Metal, and Void), with each house led by a faculty
member who also has other responsibilities at the school. However,
this year’s incoming freshman class is the same size as the rest of the
school combined. Something is causing a huge influx of Fragments,
but no one knows what.
Each player plays a character who is a 5th year student, the top
of their house. They have been tasked with becoming Resident
Assistants (RAs) to help deal with any problems the new kids have.
The RAs answer directly to the head of their house as well as the
head of discipline. And the new kids sure have a lot of problems!
FRAGMENTS
All of the students (and the majority of the faculty and staff) at Axis
Mundi have powers due to Fragments. Fragments don’t represent
separate entities, they simply act as extensions of the person who
they are bound to. They can either be bound to objects or directly
to the person.
In game terms, this means that the Powers section of a character
sheet contains what Powers that character’s Fragment enables them
to use. In addition, each Fragment is either a 2d6 Item that doesn’t
count towards their limit (if it’s bound to an object), or allows the
46
FRESHMAN FRENZY
character to add 2d6 to one of their Stats chosen at character cre-

ation (if it’s bound directly to their body). A character only gets to
roll the bonus 2d6 when actually using their Fragment.
Besides that, Freshman Frenzy doesn’t have any changes from
the base DOGS system.
TRAINING CONFLICT
The Training Conflict is the same for each of the player characters.
All of the characters participate in this Conflict simultaneously (use
4d6 4d10 per player character in the dice pool to oppose the players).
The stakes are whether the character is able to balance their new
role as RA with their social lives and schoolwork, and the Conflict
should take place over the course of the first quarter of the school
year. Your Raises should be in the form of problems the students
have or cause, or events beyond the characters’ control. Feel free to
throw in seeds of later Conflicts in this Training Conflict as well.
Here are some examples:
• There’s a huge party, involving alcohol, in the middle of the
night, which a bunch of freshman attend
• A student comes out as gay to one of the RAs
• Two students get into a fight (using Powers or not) over
something stupid
• Two students get into a screaming match over something
stupid
• Two students get caught making out in the middle of the
night outside
• A student gets really homesick
• A student wants the character’s advice on making friends
• Someone keeps pulling off pranks around the school in the
middle of the night
• Heavy rain traps everyone inside, causing everyone to make
one another miserable
Training Conflicts tend to be easy, so try to use Raises that target
multiple characters so that it isn’t too easy. Try to get the players
to come up with Raises that are the strategies that their character
performs in order to keep up with their responsibilities. Remember
the strategies that they come up with, because certain brewing
47
DOGS
problems can be caught earlier or later based on those kinds of

things. Plus, the new Trait that they record from this Conflict will
likely reflect this strategy.
WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?

On the surface level, the player characters have to deal with a re-
cord number of incidents (fights, physical and otherwise, emotional
breakdowns, bullying, drug use, etc). The new freshman are an
enormous handful.
However, the vast majority of the freshman-related issues are the
fault of one 3rd year student, Peyton. Peyton’s Fragment is Peryton,
which manifests as rainbow wings and antlers coming from his
body. Peyton struggled a great deal as a freshman, and didn’t get
anywhere close to the amount of support he needed. Now that all
of a sudden these new kids are being taken care of, he’s pissed. And
unfortunately for the freshman, he’s incredibly smart, dedicated,
and manipulative.
In addition, the unnaturally large size of the new class is directly
caused by other activities brewing in the school, in the form of 2
faculty members: Dr. Minh Dao, who teaches kids how to hone and
finely control their powers; and Salif Sadio, who is a line super-
visor in the cafeteria. Dr. Dao’s Fragment, Hugin & Munin, is an
overhead projector that allows her to remotely view other locations.
Salif’s is Pixie (manifested within him), which allows him to briefly
distract someone via illusions. Together, they’ve been scrying the
researchers in charge of operating the portal and making whoever
operates the machinery lose a millisecond or so. This has resulted
in an increased number of Fragments escaping through.
Dr. Dao, who is one of the more respected faculty members,
wants there to be more Fragments out there because she believes
that the school is a force for good. Salif agrees, but he wants to take
it further. As someone who works in a cafeteria and doesn’t hold
much loyalty to Axis Mundi, he wants to hone his Fragment to the
point where he can seriously harm, incapacitate, or otherwise force
the researcher operating the Portal to leave it wide open, resulting
in the majority of the population having Fragments.
48
FRESHMAN FRENZY
CONFLICT TIMELINE
If the player characters do not intervene (and even if they do), here
is a general timeline of when the various important events and
Conflicts will occur. Relationships between some of these charac-
ters will be explained further below.
Q1: The Training Conflict takes the full duration of quarter 1, so
none of the main Conflicts happen here
Q2: Quarter 2 is when Dominic (Fire house) is poisoned.
Additionally, the 4 friends from Water house hit rock bottom
from being strung out
Q3: Quarter 3 is when Priyanka and Wang Shu (both Metal house)
cause some kind of accident due to their sleep being stolen by
Giorgio (Fire). It’s also when Zana (Air) and Leo (Earth) get
into a physical fight at Dexter’s (Fire) party.
Q4: Quarter 4 is when an all-out brawl takes place during the
school’s scavenger hunt event. Also, this is when Salif makes
his move and forces Dr. Dao to help him
WHAT IS AXIS MUNDI LIKE?

The school, firstly, is in an entirely hidden location. The only peo-
ple who know the school’s exact location are the house heads and
the Headmaster. Curupira, the Headmaster’s Fragment, generated
a huge and powerful illusion that surrounds the whole school. It
prevents anyone from finding it or leaving without the Headmaster
allowing it first.
The school is laid out in 3 concentric circles, with the administra-
tive buildings in the center, each of the houses in the middle, and
the classrooms (and fields, and pool, etc) in the outer ring.
Houses
Axis Mundi is divided into 6 houses: Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Metal,
and Void. Each house has a faculty head and represents a shared
value between students, who all live in the house dormitory. The
house you’re put in is determined by request and interview with
the 6 house heads and the Headmaster.
49
DOGS
Air
The members of Air house prioritize wit over all else. They like to
laugh and to tell stories, to solve riddles, and to figure stuff out.
Air house is the only dorm that is built more vertically than hori-
zontally, as it’s the whole of a many-stories tall tower. The students
often hang out on the various balconies that stretch out over the
ground below.
The head of Air house is Dr Jahangir Iman, whose Fragment,
Zephyr, is needed for all of the traveling into or out of the school
grounds.
Fire
The defining characteristic of Fire house is passion. They’re mak-
ers, athletes, and superfans. A large number of the students in Fire
house have an art they’re focused on, and the common room often
resembles an art show or craft room. Conversely, the students who
are focused on sports or other physical activities barely spend any
time in the house itself.
The head of Fire is Matthias Spyro, who is responsible for find-
ing out about events that will affect the school, as well as the emer-
gence of new Fragments.
Water
The most important thing to the members of Water house is duty.
The students in Water house tend to be the most patriotic to their
home countries, as well as have the most school pride. Water house
is the house of ride-or-die friends, and also the cliquiest.
The head of Water house is Professor Yamikani Tumelo. Besides
being the head of the house, he teaches a class on shapechanging
and works with the cafeteria the most.
Earth
Earth house finds practicality to be the most important thing in
life. Earth house is full of problem-solvers and kids who are down
to, well, earth. Because of Professor Ha-Yun’s size, Earth house is in
the biggest building of all the houses, with the highest ceilings and
biggest doorways.
50
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Professor Jung Ha-Yun is the head of Earth house. She teaches ex-
ercise for students with enhanced strength, and also works closely
with the head of discipline, Mrs Francois.
Metal
Metal house is most focused on justice. They’re the ones most likely
to start petitions or to put a stop to something they feel is wrong.
Every inanimate object in the common room, as well as most of
the ones in the other rooms, has been animated by Miss Tova. The
objects are able to be moved around easily or are automated. As a
result, Metal house is the cleanest house by far.
Zahara Tova, in addition to being in charge of Metal house,
uses her Fragment to create golems from various inanimate objects
around campus in order to make everyone’s lives easier. She works
with the families of the students who come to Axis Mundi, as well
as remains in contact with the alumni.
Void
The members of Void house care about power. They tend to be am-
bitious in their goals, whatever those goals may be, and are intense.
They are often very focused on their Fragments, and Void house is
the only house with a room just for meditation.
Nessa Quinn is the head of Void house. She is in charge of exter-
nal security if it’s needed. Of the house heads, she works the closest
with the Headmaster, and has known them the longest.
NPCS BY HOUSE
The characteristics and relevant info for each of the important NPCs
are sorted by house, with faculty that don’t belong to a particular
house having their own section. This is the section that contains the
information most relevant to the story.
AIR
Name: Dr. Jahangir Iman
Fragment: Zephyr, adds +2d6 to Mind. Allows him to move peo-
ple or objects from place to place, with almost unlimited
distance and with only having to have seen the place once.
51
DOGS
Greater distances take longer, but even so he still can move

things significantly faster than most other forms of travel.
Traits: Talks (and thinks) fast | Sharply dressed | Sharper tongue
| Fearless
Relationships: Matthias Spyro, who I work with the most out of
everyone | Yasmin, who constantly fixes all my stuff
Powers: Airlift
Notes: Dr. Iman is the head of Air house. He moves around in a
near constant state of exhaustion because of how much he’s
had to be using his Fragment, due to the high influx of stu-
dents. If consulted about his opinion on giving everyone a
Fragment, he’d be staunchly against it—partly because he
doesn’t have the energy and partly because he likes the pres-
tige of having superpowers. He breaks electronics constantly,
and as such is commonly in Yasmin Martinez’s radio tower,
having her fix something or other of his.
︸
Name: Peyton
Fragment: Peryton, adds +2d6 to Soul. Manifests as antlers com-
ing out of his forehead and rainbow wings, with which he
can fly.
Traits: Always has a plan | Quick on (and off) his feet |
Diabolically intelligent | Skilled manipulator
Relationships: The RAs, whos all constantly remind me of my
past | The freshman class that adores me (it’s not mutual)
Powers: Rainbow Wings
Notes: It’s all Peyton’s fault. Or most of it is, anyway. Peyton, a 3rd
year, had a really rough time as a freshman. He did not get
any of the help he needed because he was lost in the shuffle.
And now that there are so many new freshman, all of a
sudden there are RAs ready to help. This made him super
angry, and unfortunately for the freshman class, he knew
the perfect way to take out his anger. He has been system-
atically setting them up for failure, working on their inse-
curities, and sometimes putting them in literal danger. He’s
52
FRESHMAN FRENZY
very popular, and holds court with a large group of friends

in the Air house common room on the tallest balcony. He’s
unfailingly polite and fake to the player characters’ faces, but
loathes them in actuality.
Peyton’s plans (among many others):
• Convinces Adrian (Earth) to convince Nikos (Void) to poison
Dominic (Fire) so that Nikos can be with Dominic’s girlfriend
Marie (Void), who he’s currently sneaking around with
anyway. Peyton’s goal is to make it look like Marie poisoned
Dominic because Dominic was cheating on her with Akila
(Metal).
• Convinces Aisha (Water) that the schoolwork continues to get
harder every quarter and every year, and that if her and her
friends fall behind they’ll never catch up. Peyton’s goal is for
Aisha to convince her friend Dang (Water) to share his ADHD
meds with her, Steve, and Adam (both Water) so that they can
all excel in their classes. They all end up tweaking and strung
out from taking too many amphetamines.
• Convinces Giorgio (Fire) to induct freshmen into Sofia’s (Void)
Fragment-powered clique that lets everyone share energy.
Peyton also convinces Giorgio to abuse the system by taking
all their energy so that he can stay up all night painting.
Priyanka and Wang Shu (both Metal) are drawn in and end
up dangerously sleep deprived.
• Convinces both Zana (Air) and Leo (Earth) that the other
is changing the details in their collaborative story they’re
working on together, and ends up putting them at one
another’s throat. This explodes when Zana gets drunk at
Dexter’s (Fire) party.
• Convinces Dexter (Fire) to spike the drinks of everyone
during the end of year scavenger hunt. Peyton also taunts
key people from each house to cause an every house for itself
street fight.
︸
Name: Travis
Fragment: Sphinx, adds +2d6 to Mind. Manifests as golden
wings and allows him to engage in riddle contests where
he can wager reality-warping effects with the challenger
53
DOGS
beforehand. Most commonly, Travis wagers you being un-

able to talk about something he wants you to keep secret,
or being unable not to speak up about something he cares
about.
Traits: Competitive | Truthful | Can hold a grudge forever |
Driven to always understand
Relationships: My rooftop lair next to the radio tower
Powers: Wings | Reality-warping Riddles
Notes: Travis is a 5th year student who acts as an information
broker. He spends the vast majority of his time either in
Professor Martinez’s tower or in his workroom, which he re-
fers to as his lair, and which is located on top of the building
next to the radio tower. This makes it fairly easy to move be-
tween them. Travis loves to find out secrets, and knows a lot
of them. He is most likely to agree to a riddle game if offered
secrets that he is currently unaware of
︸
Name: Zana
Fragment: Simurgh, a 2d6 eReader that contains a deep reposi-
tory of fiction and nonfiction books, and is capable of talking
and being talked to.
Traits: Hotheaded | Quick to laugh | No fear | Know-it-all
Relationships: Adrian, who shows me vape tricks | Leo, who I’m
writing a story with
Powers: Information Repository
Equipment: Pencil | Notepad
Notes: Zana is a freshman who is writing a collaborative story
with Leo, a freshman from Earth house. Peyton finds their
drop point early in Q2 and begins to change the details of
the story, mimicking both of their styles. He ends up ruining
both of their favorite plotlines / characters in their collabo-
rative story and makes both her and Leo think that the other
one started it. If she gets even a little heated up for some other
reason (like drinking) around Q3, she will not hesitate to get
54
FRESHMAN FRENZY
into a fight with Leo. Zana will also escalate to a fistfight at

the slightest provocation.
︸
Name: Zorica
Fragment: Harpy, a 2d6 Wind Cannon that can launch an average
sized human 30 feet. She can do it with a fair bit of precision
too, and if annoyed will send the targets of her annoyance
flying.
Traits: Not afraid of confrontation | Laughs loudly | Super tall |
Makes snap judgements and sticks to them
Relationships: Kwame, he’s so good-looking and smart | Peyton,
he’s so mean-funny
Powers: Carry Off
Equipment: Sporty Outfit
Notes: Zorica is a 5th year student who is interested in dating
Kwame (the player character who is the RA for Air house).
She’s part of Peyton’s inner circle, almost always hanging out
with him when he holds court in the Air house common area.
︸
FIRE
Name: Matthias Spyro
Fragment: Delphi, a 2d6 Can of Spray Paint that, when huffed,
gives him visions of the future. He can focus them to look for
specific things, and they manifest as scenes that he watches
as if on a television.
Traits: Rail thin | Filled with frenetic energy | Attuned with his
Fragment | Piercing gaze
Relationships: Dr. Iman, who picks up the kids I find | Valentina
Cruz, who is constantly treating me for various illnesses
Powers: Prophetic Visions
Equipment: Thick coat
Notes: Matthias is the head of Fire house, and because of the
number of new Fragments showing up, he looks rough. Using
his Fragment is not super great for his health, and he has
55
DOGS
been using it every day, multiple times a day. He spends

most of his time in his office in Fire house, or in Dr. Iman’s
office talking about kids he needs to pick up with Zephyr.
He would absolutely love it if everyone on the planet had a
Fragment, because then he’d get to spend some time doing
something else besides looking in the future.
︸
Name: Dominic
Fragment: Brokkr, a 2d6 Soldering Iron that can be used to create
any thin metal object without source materials
Traits: Confident | Compact | Incredibly strong | Expert
craftsman
Relationships: My girlfriend Marie | Akila, who I’m sneaking
around with
Powers: Crafting
Equipment: Gold jewelry
Notes: Dominic is a freshman that is caught in a love . . . trapezoid?
Dominic and his girlfriend, Marie, are both cheating on one
another. Because they are the center of a popular clique, nei-
ther of them wants to split up anytime soon. Peyton orches-
trates for Nikos, the person Marie is cheating with, to poison
Dominic by using Marie’s saliva.
︸
Name: Nallely
Fragment: Santa Muerte, a 2d6 Multicolored Heavy Duty
Flashlight (colored in stripes of gold, silver, copper, blue, pur-
ple, red, and green). Allows her to perform a ritual that sum-
mons something that the subject of the ritual really needs.
Traits: Goth | Strong sense of empathy | Defender of the weak |
Distrustful of authority and authority figures
Relationships: Wai-Ling, who looks the other way for me |
Satish, who’s always got time for me
Powers: What You Need
Equipment: Flower Crown | All-black outfit
56
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Notes: Nallely is the contraband hookup at Axis Mundi. She’s very

sympathetic to anyone downtrodden or helpless, but will
also use her Fragment to help out (almost) anyone who gives
her something she considers of equal value. She’s shockingly
sneaky about it considering she’s the primary source of any-
thing considered contraband. It helps that she’s on very good
terms with Wai-Ling, who is the RA for Fire house. Nallely
is the one who is giving Dang the meds for his ADHD. She
notices when he starts asking for more but doesn’t think to
question it.
︸
Name: Giorgio
Fragment: Aegis, a 2d6 White Noise Machine. When turned on,
in addition to blocking audio, it also blocks people outside
from seeing in or entering its area.
Traits: Callous | Painting savant, bad at everything else | Ghostly
white from never going outside | Only thing I care about is
painting
Relationships: Sofia, who knighted me and who I’ve always
crushed on | Peyton, who always has the best ideas
Powers: Defensive Bubble
Notes: Giorgio is a 2nd year student who wants more time to
paint. Peyton convinces him to bully freshman into joining
Sofia’s group so that Giorgio can sap their energy and paint
instead of sleeping. He did not clear this plan with Sofia,
who would be furious if she found out.
︸
Name: Dexter
Fragment: Dionysus as a 2d6 Flask. Contains an unending supply
of sweet wine that causes a desire for frenzy and revelry in
anyone who drinks it.
Traits: Knows how good-looking he is | Expects everyone to lis-
ten to him (and they do) | In great shape considering how
much he drinks | Gets bored easily
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DOGS
Relationships: Nallely, to whom I owe so many favors | Sofia,

who I’m dating (ish)
Powers: Bacchanal Wine
Equipment: Airline bottles of liquor | Expensive shoes
Notes: 5th year student who basically only cares about party-
ing. Is always drinking, and looking for new ways to cause
chaos. He throws a few parties of varying sizes throughout
the year. At one party in the woods behind one of the outer
classroom buildings he gives out some of the wine from his
Fragment. This causes Zana and Leo get into a yelling match
that quickly turns into a physical fight. In addition, Peyton
gives Dexter the idea to spike the drinks of most of the kids
at the scavenger hunt, which causes it to become extremely
wild and competitive (to the point where most of the kids
would rather fight instead of scavenge or hunt.
︸
WATER
Name: Yamikani Tumelo
Fragment: Waresa, a 2d6 Tankard. Contains an unending supply
of any liquid (usually beer) that lets you shapechange when
you drink from it.
Traits: Always a little buzzed | Calming Presence | Passive |
Unshakeable
Relationships: Professor Quinn, she is a problem solver |
Professor Ha-Yun, who can almost outdrink me
Powers: Endless Decanting
Equipment: Well-tailored clothing
Notes: Professor Tumelo is the head of Water house, and is very
protective over all of the kids in his house (and to some ex-
tent the whole school). He can often be found drinking with
Professor Gavin in Gavin’s office next to the vehicle track. He
doesn’t like having so many freshman because he feels like
he can’t protect them all, even though he wants to. For sim-
ilar reasons, Tumelo would dislike if everyone had powers.
58
FRESHMAN FRENZY
︸
Name: Dang
Fragment: Gremlin, a 2d6 Gardening Glove that causes any metal
he touches while wearing to begin to rust (even if it doesn’t
rust normally).
Traits: Easily distracted | Bad memory | Ride or die friend |
Always optimistic
Relationships: Nallely, who gets me my meds | My close friends
in Water house
Powers: Touch of rust
Equipment: ADHD meds | Glasses
Notes: Dang is a severely ADHD freshman, and regularly gets
ADHD medication from Nallely in exchange for small fa-
vors (or sometimes for free). He gets convinced by his friend
Aisha, who’s the leader of their little group, to start sharing
his meds so that they all can become better at studying. This
obviously does not turn out well.
︸
Name: Steve
Fragment: Selkie, a 2d6 Waterproof Fur-Lined Coat that when
worn and buttoned up all the way allows him to transform
into a creature resembling a seal crossed with a human.
Traits: Deceptively strong | Ready to fight for his friends | Bad
with routine | Unassuming but great in a fight
Relationships: Aisha, who always know what to do | Dang,
who’s constantly a ray of sunshine
Powers: Seal form
Equipment: Waterproof bag
Notes: Steve is a freshman who is a part of Dang’s super-tight
friend group, and is one of the ones who gets strung out be-
cause of Peyton’s plot. Steve spends almost all of his time that
isn’t with his 3 best friends swimming in the school pool,
where he seems just as much at home as on the ground.
︸
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DOGS
Name: Aisha
Fragment: Oberon, a 2d6 Tube of Ointment that when rubbed on
someone makes them feel more friendly with the next people
they see.
Traits: Tiny | With a really big voice | Protective of her friends |
Fast talker
Relationships: Dang, the heart of our group | Adam, who lets
me fly
Powers: “Like” Potion
Notes: Aisha is a freshman and is the brains of her group of
friends. The group agreed to become best friends and used
her Fragment together to speed up the process. She is con-
vinced by Peyton during Professor Gavin’s class that the
schoolwork at Axis Mundi is extremely difficult. So she gets
Dang to share his ADHD medication. If this isn’t noticed
within a certain amount of time, her and Adam will end up
crashing his bike after falling from the sky.
︸
Name: Adam
Fragment: Griffon, a 2d6 Dirt Bike that has wings and claws. It
seats 2 comfortably (more, in a pinch), and can fly about as
fast as it can move on the ground.
Traits: Long legged | Shockingly deep voice | Always ready to
get my friends out of trouble | More at home on my bike
than on the ground
Relationships: Aisha, who keeps us all out of trouble | Steve,
who taught me how to swim
Powers: Griffon Flight
Equipment: Military boots
Notes: One of the freshman Water house kids who is a part of
Dang’s friend group. He’s the one who is able to cause the
most trouble by being strung out, because he takes Aisha up
on his Fragment to fly almost every day. If he has a micro-nap
while he’s flying, his dirt bike will plummet to the ground.
60
FRESHMAN FRENZY
︸
EARTH
Name: Jung Ha-Yun
Fragment: Mago, adds +2d6 to Body. She is permanently 12 feet
tall and incredibly strong. When she concentrates she can
grow even larger (and become proportionately more strong).
Traits: Forward and direct | Dislikes formality | Likes working
with her hands | Streak of ruthlessness
Relationships: Zahara, who always wants to improve everything
around her | Earth House, which I’m personally responsible
for
Powers: Titanic Size
Notes: Professor Ha-Yun, the head of Earth house, is very soft
spoken for how enormously tall she is. She is also the reason
that Earth house is so much bigger than the other houses in
size. Because she assists with discipline, she’s away from the
house a lot to watch over the kids in the other houses. Ha-
Yun has a lot of regularly scheduled office hours so that her
house can come to her. She would also be perfectly fine if
everyone had powers, because in her mind it would level the
playing field in a lot of ways.
︸
Name: Adrian
Fragment: Catoblepas, a 2d6 Vape that he can use to exhale smoke
clouds that are heavier than air and that cause temporary
paralysis in anyone who breathes them in.
Traits: Easily impressed | Tall and thin | Social status is very
important to me | Be selfish because everyone else is too
Relationships: My best friend Nikos | Peyton, a really cool 3rd
year
Powers: Paralyzing Cloud
Equipment: Silver necklace
Notes: Adrian is a freshman and is Nikos’s best friend. Peyton
riles him up and convinces him that Nikos needs to formally
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DOGS
date Marie as a status symbol. Peyton convinces Nikos to

poison Dominic (but doesn’t really think it through).
︸
Name: Satish
Fragment: Pasha, a 2d6 Fishing Pole that can be used to essen-
tially lasso people or objects at range.
Traits: I prefer being alone with my thoughts | Expert with a fish-
ing pole | In really good shape | Is not a snitch
Relationships: Xochi, who more or less leaves me alone | My
quiet place, a custom indoor fishing spot
Powers: Ensnare
Notes: Satish is a 4th year who mostly just wants to be left alone
or to hang out with one person at a time. He usually hangs
out at his custom indoor endless fishing pool, which was
built by Thijs, another 4th year Earth house student. He sees
more than he lets on about what’s going on at the school, but
he can be hard to get information from.
︸
Name: Leo
Fragment: Centaur, a 2d6 4-wheeled Scooter that can articulate its
wheels as if they were hooves on the end of legs.
Traits: Stocky | Flowing mane of hair | Better at listening than
talking | Close bond with his Fragment
Relationships: Wai-Ling, she’s so cute and good on a skateboard
| Zana, who I’m creating a story with
Powers: Wheels as hooves
Equipment: Voice recorder
Notes: Is a freshman who’s writing a collaborative story with
Zana until Peyton begins changing details to make it look
like each of them is erasing the other’s changes. Leo and
Zana then feud, but Leo won’t do anything about it unless
Zana begins yelling at him. This makes it more likely that
he’ll get into a real fight with her.
︸
62
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Name: Thijs
Fragment: Kabouter, a 2d6 Corded Circular Saw that allows him
to carve any shape he wants out of wood, no matter how
improbable.
Traits: Loves carpentry | Open and friendly | Strong but careful
| High spatial intelligence
Relationships: Kwame, he’s so funny and charming | Satish,
who I helped build a fishing spot for
Powers: Perfect woodcarving
Notes: Thijs is a 4th year student who has a crush on Kwame (the
player character who’s the RA for Air house). He’s not in-
volved in any of the main dramatic happenings, but he does
get jealous of Kwame splitting his attention between him
and Zorica.
︸
METAL
Name: Zahara Tova
Fragment: Maharal, a 2d6 Inkpen that can be used to write short
“programs” that when stuck to inanimate objects cause them
to come to life and act, in a limited manner, as though they
were alive.
Traits: Organized | Determined | “Work smarter not harder” |
Fairness is paramount
Relationships: Every child with powers that needs to be pro-
tected | Jung, who is always ready to help out
Powers: Create Golems
Equipment: Tailored suit
Notes: Zahara is the head of Metal house, and is the reason the
house is so clean and why the school runs as smoothly as it
does. She spends a lot of time in her office in the house itself,
and tries to be approachable to the students. Zahara is good
friends with Professor Ha-Yun, and she would love living in
a world where everyone has a Fragment.
︸
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Name: Akila
Fragment: Anubis, a 2d6 Digital Scale that can measure the worth
of anyone who she gets a body part (like a hair) from and
weighs.
Traits: Short but all legs | Intense resting bitch face | Always tries
to do the right thing | Really knows how to yell
Relationships: Dominic, who said he’d leave his girlfriend for me
| Jada, the Metal house RA who’s so cool and put together
Powers: Judge Worthy
Notes: Akila is a freshman who’s one of the members of the lit-
tle goth clique (along with Nallely and Satish and a handful
of others). She has a strong moral compass and feels super
guilty about sneaking around with Dominic behind Marie’s
back. When Dominic gets poisoned, she immediately thinks
that it’s her fault and is the likeliest to confess.
︸
Name: Priyanka
Fragment: Triton, a 2d6 Conch Horn that, when blown, allows her
to cause water to move through the air, change shape, etc.
Traits: Sickly | I’ll follow my friends anywhere | Combative |
Suspicious of everyone
Relationships: Steve, who I see at the pool all the time | My naive
best friend Wang Shu
Powers: Control Water
Equipment: Bag with nonperishable food | Water bottle
Notes: Priyanka is a freshman whose best friend, Wang Shu, has
a crush on Giorgio and agrees to join Sofia’s group with him.
Priyanka is suspicious of Giorgio’s motives and joins too
when she sees that Wang Shu is going to do it anyway. Her
suspicions are confirmed when Giorgio almost immediately
begins siphoning away their energy. She holds it together for
the benefit of Wang Shu, however.
︸
64
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Name: Wang Shu

Fragment: Jingu Bang, a 2d6 Lipstick that can extend and retract
and won’t break even if it gets super long.
Traits: Guileless | Sees the best in everyone | Puts a lot of effort
into her appearance | Always has had perfect health
Relationships: Giorgio, he’s so dreamy | My protective best
friend Priyanka
Powers: Power Pole
Equipment: Compact | Makeup bag
Notes: Wang Shu is a freshman who has a crush on Giorgio. She
is manipulated by him into joining Sofia’s group. Priyanka
joins with her and ends up sharing the brunt of Giorgio’s
energy draining when he starts taking advantage of them.
Wang Shu falls asleep on her feet, but she still has a crush on
Giorgio so she won’t rat him out.
︸
Name: Arturo
Fragment: Furies, a 2d6 Phablet that functions like a search en-
gine to find bad things that someone has done, but only if
you know at least one bad thing they’ve done already.
Traits: Keeps the truth about his Fragment on the DL | Keen judge
of character | Knows how to fight | Very loyal to his friends
Relationships: Nallely, who gives me all the gossip | Sofia, who
knows not to fuck with me anymore
Powers: Wrongs Committed Database
Equipment: Sharpened steak knife
Notes: Arturo is a 4th year student who hangs around with the
goth kids. He keeps tabs on the bad or shady stuff that any-
one at the school does. Once he knows some dirt on someone
he digs with the Furies until he finds all of it. Getting on
Arturo’s bad side is dangerous, but if you get in good with
him, he knows so many secrets about the student body.
︸
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VOID
Name: Nessa Quinn
Fragment: Claiomh Solas, a 2d6 Butterfly Knife that when drawn
and flourished in combat with an opponent will assuredly
end in that opponent’s death.
Traits: Tiny and fragile looking | Moves purposefully | Quiet
and solemn | Wins fights
Relationships: Headmaster, who I knew before anyone else |
Professor Tumelo, who is very relaxing to be around
Powers: Inevitable Death
Equipment: Orthopedic shoes | Cardigan
Notes: Nessa is the head of security for Axis Mundi as well as the
head of Void house. She is often absent from the house and
focused on potential threats, but leads meditation sessions
semi-regularly in the house meditation chamber. She would
not like it if everyone had powers, because there would be so
many more variables for her to consider for security.
︸
Name: Marie
Fragment: Basilisk, a 2d6 Pair of Glasses that when worn gives
her a gaze attack that temporarily paralyzes anyone who
makes eye contact and also makes her saliva toxic.
Traits: Intense | Tall and willowy | Incredibly quiet | Decisive
Relationships: Dominic, my boyfriend
Powers: Toxic Saliva | Stunning Gaze
Notes: Marie is a freshman whose saliva is used to poison her
cheating boyfriend (she keeps vials of it at various levels of
strength that she’s practiced creating). However, she had
known about the cheating for a while and also was cheating
on him, so she really didn’t care—especially since they are
viewed as a sort of ‘power couple’. She is upset when he gets
poisoned but honestly not nearly as upset as you’d expect.
Either way, she didn’t actually do the poisoning.
︸
66
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Name: Nikos
Fragment: Minotaur, a 2d6 Bull Headband that allows him to fold
space and navigate paths that he or anyone else otherwise
wouldn’t be able to.
Traits: Dense (mentally and physically) | Charming smile | High
physical intelligence | Incredibly muscular
Relationships: Marie, who I’m in love (but have to sneak around)
with | My best friend Adrian
Powers: Path Creation
Equipment: Workout clothes
Notes: Nikos is a freshman who is kind of dumb. His status-ob-
sessed friend Adrian convinces Nikos that if he poisons
Marie’s boyfriend, she’ll have to legitimize him instead of
sneaking around and kissing outside the house at night.
Nikos uses his Fragment to get into her bedroom where she
has vials of her saliva, takes one of the more toxic samples,
and sneaks it into Dominic’s food. His first instinct is to run
away when the poisoning actually plays out, but he’s not re-
ally smart enough to dodge questions well once the party
gets to him.
︸
Name: Sofia
Fragment: Joyeuse, a 2d6 Letter Opener that allows her to knight
someone. She can then form a group that pools power and
energy so that everyone is better off on average.
Traits: Queen Bee | Always put together | Knows how to cut with
her words | Can always turn a situation to her advantage
Relationships: Void house, where like-minded people help me
learn | My circle I created with Joyeuse
Powers: Kingmaker
Equipment: Exquisitely planned-out clothing | Expensive bag
Notes: Sofia is a 5th year student who is very focused and am-
bitious. She is kind of mean but fair and is the head of her
circle, which she creates using her Fragment. She has lieu-
tenants that she more or less trusts and allows free reign to
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invite people into her circle. This trust is proven foolish when
one of them, Giorgio, begins using her Fragment’s powers
to steal energy from freshman girls he’s inducted into the
group. She is very familiar with all of the other 4th and 5th
year students, and many of the other students as well due
to her social nature. She has a rough history with Jada (the
player character who is the RA for Metal house), who she
bullied in prior years.
︸
UNAFFILIATED
Name: Headmaster
Fragment: Curupira, adds 2d6 to Spirit, and is manifested as back-
wards feet. The headmaster’s Fragment allows them to create
and maintain numerous realistic illusions simultaneously.
Traits: Extremely mysterious | Backwards feet | Long-term
thinker | In tune with Fragment
Relationships: Nessa Quinn, who is my oldest friend | Axis
Mundi, my school and empire
Powers: Powerful, resilient, realistic illusions
Notes: Almost nothing is known about the headmaster of Axis
Mundi, and they like it that way. When appearing to stu-
dents and faculty, they will change appearances, sometimes
multiple times throughout a single day. The only unchang-
ing thing is the direction that their feet are pointing. The
Headmaster often leaves campus to meet with world lead-
ers (always assuming a new disguise), and does not com-
monly interact with students. They love the size of the new
freshman class, because it adds to the legacy of the school.
However, they would very much not like Salif’s full plan be-
cause then Axis Mundi wouldn’t be as special.
︸
Name: Salif Sadio
Fragment: Pixie, adds 2d6 to Spirit, and has no visible manifes-
tation. Allows him to distract someone via illusions. The
68
FRESHMAN FRENZY
illusions appear only for the target and only for a short
amount of time.
Traits: Strategic (and tactical) thinker | Ruthless | Strong sense of
justice | Good with words
Relationships: Minh, who I’m working with to give more kids
powers | Nallely, a student who I’ve gotten contraband from
Powers: Distraction
Equipment: Pistol | No-slip shoes
Notes: Salif is a line supervisor in the cafeteria at Axis Mundi.
He has been working with Dr. Minh Dao to distract the re-
searchers in charge of accessing the other dimension for a
millisecond in order to increase the number of Fragments
escaping through. Unbeknownst to Dao, he is actively plan-
ning on trying to figure out a way to permanently yank open
the portal—perhaps by permanently harming the research-
ers. His ultimate goal is to give every human a Fragment as
a way of leveling the playing field of race and class. At some
point, Salif is going to be fed up with arguing with Dr. Dao
and will use the gun to convince her to work with him for
this plan.
︸
Name: Dr. Minh Dao
Fragment: Hugin & Munin, a 2d6 Overhead Projector that allows
her to remotely view anywhere on the planet if she knows
where to look for it, by means of the projector itself and an
invisible lens that flies quickly to wherever she concentrates.
Traits: Always wants to help | Open, trustworthy face | Almost
instinctively understands Fragments | Well-informed
Relationships: Salif, who I’m working with to give more kids
powers | Axis Mundi, which has helped so many kids
Powers: Scrying
Notes: Dr. Dao teaches about how to effectively use Fragments.
Specifically, she is good at teaching people how to have fine
control. She has been secretly working with Salif, whose
power to distract someone works on anyone he can see live,
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DOGS
to distract the researchers tapping into the other dimension.

This has resulted in more Fragments coming into this di-
mension. Dao wants to let more people have superpowers
but feels guilty about sneaking around doing this. Without
being coerced, she would never agree to permanently harm-
ing one human to give every other human a Fragment. In a
Conflict with Salif and the player characters, her main goal
is to prevent anyone from getting permanently injured, even
if it means protecting one side from the other.
︸
Name: Yasmin Martinez
Fragment: Babel, a Radio Tower that adds +2d6 Mind when she’s
in it, and everyone within its broadcasting range is able to
speak a common language.
Traits: Irritable | Always a bit frazzled | No nonsense | Problem
solver
Relationships: Travis, my assistant who helps with IT | My radio
tower
Powers: Universal Language Transmission
Equipment: Screwdriver | Cell phone
Notes: Yasmin is essentially the only tech support in the whole
school, so she’s constantly fixing electronics and networks
that aren’t working. She works closely with Travis, and Dr.
Iman also is in her workshop a lot due to his terrible luck
with devices. She’s also the only reason that the school can
function, because otherwise so many kids speaking so many
different languages would be impossible.
︸
Name: Valentina Cruz
Fragment: Maria Lionza, a 2d6 Model Skeleton Pelvis that allows
her to access the memories and healing powers of dozens of
doctors throughout history.
Traits: Knows when you’re lying | Great memory | Surprisingly
strong | Can be pitiless
70
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Relationships: The dumb student body who keep getting injured

| Matthias, who spent so much time in my office that we
became friends
Powers: The Medical Court
Notes: Valentina is the school doctor. She uses her Fragment and
memory to accurately diagnose and heal any of the injuries
that pop up from having teenagers with superpowers run-
ning around.
︸
Name: Gavin
Fragment: Nuckelavee, a 2d6 Amphibious Motorcycle that can
drive on land or through the water with ease, if not great
comfort.
Traits: Young ‘cool teacher’ | Booming voice | Extremely skilled
on a motorcycle | Knows when to and when not to push
Relationships: My drinking buddy Yamikani | My wife Kyonne,
the smartest person I’ve ever met
Powers: Amphibious travel
Notes: Gavin teaches most of the classes for students with move-
ment-based powers. He’s one of the younger teachers, and is
married to Kyonne Francois, who is the head of discipline for
the school. He’s not a big disciplinarian though and tends to
let his favorite students slide a bit more than he does problem
ones, or ones that get on his nerves.
︸
Name: Kyonne Francois
Fragment: Siren, a 2d6 Boombox that when she plays a specific
song from it, causes whoever’s listening to calmly approach
her and listen to what she has to say.
Traits: Good sense of humor | Incredibly long locs | Expects to
be listened to | Scary good at figuring things out
Relationships: My husband Gavin, who keeps me sane | Axis
Mundi, which I attempt to keep in order
Powers: Enticing song
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DOGS
Notes: Mrs. Francois is the head of discipline at Axis Mundi. As

such, she is directly above the RAs, who all report to her
in addition to their heads of house. None of the students,
even the troublemakers, want to cross her—often, doing so
means they pick up some community service and help clean,
made docile by her Fragment. She doesn’t abuse her powers,
but sometimes some of the kids make her want to. Because
Peyton is always very nice to her and when she’s around, she
doesn’t suspect him at all.
︸
GROUPS
If you need a group NPC (particularly for the Scavenger Hunt brawl,
if the players don’t stop it), just populate each group with a few of
the specifically named NPCs and then come up with some generic
Traits and Powers to incorporate. The Conflict is likely to be super
chaotic, so specific details are probably not going to be necessary.
EXTRA NPCS
Sometimes you’ll find that you need to stat up more NPCs for the
players to get into Conflicts with. If that’s the case, simply grab a
random person from this list of names, Traits, and Powers, and as-
sign them however you need to:
• Yang | Modest | Paranoid | Cowardly | Luxurious hair |
Prehensile tongue
• Wolodymyr | Trusting | Ragged nails | Wild hair | Frugal |
Controlling electricity
• Lígia | Proud | Peaceful | Sharing | Understanding | Super
intelligence
• Guanting | Intimate | Hulking | Abrasive | Loud | Passing
through solid objects
• Yin | Content | Cold | Pot bellied | Manipulative |
Manipulating metal
• Natalia | Tired | Gracious | Quirky | Prudent |
Manipulating metal
• Bilge | Sad | Self denying | Wise | Whimsical | Controlling air
• Bilal | Generous | Weak willed | Unchanging | Neurotic |
Controlling fire
72
FRESHMAN FRENZY
• Dietfried | Charming | Perceptive | Muscular | Brilliant |

Super memory
• Sonje | Depressed | Insouciant | Pugnacious | Messy |
Controlling water
• Nanami | Naive | Domineering | Playful | Shaved head |
Controlling arachnids
• Shun | Violent | Imaginative | Passionate | Tall | Rapid
learning
• Hayato | Industrious | Gangling | Invisible | Cruel |
Learning the complete history of an object by touching it
• Sevda | Rude | Prim | Dependable | Unkind |
Manipulating shadows
• Oskari | Mysterious | Decisive | Inspirational | Thick |
Altering your appearance
• Silvia | Forceful | Burly | Rough hands | Kind | Creating
fire
• Acacius | Hedonistic | Farsighted | Clean cut | Sentimental
| An enhanced sense of smell
• Bohuslav | Bold | Restless | Easily excited | Adventurous |
Becoming gigantic
• Tamiko | Aggressive | Amusing | Scheming | Sharp |
Flying
• Madhu | Submissive | Aimless | Sociable | Boisterous |
Teleportation
• Aklaq | Ambitious | Energetic | Nurturing | Long fingers |
Telepathy
• Quintius | Conscientious | Undisciplined | Reckless |
Impolite | Detecting lies
• Koko | Carefree | Bulky | Bossy | Clear-headed |
Transforming into a liquid form
• Estella | Compassionate | Demure | Brutal | Witty | Super
hearing
• Noya | Courageous | Stable | Competitive | Quick |
Prehensile hair
• Uluriaq | Sly | Provocative | Winning | Disobedient |
Controlling insects
• Ximena | Lonely | Squeaky voice | Patient | Super balance
• Nela | Ashamed | Buff | Complaintive | Controlling the
weather
• Xanthe | Guilty | Flushed | Well-groomed | Super speed
• Vijay | Anxious | Happy | Long hair | Controlling dirt
73
DOGS
• Aleksandr | Hostile | Patriotic | Efficient | Short | Draining

life energy
• Gulnara | Angry | Big eyes | Quiet | Super jumping
• Kamala | Selfish | Coarse | Unlovable | Controlling plants
• Asuka | Hateful | Odd | Charismatic | Lean | Super
strength
• Metrodora | Critical | Soft hands | Outspoken | Projecting
illusions
• Steffen | Hopeless | Easily distracted | Colored hair | Stout
| Manipulating emotions
• Perry | Confused | Dull | Tough | Taut | Becoming tiny
• Anil | Helpless | Heroic | Grim | Seeing through illusions
• Moe | Insecure | Foolish | Tasteless | Slender fingers |
Super navigation skills
• Roman | Excited | Shallow | Balanced | Seeing through
solid objects
• Melati | Sensuous | Uncaring | Gullible | Gaseous form
• Ernesta | Secretive | Realistic | Knowledgeable | Immunity
to radiation
• Dmitri | Cheerful | Steady | Disloyal | Companionly |
Seeing the future
• Matrona | Daring | Fraudulent | Enthusiastic |
Noncompetitive | Invisibility
• Nkiru | Confident | Fawning | Perverse | Super vision
• Lisa | Aware | Sly | Faithful | Dry | Healing others
• Kev | Deep voice | Calm | Long arms | Respected |
Manipulating gravity
PLAYER CHARACTERS
Each of the player characters is the RA for a different House. If your
players decide that they want to make their own characters, do
keep in mind that some of the NPCs have Relationships with the
RAs, and you will need to change those.
Air
The Air house RA is Kwame. He’s a storyteller and habitual liar/
prankster. He’s in Air house because wit, specifically being enter-
taining (to himself and others), is what he values most.
74
FRESHMAN FRENZY
Name: Kwame
Background: Specialized. Kwame has always been a social but-
terfly. As he’s aged he’s gotten better at making friends (and
manipulating people), to the exclusion of most else.
Focus: Connected. Kwame is focused almost entirely on people.
Fragment: Anansi, a 2d6 Bluetooth Speaker that allows him to
tell stories and amplify his voice to take his listeners into the
story, cloaking them in realistic illusions.
Stats: Body 2d6 | Mind 4d6 | Soul 3d6 | Spirit 4d6
Traits: Naturally athletic 1d6 | I never surrender 1d6 | I know
how to put on a show 1d6 | Consummate liar 1d8
Relationships: The freshman class AKA my captive audience as
an RA 1d10 | Salif the Line Supervisor, he’s had my back
several times 1d6 | Satish, who believed me about being a
Ghanaian prince 1d6 | Arturo, who thinks I can bare knuckle
box 1d4 | Thijs, who makes beautiful furniture and who I
have a crush on 1d8 | Zorica, who’s really funny and who I
also have a crush on 1d8 | ( 2d10 left to assign)
Powers: Visual Illusions 1d8 | Auditory Illusions 3d6
Equipment: Bluetooth Speaker 2d6 | Beaded necklace 1d8 |
Bright, flowing shirt 2d6 | Coconut candy 1d6
︸
Fire
The RA for Fire house is Wai-Ling, who is in the house because she
is passionate about skateboarding above all else.
Name: Wai-Ling
Background: Rocky. Wai-Ling was always in trouble and wasn’t
great at making friends prior to getting a superpowered
skateboard. She now mostly focuses on that.
Focus: Trained. She spends most of her time skating, and it shows.
Fragment: Nezha, a 2d6 Longboard that’s cloaked in flame and
allows her to fly, skate up walls, and move at impossible
speeds.
75
DOGS

Traits: Easily bored 1d4 | Only half paying attention 1d4 | I’d
always rather be skateboarding 1d6 | Perfect balance 1d6 |
I have no fear while riding on Nezha 1d10 | Rules are more
like loose guidelines 1d10
Relationships: Fire house, which I’m an RA for 1d4 | My best
friend Jada 1d8 | Nallely, who I have a no-narcing pact with
1d6 | Prof. Gavin, my favorite teacher of my favorite class 1d6
| (1d8 left to assign whenever)
Powers: Limitless acceleration 1d4 | All-and-no terrain skating
2d6 | Wheels of Flame 2d8
Equipment: Longboard 2d6 | Beanie 1d6 | Fingerless gloves 1d6
| Raggedy jeans 1d4 | Oversized sweater 1d8
︸
Water
Jacob is the head student of Water house (in his own words). He
feels that he has a duty to Axis Mundi, and loved being chosen as
RA because in his mind he was the perfect choice. He’s very orga-
nized and rules-focused, and thus is a great fit for his house.
Name: Jacob Hekta

Background: Specialized. Jacob decided long ago that picking
up new skills should be one of his goals, so he is constantly
training himself.
Focus: Trained
Fragment: Hecatoncheires, a 2d6 Multi-tool that contains 100 dif-
ferent tools that all improbably fit inside one compact space.
Traits: Sharp Memory 1d4 | Strong jaw 1d6 | Detail-focused
1d6 | Very handy 1d8 | Perfect eyesight 1d8 | I can fix any-
thing 1d10 | ...but sometimes people don’t want me to 1d10 |
Skilled with my Fragment
Relationships: I’m an RA and I take my duties very seriously 1d8
| Dexter, who is constantly breaking rules and getting into
76
FRESHMAN FRENZY
trouble 1d6 | Mrs. Francois, whose right hand I am 1d6 |

Travis, who I’m never trying to help again 1d6
Powers: Extra-dimensional space 1d6 | 100 different tools 1d8 |
Automatically trained in any tool I pull out 2d6
Equipment: Multi-tool 2d6 | Perfectly starched polo 2d6 | Khaki
shorts 1d6 | Boat shoes 1d6 |
︸
Earth
The RA for Earth house is Xochitl Citlali Inmaculada, but she just
goes by Xochi. She comes from a rich family and understands that
she needs to do well in school to secure her future, even if she would
rather be partying. Her matter-of-fact, practical nature is what put
her in Earth house.
Name: Xochi (Zo-chee)

Background: Balanced. Xochi grew up with access to a great
many resources, and is generally good at most things.
Focus: Spiritual. Xochi heavily utilizes her Fragment to get away
with the kind of stuff she wants to do by shunting the blame
away from her towards the people she doesn’t like.
Fragment: Tlazolteotl (Tah-Sole-Tay-Oat), a 2d6 Lint Roller that
allows her to clean or dirty her target (both literal and meta-
phorical dirt).
Traits: I’m an RA for Earth house 1d6 | Trouble always seems to
find me 1d6 | I always know where the exit is 1d6 | I won’t
back down from a challenge 1d8
Relationships: Axis Mundi, my stepping stone to success 1d6 |
Prof. Ha-Yun, who’s so good at problem solving 1d6 | (1d6
1d8 left to assign)
Powers: Cleanse 1d6 | Soil 1d4 | Absolve 1d8 | Incriminate 2d8
Equipment: Lint roller 2d6 | Designer bag 2d8 | First aid kit 1d6
| Airplane bottles of vodka 1d6
︸
77
DOGS
Metal
The Metal house RA is Jada. She was bullied a lot when she was
younger. As an RA she’s positioned herself as an anti-bully, try-
ing to help the new kids deal with their emotional problems. Her
Fragment has two states that change her powers as well as her aes-
thetic (between goth and hippie).
Name: Jada Belladonna

Background: Rocky. Jada was bullied a lot, and has spent a lot of
her time at Axis Mundi hiding away in the conservatory.
Focus: Connected. Even if she historically has not had a good
time with other students, personal relationships are what
she cares the most about.
Fragment: Persephone, a 2d6 pair of Breakaway Pants that come
with two sets of powers, depending on the state they’re in:
nature powers when they’re shorts, and death powers when
they’re pants.
Traits: I know all of Axis Mundi’s backways and secret passages
1d4 | I don’t understand people 2d6 | … but I like to watch
them 1d8 | The conservatory has made me secretly athletic
1d8
Relationships: Sofia, who bullied me until I became an RA 1d4 |
The dining hall where I got laughed at so much 1d4 | Axis
Mundi, the school I must protect as an RA 2d6 | My best
friend Wai-Ling 1d10 | (1d10 left to assign during play)
Powers: Plant Control 1d4 | Invigorate 2d6 | Energy Drain 2d8
Equipment: Breakaway Pants 2d6 | Pruning Shears 1d8 | Opera
Gloves 2d6 | Stiff ruffly shirt / flowery crop top 1d6
︸
Void
The RA for Void house is named Aamir, and we created him as
the example character in the Character Creation chapter. This ver-
sion of Aamir is going to be slightly different because we’re making
78
FRESHMAN FRENZY
him within the specific rules for this setting (specifically, his lighter
doesn’t count towards his Item limit). Aamir is in Void house be-
cause power, specifically power over his Fragment, is the most im-
portant thing to him.
Name: Aamir
Background: Rocky. Aamir has hurt people with his powers be-
fore, and he’s scared that he’ll do so again.
Focus: Spiritual. He really cares about his Powers, because he
wants to be able to use them casually.
Fragment: Ifrit, a 2d6 Engraved Lighter that allows him to sum-
mon and manipulate fire in various ways.
Traits: Long-legged 1d4 | Big eyes 1d6 | Constantly optimistic
1d6 | I’m afraid of using my powers 2d8
Relationships: I’m an Axis Mundi RA 1d8 | Kwame, he’s so funny
but never tells the truth 1d6 | Dr. Minh Dao, who’s teaching
me to control my Fragment 1d8 (1d4 1d6 left to assign during
play)
Powers: Pyrokinesis 2d10 | Douse Fire 1d6 | Smoke Manipulation
1d6 | Fine Control 2d4
Equipment: Engraved Lighter 2d6 | Gladiator Sandals 1d8 |
Dad’s Old Watch 1d8 | Cotton Cardigan 1d6
︸
79
-QUICK REFERENCE-
-CONFLICT TYPES-
• Nonphysical + Nonviolent = Mind + Soul
• Physical + Nonviolent = Body + Soul
• Physical + Violent = Body + Spirit
• Violent + At Range = Mind + Spirit
• Violent + Only Spiritual = Soul + Spirit
-EQUIPMENT DICE-
• Ordinary = 1d6
• Big = 1d8
• Excellent = 2d6
• Big + Excellent = 2d8
• Shoddy/Broken = 1d4
-CONSEQUENCE DICE-
• Nonphysical + Nonviolent = 1d4
• Physical + Nonviolent = 1d6
• Physical + Violent = 1d8
• Violent + Deadly = 1d10
-CONSEQUENCES-
• Any 1s - choose something from the Growth list
• Take the two highest dice (that’s your Consequence Score)
• 02-07 - choose a Short-Term Consequence for the next Conflict
• 08-11 - choose a Long-Term Consequence
• 12-16 - choose a Long-Term Consequence and you’re Injured. Roll your Body and compare the three
highest dice to your Consequence Score. If you don’t meet or exceed it, you become Badly
Injured
• 17-19 - choose a Long-Term Consequence and you’re Badly Injured. Without medical attention you’ll
die
• 20+ – you die
-GROWTH-
• Add 1 die to any Stat, Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Increase the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power by 1 step
• Create a 1d6 Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Gain a new Item
• Lose a Relationship but keep its dice (to use on one or more future Relationships)
-SHORT TERM CONSEQUENCES-

• Remove 1 die from a non-1d4 Stat, Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Lower the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power to 1d4
• Go off by yourself. You skip the next Conflict
-LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES-

• Remove 1 die from a non-1d4 Stat, Trait, Relationship, or Power
• Lower the die size of any Trait, Relationship, or Power to 1d4
• Lose an Item

D O G S: Ice Pool M Ral Predicament Based Eneric Roleplaying Ystem

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D O G S: Ice Pool M Ral Predicament Based Eneric Roleplaying Ystem

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DICE POOL AND

MO RAL PREDICAMENT BASED

Design and Layout by Megan Ellis

Holly, Christa, Alejandro, and my partner Aidan for creating

HOW TO RUN A GAME OF DOGS.......................31

of dice that you bid from. Everyone’s dice pool (includ-

E very character in DOGS is a member of some kind of team, usu-

BACKGROUNDS & FOCUSES

TRAINED CONNECTED SPIRITUAL

sometimes falter when presented with challenges they weren’t ex-

TRAINED CONNECTED SPIRITUAL

TRAINED CONNECTED SPIRITUAL

TRAITS, RELATIONSHIPS, AND POWERS

• If it’s really big (noticeably so) it gets 1d8

A character can start with any number of Items, as long as the

C onflicts are the resolution mechanic for any situation where

• If your Conflict is nonphysical and nonviolent, roll Mind

A character can also help another character on a Raise or Call by

WINNING (OR LOSING) A CONFLICT

When a Conflict ends, first the GM determine the results of the

FULL CONFLICT EXAMPLE

B ecause DOGS is a generic system, games can vary wildly in

all written in combined with the nature of being able to describe

• Using Powers comes with some kind of drawback, such as

mysterious liquid they found in a cave, or a character who stepped

elements to defeat the opposing team. The teams are comprised of

1 2d6 2d6 3d6 4d6 6 3d6 4d6 4d6 4d6

Then, to create an NPC’s Traits, Relationships, and Powers (the

1 2d6 3 4d6 5 2d8 7 1d10

A single NPC from an NPC sheet might look something like this:

STATS Body 5d6 > Mind 4d6 >

Then, paired with these notes about a character who is possibly

Name: Salif Sadio

Together, you get this:

STATS Body 5d6 > Mind 4d6 >

STATS Body 11d6 > Mind 5d6 >

When a particular member of the group first takes an action

Alternatively, if NPCs want to group up with the players, and

Give NPCs motives and plans, but not actions

Ensnare the players

T his is a fully fleshed-out, playable as-is campaign setting. Feel

WHAT IS THE WORLD LIKE?

themselves to humans, who then gain supernatural powers. These

character to add 2d6 to one of their Stats chosen at character cre-

problems can be caught earlier or later based on those kinds of

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON?

WHAT IS AXIS MUNDI LIKE?

Greater distances take longer, but even so he still can move

very popular, and holds court with a large group of friends

beforehand. Most commonly, Travis wagers you being un-

into a fight with Leo. Zana will also escalate to a fistfight at

been using it every day, multiple times a day. He spends

Notes: Nallely is the contraband hookup at Axis Mundi. She’s very

Relationships: Nallely, to whom I owe so many favors | Sofia,

date Marie as a status symbol. Peyton convinces Nikos to

Name: Wang Shu

to distract the researchers tapping into the other dimension.

Relationships: The dumb student body who keep getting injured

Notes: Mrs. Francois is the head of discipline at Axis Mundi. As

• Dietfried | Charming | Perceptive | Muscular | Brilliant |

• Aleksandr | Hostile | Patriotic | Efficient | Short | Draining

Stats: Body 4d6 | Mind 3d6 | Soul 6d6 | Spirit 2d6

Name: Jacob Hekta