Based on THE SHADOW OF YESTERDAY,
The SOLAR SYSTEM is a It was Clinton’s intention
© Clinton R. Nixon 2005,
http://tsoy.crngames.com,
(recovered 1.5.2008).
Graphic Design by Jari Tuovinen
Illustrated by Pyry Veteli
Published by Arkenstone Publishing, Finland
© Arkenstone Publishing, 2008
All separately unattributed textual portions
of this work are licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 license:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
eroic tales to men are akin to water to fish
H or skies to the fowl. Join us now at this twilight
of our world in telling tales of our own.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Arkenstone Publishing is
Eero’s publishing label. It’s so
far been mostly used in
translating American indie
roleplaying games for Finnish
hobbyists.
Solar
System
roleplaying game rules set for
heroic tales and fantastic drama.
It is well-suited to storytelling
and adventure in far and
fantastic worlds of your own
devising or procurement. The
rules of the game are flexible,
smart and all-around excellent
for roleplaying that comes up
with the most touching of tales.
Solar System originated as
the rules-set of the beloved
roleplaying game THE SHADOW OF
YESTERDAY by Clinton R. Nixon. I
myself was rather impressed
and even a bit jealous when
Clinton came out with the game
in 2004, derailing my own,
similar design plans. Since then
it has brought me great pleasure
to be able to work with TSOY
here and there, most remarkably
in bringing out a Finnish version
of the game in 2006.
from the start to join the open
culture movement with his
game, which has gone through
several iterations of the CREATIVE
COMMONS license through the
recent years. I struggled for a
long while with my own
misgivings over taking another
designer’s work and making it
my own in a major publication,
but as Clinton has been
steadfast and most supportive
towards such undertakings, I
finally decided to take up the
work with this booklet you now
hold in your hands.
The Solar System as
described herein is the version of
the game I myself play today. I
hope that it will be most useful
and illustrative for the reader,
whether he be a veteran of many
roleplaying games or just looking
for an affordable starting point
in this wonderful hobby.
— Eero Tuovinen
Eero Tuovinen
2008 edition
Version 1.1
 8
SOLAR SYSTEM is a rules set for heroic tales
and fantastic drama, akin to movies. The
protagonist characters are important and
colourful, striking deep into the issues of the
game setting. Unlikely things happen to
them, leading to exciting adventure and
heartfelt dramatic situations.
The rules of the game emphasize
character growth and change; all Solar
System stories are to a degree growth stories
where the protagonist seeks for and finds a
place for himself in the world, often
changing it in the process. The players get to
make choices over not only what their
protagonists do to the story, but also what
they become as a result.
Also, what is roleplaying?
Should the reader match the description of
that increasingly elusive beast, the first-time
roleplayer, then a most hearty welcome to
you! Roleplaying is one damn fine hobby, if I
may say so, providing this our age with some
badly needed respite from the everyday
humdrum, and perhaps even more
seductively, an opportunity for creativity in
a world where art is more and more marked
out as the territory of professionals only. A
hobby and pastime that facilitates creation
of fine, entertaining art with your friends is
an excellent one indeed!
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
What is Solar System like?
Due to the sinuous nature of the growth
story, Solar System games are most often
played in the form of campaign narratives —
series of meet-ups wherein the players
develop a multi-faceted story with minor
meanderings and build-up to crucial
turning points for the overall campaign.
Most typically the group of players
participating in the campaign consists of a
handful of players: three at minimum and
six at most are recommended.
One of the players is called the STORY
GUIDE, which is most like the traditional
roleplaying authority role of the Game
Master. The Story Guide has the
responsibility of playing the supporting roles
in the grand narrative the group creates —
While the sampled example of
roleplaying offered on the next page is
certain to illuminate the reader as to the
general points of roleplaying, much more
instruction and even personalized advice is
available on the Internet. Being attentive to
this booklet and looking for additional
information from other sources is sure to fill
in most gaps in your knowledge. Like any
new hobby, often the best way to get familiar
with roleplaying is to find a local hobby
group or club and participate!
2
often enough that means directing the
various antagonist forces arrayed against
the heroes of the piece, as the Story Guide
seeks to give rise to growth opportunities for
the heroes.
The other players, meanwhile, each
adopt a heroic protagonist, the PLAYER
CHARACTER, as their own medium of input
into the campaign. Players express the
thoughts and deeds of these most significant
individuals for their own enjoyment and that
of the rest of the group. Furthermore, the
players have an opportunity to mould the
course of the grand narrative with the
choices their characters make for good or ill
of their fictional self, comrades and the
world.
Vignettes of play
While the bulk of this booklet is
dedicated to explaining the rules and
procedures of the Solar System, actual
play should also be kept in sight. An
inkling of the possibilities is provided by
the vignettes scattered among the rules,
like the one on the next page.
The Solar System is being played by
people all over the world, which is why I
asked some friends and associates to
help me out in writing a bit about how
folks use the Solar System and what
they think of it. Please enjoy these
flashes of insight and opinion in the
spirit of each offering.
 8 As the Story Guide would have it, my character Montserrat was in trouble. The
Thieves’ Guild was grateful for services rendered, that was for sure — too bad the
Morninglight knew everything after Ana sold me out.
Thing is, while I knew this full and well, being at the game table with my
friends, Montserrat wasn’t so lucky in his obliviousness. Mike was being the
Story Guide here, so it was he who told us that the lord’s troops were the cause of
the racket downstairs. Montserrat just had time enough to grab his pants and give
Beatriz a peck on the cheek before escaping right out of the window.
This being most obviously a conflict situation, we went into dicing mode
with it: Montserrat was a fine hand with horses, so I didn’t hesitate to have him
grab one of those the soldiers rode to the warrens. However, luck being a fickle
mistress, the guard captain was the more cunning this time around: his men were
waiting at the end of the alleyway, leaving Montserrat little choice but to
dismount courteously.
“Hold it right there, rebel” Mike growled on behalf of the grumpy captain.
“Not for me to know, but Morninglight’s wantin’ your head on your neck for
the time being. Come back peaceful-like and you’ll live to see the sunrise.”
“And this I should believe, when it was I you cursed with three terrible deaths
just a fortnight ago, captain... um... Reinaldo?” I riposted in-character, finally
inventing a name for the captain. “I”m just doing some flavour, Mike;
Montserrat’s not really resisting if they’re truly not hostile right now.”
urprises are oft bestowed upon “That is so, Montserrat. Like it or not, your womanizing days are over:

S those who expect little, ‘though

they do not think much of it.
Lord Morninglight decided that you’ll serve his interests best as a member of the
new expeditionary army. As I hear it, you can become either an aide to the
commandant or a grunt in the first line of advance.” Mike replied, smiling.
“My job is to make sure you’re in the army camp before they leave.”
As Mike probably expected, this turn of events blindsided both Montserrat
and me quite completely. In no shape to escape, my adventurer accepted his fate
for now.

Eero Tuovinen

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 I Starting a Game
A group of friends intrigued by Solar System
roleplaying should seek to gather together
for a suitably idle eventide in a relaxed
atmosphere, bringing with them some
notebooks, writing utensils and perhaps
some snacks and music. I find poker chips
or other tokens useful as well. Oh, and
around a dozen Fudge dice.
The FUDGE DICE might
be unfamiliar to the
reader, as they’re a rare
curiosity only used in
some few roleplaying
games. They’re also pretty
cheap and available from
specialty stores. Or, a crafty person might
wish to make his own by being creative with
normal dice and marker pens: the Fudge
dice are just six-sided dice with two ‘+’, ‘–’
and blank sides each in lieu of the pips.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Starting a Game
With the dice and friends at hand, the
group can then get into the task of the first
evening, which is to choose and focus a
setting and create some player characters
for the campaign to come. It is most likely
that at this point one of the players is ready
to assume the mantle of the STORY GUIDE,
but feel free to let the player roles live until
character creation truly commences.
Choosing a Setting
It is often the case that one of the players
(the prospective Story Guide, perhaps) has
some notion of what the setting of the
forthcoming campaign should be. The
SETTING is the generic fictional framework in
which the game would be played: the
environment, culture, general background
4
upon which the player characters are built.
A famous example of a fantastic setting is
J.R.R. Tolkien’s MIDDLE-EARTH, but
something as mundane as Chicago during
1930s might make for fine stories as well,
perhaps something along the lines of Eliot
Ness’s experiences with the UNTOUCHABLES.
The setting used in a Solar System
campaign may well be intricately elaborate
or, especially, just wide in the sense of
having many things of varied nature. It
might just as well be little more than a
general agreement on genre and style: a fine
campaign could be begun by agreeing on a
“generic space opera” setting and starting to
brainstorm characters, for example. The
important thing is that all players need to
have some sense for the setting; whether
this is achieved by using an already familiar
setting, circulating choice reading material
 I Starting a Game
among the group before the first session,
having somebody narrate pertinent points to
the rest of the players or just thinking up
the setting as you go, it’s all good.
If the group is playing with Solar System
for the first time ever, it is recommended
that they do so with a setting specifically
created for the purpose, as this greatly
speeds up play and provides support in
rules and play both. The excellent SHADOW OF
YESTERDAY is the original sword & sorcery
setting for Solar System, providing a wide
variety of exotic cultures and creatures in a
world with no gods or monsters, just people
struggling to remake their everything after a
great cataclysm. The Shadow of Yesterday is
an easy recommendation for Solar System,
as it comes with ready-made setting-specific
mechanics for use in the game, making for
Scenario play
When a group does not have time for a
campaign of several sessions, the Solar
System is hardly the ideal game. A one-
shot session can be best used for
learning the rules by making some idle
characters just for the fun of it, perhaps
running some sample conflicts as well.
Perhaps the players are then better
prepared for the game later on!
Regardless, when a quick one-shot
session is required, the best bet is to
have the Story Guide prepare a SCENARIO:
straightforward situation, ready-made
(or almost so) characters and lots of
prepared elements, all according to
chapter “Story Guide” on page 69.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
an excellent starting point into dramatic
adventure!
Groups interested in procuring a ready-
made setting for the Solar System will do
well to seek for The Shadow of Yesterday and
other fine options in the Internet, where
other hobbyists have already published their
ideas and notions for adventure utilizing the
Solar System.
Adapting a Setting
If a group has shared history with some
other games or simply like the same novels
or movies, they might already have a
suitably dramatic setting in mind for Solar
System adventures. Such classical staples of
fantasy adventure gaming as the above-
mentioned Middle-Earth work nicely as a
common background, as do the YOUNG
KINGDOMS, GLORANTHA and other loved
milieus of fantasy literature and gaming.
Likewise, historical settings based on
virtually any era are excellent choices, as
well as future fantasy from cyberpunk to
space opera.
When a new setting is being adapted for
the Solar System, some extra work is
required in developing mechanical crunch
inspired by the setting into the game; this
process is explained in depth in chapter
“Secrets and Crunch” on page 58. Especially
the Story Guide should be ready to facilitate
character creation by inventing and
affirming central points of the setting into
crunch; this is a really fun undertaking, but
it takes some experience with the rules, so I
don’t recommend it to first-timers with the
Solar System.
5
Making up a setting
If the group is really confident in their skills
of mutual story gaming, they might wish to
make up a setting as they go along.
Somebody just throws out an idea that
everybody can work with and there they go,
building up material and making decisions
as needed.
Remember, when making a setting for the
Solar system, you want it to be DRAMATIC in
that there is room for human choice,
suffering and reward. The setting should also
be EPIC in the sense of allowing for great
changes wrought by the protagonist
characters. Finally, the setting should be
ADVENTUROUS, as events come about in a
colourful and cinematic manner.
When making a new setting out of whole
cloth, remember to start small. More can
always be established by the players as they
create their characters, and by the Story
Guide when he develops the situation for
play.
What was said above about adapting
crunch holds true for creating a new setting
as well, although it is notable that many
interesting things can also be created simply
by mixing and matching existing mechanics
from other Solar System settings.
Focal Points
After the group has found a setting
everybody is happy with, it is vitally
important to agree upon some added focus.
Almost always a setting is much wider than
one particular campaign could hope to
encompass in a meaningful manner, so it is
important for the group to discuss the
 I Starting a Game
general setting and choose some particular
FOCAL POINTS therein to focus their campaign.
For example, in the world of the Shadow
of Yesterday, NEAR, there exist a number of
disparate human cultures in conflict. The
first step to any campaign in Near is for the
players to choose a particular cultural
situation, or perhaps an interface between
cultures, as the focal point of interest for
their game. When they create their
characters, not all might represent the
culture or cultures in the focal point, but
every character will have some interest and
agenda towards the common point of
interest. This is good, as the world of Near is
too wide for everything in the setting to be
utilized to full extent in the course of one
campaign.
Other settings might certainly involve
different points of interest. For example, in a
Variant Rules
The Solar System is considerably fluid;
there are many places where a given
group might wish to deviate from the
standard rules in different details.
VARIANT RULES are described
throughout this booklet in an effort to
point out some simple and effective
variations that might prove pleasing for
an individual group and a specific
campaign. In all cases it is
recommended that the group first
consider the default solution and
understand why it works the way it
does, as only then may the validity of a
variant suggestion be judged.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
scifi game it would be quite reasonable to
agree that a particular space station, focal
point of a desperate peace effort, might serve
as the central point of interest. Another
game might be all about the Albigensian
heresy in 13th century Aquilonia, even while
the setting itself encompasses the whole of
Catholic Europe.
The group might want to identify more
than one focal point for a slower and wider-
ranging campaign, but beginners at the fine
art of dramatic campaigning are probably
better off with just one, important and
interesting point. And even when focal
points are many, they should all be most
pertinent for several characters, not just
one. If points are scattered too far and wide
in character creation, it is better to revise
the focus of the campaign to correct.
The focal points picked for the particular
campaign are just a starting point, note, and
need not be particularly pursued after
character creation. The intent here is to
negotiate a starting situation wherein all
player characters will be loosely involved.
Further on it will be the job of the Story
Guide to weave together the stories of the
characters in intricate manner.
Some settings, by the way, are genuinely
narrow enough to require no further
framing. This is often the case for settings
made up on the spot, as the players
naturally attach their characters to
whatever idea was first proposed as the
basis of the setting. Sometimes settings
based upon literary works are similarly
single-minded: for example, it is very likely
that a game set in the world of Frank
Herbert’s DUNE would find a natural focal
point in the eponymous planet itself and the
6
mysterious Spice found therein; players
would need to actively avoid the point to
succeed in creating disparate characters.
Overview of the Game
Once the group is happy with their idea for
a campaign, it’s natural to start thinking of
player characters, the protagonists of the
campaign: what are the interesting people in
this setting like? Is he a scholar too curious
for his own good? Is she a soldier without a
cause? How are the characters tied to the
setting we just spoke of?
However, players with no prior
experience with the Solar System will find a
general overview of the game and its rules
system useful. As mentioned in passing
above, Solar System is a semi-traditional
roleplaying rules set: the group establishes a
setting and some player characters, who
then go on to interact with different
situations set up by the Story Guide. This
interaction happens by the virtue of rules,
like so:
Abilities (page 10)
All characters have a range of Abilities,
chosen by the player to match with the
character’s fictional background in the
setting. For example, a character might have
the ICE HOCKEY Ability to signify his skills in
the game of ice hockey. The Abilities define
the ARENA OF CONFLICT: tense, uncertain and
conflicted situations in the fiction created by
the game are resolved by characters using
their Abilities. Thus a campaign wherein ICE
HOCKEY is used might potentially end up
 8 We'd decided to play a survival horror game. The first step in creating our setting
good story is as much about
A what the characters do as
why they do it.
Steve Segedy
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
was to think about the genre tropes and create Abilities to match — what exactly do
the characters do when the zombies come?
“In the movies, it's mostly just run, hide, and die, right?” Craig suggested.
I smiled. “Yeah, but it's not always that bleak- sometimes folks hold out,
barricading points of entry, gathering supplies, and figuring a way out.”
“Sure. Sometimes they go all MacGyver, tricking out buses and improvising
explosives. Mostly though they just shoot the zombies in the head and get eaten...”
I laughed, seeing already where this game was going. “Okay, so what do we have
then? Running and hiding- let's broaden those to Athletics and Stealth, using Vigor
and Instinct as their pools. Barricading buildings?”
“Construction”, Ian chipped in, “using Vigor.” We jotted down our ideas,
comparing them to the default abilities. Craig noticed a shortage of Reason-based abilities.
“Hey, this is survival horror, right? We need the terror of watching the walking
dead eat your parents! What about panic? Avoiding that seems like a Reason ability
to me.”
I considered. “Let's use the default Innate abilities for that - Resist would be
perfect for dealing with keeping one's cool. We could also use React for the ‘jumper’
moments.”
“Perfect,” Craig said, “So how about a Shotgun skill?”
I shook my head. “That's a little too specific. Let's call it ‘Firearms’, so that it
includes all guns, and make it... an Instinct ability?”
“Okay,” Craig said, nodding. “That and a hand-to-hand ability should be
enough. It's not like there's much need for social skills with zombies.”
“Not with zombies, but you'll definitely need to interact with other survivors,”
Ian countered. “Leadership and Deceit will be critical, and that gives us a few more
based on Reason.”
“Right! If the survivors don't stick together, they're dead meat... which of
course means there are going to be lots of conflicts around them backstabbing and
abandoning each other!”
With a good starting list, we sketched up the rest of the abilities, balancing them
out to broadly cover everything a character might do.
 I Starting a Game
resolving situations by characters going at it
in the rink.
Pools (page 15)
Abilities are all associated with Pools, which
are a character’s discretionary personal
resources: a player might opt to spend
points from a character’s Pool to improve his
chances in using an Ability. The character
refreshes a Pool later by interacting with
other characters and in general having a
good time. Traditionally, an Ability’s
association with a Pool is signified by
marking down the Pool’s abbreviation after
the Ability name. For example, ICE HOCKEY
(V) would mean that Ice Hockey-the-Ability
is associated with VIGOR, a Pool representing
physical stamina.
Secrets (page 58)
While all characters have Pools and Abilities,
each character might have his own array of
Secrets, special skills and tricks only
available to a chosen few. Secrets are used
by the play group to create interesting rules-
mechanical asymmetries in the conflict
system and other rules; play is more fun
when a witch and dragon work by different
rules, one might say.
Conflicts (page 36)
The main concern of the Solar System in
play is resolving exciting conflicts between
interesting characters. The character
resources above are all utilized in full by the
players in conflict. The conflict rules are
pretty extensive, but their purpose is simple:
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
player characters end up in dangerous
situations, have to choose their goals and
then decide how much they want to
sacrifice, how much to suffer, for those
goals. A character might even die, provided
the stakes are high enough!
Keys (page 50)
Solar System is fundamentally a game for
growth stories: player characters have these
things called Keys, which direct and channel
a character’s growth process. As the game
progresses, a character then grows in power,
which allows the player to make increasingly
weighty choices in the setting. This process
ultimately ends with TRANSCENDENCE, the
character breaking all boundaries and
finishing his story with a lasting mark in the
world.
Story Guide (page 68)
One of the players is elected the Story Guide
before characters are created. The Story
Guide will have many tasks, with only the
first being to chairman the other players
through character creation.
Introducing Crunch
As the above overview implies, Solar System
is a very modular rules-set: each campaign
will have its own set of modular rules out of
which characters are created. Especially
Abilities, Secrets and Keys are routinely
fiddled with all the time as a campaign
progresses; you start when determining the
setting, continue as characters are
8
developed and finalize the rules-
environment during play, as necessary.
This modular rules-array situated on top
of the general rules is termed, traditionally
enough, “crunch”. Learning to create it is
useful especially for the Story Guide, and
especially so when the group does not have
a ready-made setting for the system at hand.
The easiest way of picturing the role of
crunch in Solar System play is as POINTS OF
CONTACT between the rules-system and the
imagined fiction of play: the story we narrate
to each other while playing is one thing, and
the rules-procedures like Ability checks and
conflict rules are another. Each bit of
character crunch, like an Ability, is one
point where the rules and the fiction get to
touch: when a character acts to charm a
pretty lady, the rules use the ROMANCING (I)
Ability to determine how well he succeeds;
the resolution process, in turn, directs play
towards interesting consequences.
The Solar System, when fully utilized,
will have many points of contact between the
setting and the system: when characters do
things and make decisions, they will trigger
all kinds of interesting mechanical activities.
Then the mechanics will further drive play,
implying directions for the story to go. Thus
the system and setting support each other
and that’s why it’s important to have plenty
of interesting crunch around; without it the
two parts of play could drift so far apart that
the group’s interest in one or the other part
would be betrayed.
Examples of how mechanics tie into
fiction in the Solar System are found in
chapters “Character Creation” (page 10)
“Keys & Experience” (50) and “Secrets &
Crunch” (58), which deal with the major
 I Starting a Game
categories of crunch in the rules. Here we
continue to take a quick look at some points
concerning crunch at the beginning of play.
Initial Crunch
How much crunch is and should be
available at the beginning of a campaign
differs somewhat based on several factors: a
ready-made Solar System setting obviously
obviates the problem, while a group looking
to start from an empty table will have the
work and play of setting up their own
crunch ahead of them. This is easier to do
before the first session of play (perhaps a
newcomer to the rules-set might wish to
contact me, so we could walk through the
steps together?), but it’s possible to do on
the fly if the players have prior experience
with the Solar System.
Chapters “Secrets and Crunch” (page 58)
and “Story Guide” (68) include considerable
advice for preparing material, including
crunch, before and between sessions of play.
The task is considerably trickier when you
need to do it on the run, though, so perhaps
I’ll dedicate a few words to the topic.
Ability Landscape
The ABILITY LANDSCAPE of a setting consists of
a general sense of the means of resolution
the characters of the setting have available.
A generic modern setting, for example,
would include Abilities such as VIOLENCE (V),
LITIGATION (R), FIREARMS (I), RHETORIC (I), SEX
APPEAL (I) AND COMMERCE (R) among others, as
those are all ways of conflict resolution in
such settings.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Should a campaign begin with nobody
having created a “list of common Abilities” to
pick and choose from, the players will fare
relatively well by inventing Abilities on the spot
— creating them is quick and easy, as players
just need to imagine ways their characters
could use to resolve different crisis situations.
When creating Abilities on the spot, keep
an eye on their SCOPE and VARIETY: Abilities in
the Solar System reside in a sweet spot
where they have significant meaning as
skills and practices in the setting, while also
being generic enough to be interesting as
issues of identity. As a general rule of
thumb, make your Abilities represent some
sort of concrete skills, and avoid having
Abilities that can be used in every situation.
Thus an Ability like INTELLIGENCE (R) probably
wouldn’t be very interesting, as it could be
considered relevant for almost any situation
while being really vague about the cultural
details of that “intelligence”.
Usually a good and varied setting
includes around 10-20 different Abilities
commonly available to most characters.
When inventing Abilities directly for
characters, most players end up with 5-8
Abilities listed for their character.
Key Landscape
The KEY LANDSCAPE of a setting concerns the
themes and dramatic pacing of the
campaign. A very common way of playing in
this regard is having players invent their
own Keys to fit the player characters.
Some settings will, however, benefit from
pre-created or normative Keys. For example,
having all space marines in a space opera
setting share the KEY OF THE SPACE MARINE is
9
a fine technique for emphasizing given
themes of spacemarine-ness (whatever those
might be in the setting at hand). The chapter
on Keys dwelves further into these issues.
Secret Landscape
The actual challenge in starting a campaign
of the Solar System from an empty table
crunch-wise is in the SECRET LANDSCAPE,
which varies strongly between settings and
is rather non-trivial to create on the spot.
Individual players may develop their skills to
become very, very good at improvising
complex crunch, but generally a group going
with on the spot improvised crunch will end
up with a straightforward implementation of
the Solar System; this is not a problem, and
it might even be the best choice for a first
campaign for a group that does not prefer
lots of rules, but it’s best to be aware of the
outcome if you choose to begin a game
without preparing crunch elements.
Assuming that the group does not mind
straightforward crunch, most Secret
creation on the run will probably center on
simple variants of the SECRETS OF EQUIPMENT,
SPECIALIZATION and TRAINING introduced on
page 86. The game will run fine with as few
as these three, so a beginner group will get
by fine without worrying about the more
involved opportunities provided by the
crunch system. More options are easy to
introduce as system expertise grows and
players move on to more complex
campaigns.
 II Character Creation
PLAYER CHARACTERS are the central
protagonists of the fictional matter
developed in a Solar System campaign. All
players (apart from the Story Guide) create
characters as their sole and primary
province of play, through which they mainly
experience and act in the setting.
Each player has the primary power and
responsibility in developing his own
character, but the work is still cooperative
between the players: listen to each other and
tell the rest of the group of your character,
for they are really your audience in this
undertaking, whose pleasure and
entertainment greatly depends on your
creating an interesting and touching
character — a genuine protagonist of stories
to come!
The players might well wish to use a
special character sheet for recording the
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Character Creation
mechanical aspects of their characters. Just
such a sheet may be photocopied from the
end of this booklet, or found in the Internet
easily enough.
It should also be noted that while
character creation is all about inventing and
describing a fictional persona and
background, players should avoid overdoing
it at this point: the intent is to develop
enough of a foothold for the players to begin
their story, not to nail down everything
interesting about the character all at once.
The Story Guide is in excellent position to
direct the other players from a neutral
viewpoint, in turn exhorting and reining in
their creativity in this regard.
10
Abilities
The first order of business in creating player
characters for the Solar System is to define
their ABILITIES, which is simply to say, decide
upon the particular strengths of the
character in question when they seek
success in their fictional undertakings.
Good Abilities are always such that they
resolve CONFLICTS of interest between
characters in an exciting manner. Conflicts
and handling them in the course of play are
discoursed upon in more depth on page 36
in chapter “Conflict Resolution”, but for now
it is enough to remember that we want our
characters to have Abilities bestowed with
powers of resolution. In this way players
might regard a character with the rather
practical Ability of COOKING with suspicion,
 II Character Creation
unless the setting of the campaign truly
involves master cooks resolving conflicts
with their mighty flambés. (Which matter is
not entirely unknown in our rich and diverse
modern narrative tradition, I should note, so
perhaps it is wise to not be too judgmental of
inventive Abilities!)
Abilities are highly individual in that the
players may invent and pick freely which
Abilities their characters should have, all
according to the setting of the game: if the
character hails from the frozen northlands,
SKIING is far from unreasonable; a wily
merchant-type person would certainly know
BARTERING, likewise. The group may decide
themselves what kind of Abilities are
appropriate for the campaign setting and
character background at hand. The Story
Guide is again in an excellent position to
judge on these matters due to his status as
a faciliator.
However, while Abilities are individually
flexible, they also provide opportunity for
useful structure and setting ties, which
should be developed to their fullest extent.
For instance, should the game setting
include an exceptional culture of Origami
masters, it might be well appropriate to
decide that the Ability of ORIGAMI CRAFTING
would only be available to characters hailing
from among those people. Similarly, it might
be that the Ability to operate BLASTER
WEAPONS would be available only to high
nobility of craftworlds in a certain type of
science fiction setting. Thus the Abilities
gain implications and identity weight they
otherwise would not have.
A ready-made setting for Solar System
includes an extensive treatise on Abilities
suitable for characters with different
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
backgrounds appropriate for that setting, as
well as plenty of ready-made Abilities. For
our current generic purposes there is a
sample list of Abilities and how they might
work in the game on page 82. While the list
is not outright usable in any single
campaign, the group should have little
trouble culling it for ideas that fit their
particular game setting much better.
Ability Ranks
While Abilities are very flexible in definition,
each Ability a character has always comes
with a set RANK, a level that represents its
significance in the campaign. Starting player
characters already possess some formidable
Ability ranks, and they will generally rise as
the campaign progresses and characters
come into crossroads where their choices
matter in ever more significant context.
The five ranks of Ability are, from lowest
to highest, MEDIOCRE (0), COMPETENT (1),
EXPERT (2), MASTER (3) and, finally, GRAND
MASTER (4). Each has a descriptive name as
well as a numerical value used by the game
mechanics.
There is no Ability rank to represent
below-average Ability because the ranks are
not directly representative of character
competence in fiction, but of their capability
in resolving conflicts utilizing their Abilities.
Being incompetent in the use of an Ability is
either just descriptive colour, or signifies
that the character does not possess the
Ability in question at all, making the
character unable to triumph with that
Ability.
11
Heroic Event
The players will probably have some rough
idea of what kind of characters they want to
play. The first decision to make on starting
up a new character is to declare a HEROIC
EVENT appropriate for the character concept.
This is just a simple image, a short scene
that establishes what the character is about.
All Solar System characters are heroic in
that they are significant. Thus each is first
and foremost introduced by a Heroic Event
that defines some little character back-
ground and what the character is good at.
This is an opportunity for the player to
signal the rest of the group over what excites
him in the character concept; the collected
Heroic Events of the player characters taken
Example Heroic Events

A boy saves a fisherman from
drowning by dragging him to the
shore.

The only citizen to speak against the
conqueror is an old pensioner.

A ghost appears as the young
medium’s powers manifest for the
first time.

She betrayed her father and was
rewarded with high marriage.

The demigod slew snakes threatening
his destiny while yet in the cradle.

The only ship to be piloted through
the Keralan asteroid fields intact.

The newest Oxford tenure goes to a
disguised, yet brilliant, female.
 II Character Creation
together form a kind of thematic declaration,
a virtual trailer for the upcoming campaign.
Mechanically the heroic event is
significant in that it determines the
character’s first Ability: the player chooses a
Variant: Greater Heroes
The group may decide to start with varied
character power levels by rating each
character’s Heroic Event based on its
significance as either PERSONAL (1),
COMMUNAL (2) or UNIVERSAL (3), depending
on whether the event affects only the
character’s immediate family, his
community, or the whole setting — the
heroic Ability rank follows the
significance of the event, so different
characters get different Ability levels.
This variant is appropriate if the
players truly wish to play characters in
different stages of dramatic growth; the
decision does not affect character
competence in the fiction so much as
their Ability to resolve conflicts and
progress towards Transcendence: a more
powerful character is less constrained
and pressured by the setting and more
responsible for his own choices. A
probable result of the variant is that
characters reach TRANSCENDENCE (see
page 54) at widely differing times, which
provides different opportunities and
challenges for the campaign as whole.
When using this variant, set
Background Abilities at one rank below
the Heroic Ability and Cultural Abilities
yet another rank down.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
suitable Ability that reflects the heroic event
and sets it at a rank of EXPERT (2). Thus the
heroic event hints at the strengths of the
character.
Although all characters start with the
same Ability ranks, this does not mean that
they have to be exactly as “strong” in the
setting fiction: a king and a little girl both
start as “experts”, but what that rank means
in the fiction is a matter of context. The rank
merely depicts the “story weight” of each
Ability, which is equal for all characters at
the beginning of the campaign. The variant
here discusses starting with non-equal
characters.
Likewise, the Heroic Event does not have
to be in the character’s past; the player may
equally declare that the event is
foreshadowing for the upcoming campaign
or even just a dream the character hopes to
achieve one day.
Players are free to first figure out the
“best Ability” for a character and then
narrate a Heroic Event on that basis, if that
feels more natural. Narrating the event
should not be skipped altogether, though, as
it is useful in establishing background and
context for the character.
Character Background
While the Heroic Event is a simple idea or a
quickly flashed scene, CHARACTER
BACKGROUND is a more comprehensive
narration. The player describes his
character’s general lifestyle and the high
points of his life in a couple of sentences.
The goal is to build upon the Heroic Event
12
and explain why, how and who got into that
particular situation described earlier.
All Solar System characters are dramatic
in that they have a history; the character
might be young, but that just casts his short
life-story into greater emphasis as the few
events gain in weight. Likewise, an old and
experienced character still has high points
to his life that, from the viewpoint of the
present, can be considered formative and
important. The character background is an
opportunity for the player to shortly outline
what kind of nature the character will have
in the game, based on the choices and
experiences the character has from his past.
Mechanically the character background
determines three Abilities at COMPETENT (1):
the player chooses Abilities that represent
Example Character Backgrounds

After his bar exam the young man was
hired by a multinational. Growing
disillusioned with the corporate world
he left everything to travel the world
with his dog, seeking dharma.

Growing up in a consulate on an alien
planet prepared her for the war. She
went to the academy at 12 years and
won her first battle at 16. At 20 she’s
a crippled, bitter veteran.

A barbarian child is orphaned and
enslaved by eastern conquerors.
Later on he escapes and becomes a
thief, pirate and brigand, living by his
wit and his thews amongst men more
civilized than he.
 8 “So, your character would be something like Kusanagi meets Rei meets Roan?”
ometimes it can all get a bit
S surreal, like you were in the
trailer for some zany movie...
Sami Koponen
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Ninni summed up.
“Yup. I just loved Rei's struggle with her identity issues and Roan's complex
relationship with Yufa”, Maria answered. “This character will be an artificial
S.W.A.T. team member, bodyguarding Jaana's character.”
“And as we discussed, you'd like her to have a special moving ability, so this
Secret of Flying Leap suits her fine. Remember to emphasize the Tech Pool, so
that you can keep bouncing. So, what other things would she do in her trailer?”
“Oh, there's got to be a snippet where she drops down in the middle of four
monsters and blasts them away. A special close-up of her right eye with a cross-
hair.”
“Hm. That cross-hair could actually count as Secret of Artificial Aiming
System. A bonus die to shooting”, Ninni suggested and Maria nodded.
“All this with j-pop in the background?” Jaana inquired, while filling in
her own character's genre-related abilities at Mediocre rank.
“Sure. A woman vocalist, but the tune has to gravitate towards techno and
trance. A bit like Appleseed, remember? Anyway, it seems that her best skill is
‘Shooting’. Or ‘Slaughtering’, maybe?” Ninni suggested.
“Oh, I like that. A gush of blood in that scene”, Maria smiled. “But I also
want a clear signal of her guardian role. Like the ending scene, where all the
characters are shown, Jaana’s Tatsumoto with all the gadgets appears first and
then sergeant Hideaki next to her, as if keeping watch.”
“And the badge on her shoulder is clearly visible: ‘To protect and serve’”
Jaana added.
“Cool. And then the title hits the screen. So it's the Key of the Guardian,
with which you start out, right? Or actually you could buy the Key of Confused
Indentity as well, since you got those advances to use. We'll create it in a second”,
Ninni said.
“Both, thank you. And I take Athletics on Expert rank as well, so that
Hideki can really move. That’s three points for that one, since I have to buy it
from a scratch. All Advances used”, Maria calculated.
 II Character Creation
the significant phases and experiences of
the character’s life.
Players may wish to first simply choose
three appropriate Abilities and then figure
out the kind of background that fits with
them. This is all good, as long as the
background is found entertaining and
sensible.
Variant: Experienced Characters
The group may decide to differentiate
between more and less experienced
characters by estimating how eventful a
character’s background is: the player
defines one background Ability for each
separate phase or facet of life described
in the background, so that each
character begins with 1-5 background
Abilities, depending on how
accomplished or long a life he has led.
This variant means that characters
will differ greatly in how flexible they are
in their endeavours, which might be
interesting if the group wants to front-
load character development: less
experienced characters are not
significantly less able to overcome
challenges, but they develop differently
from widely experienced ones: a more
experienced character will have more
leeway in choosing different paths
during the campaign, while an
inexperienced character is encouraged
to stick with what they already know.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Cultural Identity
When the Heroic Event and Character
Background are defined, the array of
Abilities is finished by describing the
character’s CULTURAL IDENTITY: what nation,
gender, race, religion, guild or caste are his
by birthright or choice? Most of this should
already be obvious from the previous steps,
so this is just detail work.
All Solar System characters are defined
somewhat in terms of culture, which the
identity is all about: the character should
not be a homeless, fatherless pawn, but a
being with values, beliefs, social ties and a
whole range of peculiarities drawn from the
particulars of the setting. The cultural
identity is a wide array of elements that may
be used later on to develop and define the
character during the campaign.
The Cultural Identity has little
immediate mechanical impact: the player is
encouraged to write down Abilities central to
the character’s cultural identity, all at
MEDIOCRE (0). Later the player may choose to
develop these Abilities further, but for now
they are mostly to remind of where the
character comes from and what is his
birthright.
It is notable that not all MEDIOCRE (0)
Abilities need to be written down, as
characters are always assumed to possess a
wide range of common (for the setting,
anyway) Abilities, all at MEDIOCRE unless
otherwise specified. However, in all settings
there exist more exclusive Abilities not
everybody is assumed to know or even be
aware of; it is good for the player to write
down such Abilities for his character, as
14
they define and describe his cultural
identity. For example, most people today do
not learn anything of horses or horseback
riding as a part of their everyday experience.
A character born to a ranch might, however,
be a MEDIOCRE (0) rider simply by virtue of
his childhood experiences. Whatever makes
most sense for the group is good.
Example Cultural Identities

Modern Finns typically know how to
ski, skate, use computers and speak
English and some Swedish. They
have a Western, humanistic value set
with a Lutheran religious back-
ground. All men possess basic
martial skills from mandatory
military service and tend to have
basic wilderness skills as well.
Proficiency in native cultural skills is
valued due to a deep-rooted fear of
cultural genocide.

Women of the western kingdom of
Merona are prohibited from working
outside their homes or learning to
read. They are expected to be learned
in religious matters and homekeeping
crafts, including healing arts, which
are considered effeminate by the
manfolk. Many also secretly hold
magics forbidden by men as a relic of
the old religion.
 II Character Creation

usual to write any Ability names with a

Passive Abilities
After all other Abilities are jotted down, it is
a good moment to define three special
Abilities, the PASSIVE ABILITIES: these Abilities
differ from others in that every character
possesses them by virtue of their humanity.
All three — ENDURE (V), REACT (I) and RESIST
(R) — are concerned with passive reactions
to travails caused by outside forces for the
character; they are essentially about
protecting the character’s personal integrity
in some manner.
A beginning character gets one Passive
Ability at EXPERT (2), one at COMPETENT (1)
and one at MEDIOCRE (0), as chosen by the
player. Typically the order of preference is
rather obvious at this point, as the player
already has a firm image of the character,
his strengths and weaknesses in mind.
Dividing Pools shorthand reference to the Pool associated
with the Ability. It is easy to notice, for
All characters have, in addition to their example, that the Passive Abilities
array of Abilities, three POOLS which depict introduced above each associate with one of
their reserves of strength. The Pools are the Pools.
VIGOR, INSTINCT and REASON, each associated Characters may spend Pool points in
with various Abilities as depicted earlier: it’s Ability checks to improve their chances of
Variant: Different Pools
While the default Pools work well for most kinds of adventure settings, experienced players
might wish to try something new by redefining the Pools, especially if the setting at hand
assigns little significance to physical vigor, say.
New Pools should also have associated Passive Abilities, refreshment conditions (see page
24) and width enough to associate with many different Abilities. Pools by their nature focus
and structure the types of interaction in the campaign rather strongly.
The following are some examples of different Pools that might be considered for certain
types of campaigns:

The Default Passive Abilities
Endure (V)
The character’s capability for enduring
physical pain and fatigue, whether caused
by climate, injury or great exertion.
React (I)
The character’s ability of thinking and
acting quickly and clearly, as useful for
seizing initiative as noticing hidden things.

WEALTH could be a pool associated with
certain social and knowledge skills,
Abilities representing access to special
equipment or anything else obtainable
with money, really. Suitable for a game
about stratified society, certainly.

BLOOD could represent vampiric prowess
in a game centered around vampires.
While humans wouldn’t possess the
pool, a vampire could use it to power
their vampiric nature and powers,
refilling by the obvious means.

SELF could be a catch-all Pool for most of
what the three default Pools represent. It
would work well for emphasizing the
separation between individual and social
nature, especially paired with a SOCIETY
Pool or perhaps Wealth, above.

MANA could represent magical might in a
high fantasy campaign. Many novelists
in this style presume a generic magical
force akin to a physical one, shared by all
sorts of supernatural phenomena from
shapeshifting animals to wizards. Mana
could then power all those Abilities.

Usually all characters should have the same Pools, but sometimes a character is so
Resist (R) fundamentally different than others that he does not. A machine-intelligence might have just
The character’s strength of will and resolve
FUEL as his only Pool that associates with all of its Abilities, for example.
in the face of adversity, stress or social
pressure alike.

15
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
 II Character Creation
overcoming challenges, while Pools may be
renewed during separate refreshment
scenes. (Both concepts explained in depth
later, on pages 32 and 24, respectively.)
Although the individual Pools do not need to
formally limit the nature of the character,
some typical associations are as follows:
Vigor: A character with low Vigor might
be sickly or small, while a
character with many Vigor
points is healthy and energetic.
Abilities concerned with using
your body and acting with
strength are usually associated
with Vigor.
Instinct: A character with low Instinct
could be just clumsy, while high
Instinct might signify
attractiveness or keen senses.
Abilities concerned with quick
and exact action or sensitiveness
in social realm are usually
associated with Instinct.
Reason: A character with low Reason is
easily swayed or ignorant, while
strong Reason hints at
leadership potential. Abilities
concerned with knowledge or
other mental powers are usually
associated with Reason.
At character creation each character
receives 10 points to be distributed between
the three Pools. All Pool have to have at least
one point, but otherwise the player may
determine the distribution freely. The Pools
are full at the beginning of the game.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Choosing Secrets
and Keys
The next step in character creation is to
simply choose one SECRET and one KEY for
the character. As these are both major
concepts in the Solar System, it is best to
introduce each in its own chapter, at page
50 in “Keys and Experience” and page 58 in
“Secrets and Crunch” respectively. For
character creation purposes it is enough to
say that all characters may have one of each
type of benefit to begin with.
Finalizing the character
The last step of character creation is a
matter of overview: is the character
interesting enough to star in a movie? Does
he have potential for great conflict? Do you
know what he is about, what his purpose in
the forthcoming campaign is? Are the other
players interested in the character as a
protagonist? Change anything from the last
steps to make the character better at this
point.
As a part of this process the players may
distribute five ADVANCES among the Abilities,
Pools, Secrets and Keys of the character.
Advances are a currency of character
development more thoroughly explained on
page 52 in “Gaining and Using Advances”,
wherein you’ll also find out what those five
Advances will buy. This is an excellent
opportunity for giving mechanical weight to
the most interesting facets of the character,
whether Keys, Secrets or Abilities.
16
Alternatively, the player might opt to save
some Advances for later and spend them in
play, instead.
Variant: More Advances
An obvious variation is to start new
characters with more Advances. This
should not be done, however, just from a
perceived need for character competence:
default beginning characters are easily
competent enough for most purposes.
Likewise, new characters need not be
brought up to match with more
experienced characters when players join
the group in mid-campaign. Characters in
the Solar System need not start or stay on
the same level of advancement with each
other.
A good reason for a more experienced
group to start characters with more
Advances might be for purposes of pure
media emulation: if the group plays a
game set in the Middle-Earth and
genuinely want a player to play Gandalf
the wizard, then the wise course is to set
Gandalf up with whatever Abilities,
Secrets and Keys he needs to perform. The
same holds true for other characters
drawn from existing fiction: such
characters are already familiar to the
players and therefore do not suffer from
dilution of significance associated with
loading a newly created character with too
many Advances.
 8 We’d all agreed on the focus of our next campaign — the long-lost kingdom of
Ba, whose warriors wore vine armor and defended their mountains from
powerful neighbors. But Mike was skeptical.
“It’ll be cool!” we told him, “we can get crazy with Chinese mythology!
Rival kingdoms, intrigue, battles, barbarians...”
Mike shrugged. “But who are we?”
Good question. Steve suggested Ba nobility, while Tom favored peasantry more
interested in preserving their crops than fighting for another brutal hegemony.
Dale and Joel weren’t that enthused, and neither were the others, to tell the truth.
The conversation went back and forth while I browsed Wikipedia. Something
in the entry on the Kingdom of Ba caught my eye. “Hey guys,” I said, “it says
here that Ba held the white tiger in mystical esteem. What about a crazy prophecy
that the ‘five claws of the white tiger’ will return and save Ba?”
Mike’s eyes lit up. “So I could play a cowardly loser from some backwater
village, called by destiny?”
“I want to be an ex-slave who can talk to his ancestors!” Joel cried. Steve
announced his intention to play an arrogant knight with Key of the Paragon.
Suddenly, everyone was on board.
Since the prophesied Claws could come from any background, there was room for
everyone to find a niche they loved. There was a hook to bring them together, too.
As Story Guide, I wanted to start play with some pre-existing relationships as well.
hat s wrong with a team of
’
“What if Steve’s guy and my guy were cousins?” Dale suggested. “Dude,

W oddball adventurers, called by

destiny to save a kingdom?
Key of Fraternity!” Steve replied, and they feverishly worked up a family history.
“What about your villager, Mike?” I asked.
“Pang Shan village is in the territory ruled by those guys and their family.”
“Cool,” I said, “That’d be a great focus for the Key of the Clan we wrote
up, too. We’ll begin play with the village about to be attacked by the infamous
Gan Dang Marauders.”
“I cannot allow that!” Steve shouted. Joel had an evil grin: “We’ll see,
because my character, An Gao, is one of the Marauders.”
I rubbed my hands with glee — thanks to my friends, an exciting situation
Jason Morningstar had emerged!

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 II Character Creation
Initial situation
After all characters are more or less finished
(or earlier, for that matter, if inspiration
strikes), the group needs to bring it all
together for play. There is a checklist of
questions the players might wish to use for
this purpose:

Did the character background include
interesting secondary characters?
Family? Friends? Colleagues? Should
some be developed? Is it OK if the Story
Guide just invents some later?

Does the character already have a
relationship with any of the other player
characters?

Where does the character live? What does
he do? Does he even have a current
routine, or is he in some kind of trouble?
Do you want to develop such trouble, or
is it OK for the Story Guide to do kick the
story in gear with a dramatic incident?
Examples At Rest

The courtesan of the king has to
prevaricate a bit now and then, but
overall the life is pretty routine as
long as the monarch is a decent
person.

The snake-oil salesman goes into
towns, sells his stuff and moves on
soon enough. Straightforward and
even boring for the most part.

Being a middle-class housewife is
not that interesting per se, even if you
used to be a secret agent. Every day
is its own reward.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Most of these details are probably already
obvious from character generation, but that
last one warrants further thought: the
choice facing the player is whether his
character is AT REST when play begins or if he
is ALREADY MOVING. The difference is in
whether the Story Guide should kick the
character into action or whether the player
wants to do it himself.
A player might decide that his character
is at rest when the game begins because he
wants the Story Guide to surprise him. It’s
also possible that nothing particularly
compelling came up in character creation to
destabilize the character’s life. Either way, it
is left up to the Story Guide to surprise and
disrupt the character’s routine existence.
On the other hand, it is quite possible
that a character is “already moving” at the
beginning of play, should the backstory and
setting point that way. If the character
developed into somebody who’s on the run
from imperial officers in a distant and
strange land, it’s quite conceivable that the
player can’t answer questions about the
character’s everyday life and what he’s
probably doing as the game begins — he is
already living in a crisis situation where
nobody could say what happens next.
Often enough players have a certain
story in mind when they create a character.
Starting the game in the middle of that story
is a surefire way to get to play it! The player
has more control here as regards the initial
situation of the game, which might serve
some players rather well.
It should be noted that the choice
between starting AT REST or ALREADY MOVING is
not over whether exciting things will happen
to the character or not — the choice is
18
merely over whether the player or the Story
Guide determines how the life of the
character goes out of whack.
Player character party
Historically, roleplaying games use what is
known as the “party structure”: player
characters either already know each other or
come together during the first session and
thereafter form a party, like the Fellowship
of the Ring in the LORD OF THE RINGS. All
players in the group cooperate to make this
happen, creating their characters into
persons who need the other characters and
want to follow the group around. This is
rather an entrenched convention, not the
least because roleplayers find it useful for
plying their craft:
Examples Already Moving

Firebombing the General Governor’s
office made this political activist the
most sought after criminal in the
state. Right now he’s looking for a
place to hide.

Yesterday you saw her again after at
the subway station after 10 years,
but she was gone before you got
through the crowd.

Great power, great responsibility,
that stuff... You never took it
seriously, except now your uncle is
dead because of your own negligence,
like karma dropped on him.
 II Character Creation

Playacting interaction scenes is fun! If
your guy and my guy are in the scene
together, they can talk to each other. It’s
not nearly as fun to always talk with
secondary character which nobody might
be interested in as much.

If our characters are together, then we
both get to be in a scene whenever one of
us is. Therefore, we get to be in play more
and have to wait less for others to get
their turns.

Our characters are the most important
ones, so deepening their mutual
interaction makes for quicker and deeper
dramatic action.
You can use a party in the Solar System as
well if you want, just discuss it with the rest
of the group and set the characters up to
have an overriding common concern that
keeps them together.
However, also consider the alternative:
Solar System is very well suited for
individual characters who each have their
own, completely individual goals and
pathways through the campaign setting. A
friend recently called this style of play WEAVE
PLAY, as the Story Guide needs to weave the
stories of the character together without the
characters themselves being a team. There
are several benefits to weave play as well:

I don’t need to play my character softly
and compromise his character integrity
for the group to stick together; if he feels
like he’d rather betray the union and side
with the confederates, I can have him do
just that.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

Our characters can be on different sides
in the story; one might even be a villain.
This does not even preclude getting to
interact a lot; pulp heroes have plenty of
opportunities for meeting their enemies
over tea before racing them over life and
death in the savage jungles.

We get to see the game setting from
different sides and lots of viewpoints.
Each player gets to be committed
audience for the exploits of other
characters, which means everybody is
rested and ready to go when their own
turn in spotlight rolls around.
The secret to not having a party is in being
interested in the characters of other players,
just like if their stories were a movie and you
the audience. If you’re only interested in
getting to play your own character, then of
course you’ll find play dull if everybody
needs to take turns; but if you follow the
fates of the other characters as well, offering
advice and commenting on their foibles,
you’ll find that being in the audience can be
a nice change of pace with no responsibility
for a while. This and other techniques of
play are discoursed upon from page 20
onwards, in chapter “Playing the Game”.
Furthermore, once the game begins,
whether there is a party or not, the
characters do not necessarily have to stay
with it — or they might form a party without
advance planning! There are lots of shades
of gray between completely party-focused
play and every character being an
individual. Even if there is a party, be sure
that the Story Guide will focus on each
character’s personal interests separately, as
that’s his job. And not only that, but if there
19
isn’t a party, the Story Guide will work to
have the characters affect each other in
different ways regardless.
Character Creation Summary

Determine the HEROIC EVENT and set
one Ability at EXPERT (2).

Determine CHARACTER BACKGROUND
and set three Abilities at COMPETENT
(1).

Describe CULTURAL IDENTITY and set
any other pertinent Abilities at
MEDIOCRE (0)

Set the PASSIVE ABILITIES to EXPERT (2),
COMPETENT (1) and MEDIOCRE (0)

Distribute 10 points between the
three POOLS of VIGOR, INSTINCT and
REASON.

Choose one SECRET.

Choose one KEY

Finalize the character by distributing
5 ADVANCES freely.

Develop the initial situation with the
group and go play!
Alternatively, mix and match the steps
to arrive in a character creation method
that works for you. Some people want to
develop the CHARACTER CONCEPT fully and
then make the mechanical choices to fit
the concept, for example. The character
creation procedure is broken down into
steps to make the process easier, so
anything that works for you to create
better characters is good, as well.
 III Playing the Game
When the players have worked out a setting
and created characters, it’s time to start the
actual game. It is possible that this could
happen directly after character generation,
but far more likely is that the group
adjourns and reconvenes at another time to
actually begin the campaign — much
depends on how long the players take in
agreeing upon a setting and creating their
characters.
Actual play of the campaign is organized
into 2–4 hour sessions, played weekly or
however often the players want to.
Campaign length depends greatly on the
players and the events of play, but a typical
Solar System campaign takes anywhere
from three to a dozen sessions. Often
enough a long-term game group will also
connect individual campaigns played in the
same setting into longer arcs, but that is
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Playing the Game
hardly required to experience the game in
whole.
Starting up the session
The Story Guide has a central role in
starting a given session, as he is largely
responsible for developing the SITUATION
encountered by the characters the other
players run. Such a situation is always
consistent with setting and character
nature, interesting and flows well with what
has gone before. This is probably the
hardest part of being the Story Guide, but
practice makes it easy.
The issue of scenario preparation is
handled in depth on page 69 in chapter
“Story Guide”. For now it’s enough to note
that the Story Guide is likely not flying blind
20
when he starts the game. Even if the first
game session follows directly after character
creation, a lunch break or similar might be
in order to allow the Story Guide to gather
his thoughts.
Assuming that the Story Guide is
comfortable with his preparation for play, he
will proceed to address the other players in
turn, describing the situation the individual
character is involved in. For the first session
this starting point is heavily dependent
upon the earlier discussion about whether
the character is AT REST or ALREADY MOVING
when the game begins; further into the
campaign the Story Guide will likely just
recap the last session’s events to remind
everybody where play was left off last time.
Then it’s time for the first scene.
 III Playing the Game
Scenes
The SCENE is a very useful concept in getting
a handle on how play proceeds around the
table in the SOLAR SYSTEM. All the players
have their own characters who are of course
important, but not everybody can have
attention at the same time. Whose story
does the game follow from moment to
moment?
The typical solution to arranging the
content of play is to loan some terminology
from film making. The Story Guide FRAMES
Narration in Free Play
Players are constantly adding to the
shared fiction when playing. Each player
decides what his character does, while
the Story Guide decides how the rest of
the setting and secondary characters
act. Even while every decision is in
principle made by some particular
player, it’s important to foster a culture
of openness: everybody has a voice and
may make suggestions, nobody is put to
the spot without his friends being there
to offer ideas and suggestions. Ideas are
free-for-all, even while choices are made
by each player independently.
The Story Guide has BACKSTORY
AUTHORITY, discussed on page 74: he can
decide what happened before the player
characters got to the scene at all. If there
is a disagreement over who gets to
decide something, it’s probably either a
conflict or a backstory authority issue.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
THE SCENE when he describes where a player
character is and what is happening around
there. A character might be in the scene or
not, as not all characters are together all the
time. A player might CUT THE SCENE when
everything interesting in the situation has
been resolved and the group wants to move
on.
Different groups and different campaigns
will have their own ways of doing things, but
it is typical for the Story Guide to frame
scenes in turn for each player character so
as to allow each an opportunity for
participation. Play of scenes might proceed
in order around the table, or scenes might
be framed when an interesting idea for such
is thought up. Sometimes characters appear
in scenes together and they might even end
up primarily interacting with each other
rather than the setting — it all works as long
as the characters all get attention.
Tasks in Free Play
So, the Story Guide sets up that first scene,
establishing a situation for the player
character. He might be minding his own
business all peaceful-like, but now
something interesting and noteworthy
happens.
What goes on next is FREE PLAY, simply
put: players with characters in the scene
describe what their characters do or think,
the Story Guide plays any secondary
characters, other players offer opinions and
suggestions on the goings-on. The players
might act dialogue for their characters and
so on.
21
Groups differ greatly in how much free
play they prefer, and a single campaign will
also have different stages in this regard.
Usually a scene might have anywhere from
one minute to a quarter hour of free play
before the players move on.
The players and the Story Guide each
have a job to do in free play. Here’s what you
are doing as the STORY GUIDE:

Look at the characters: what is their deal,
why are they in the campaign? Look at
their Keys and Secrets to find out. Frame
scenes that prod the characters where it
matters.

Play secondary characters who interact
with the player characters; use them to
influence the characters in different
ways, but remember to leave the players
room to respond as they wish.

Keep an eye on what is going on: if the
scene has potential for CONFLICT, drive to
that direction. Otherwise be the
chairman and remind the others to
concentrate on the scene; cut the scene
when the interesting content has been
dealt with.
The rest of the players either have their
characters involved in the scene or not.
CHARACTER PLAYERS have an important job:

ADVOCATE for your character by making
choices for him; think and feel the
character and, therefore, decide how he
would act in a given situation. Be fair and
impartial towards the other players and
the rules of the game, but let your
character be ruthless in expressing his
own nature in the fiction.
 III Playing the Game

EXPRESS the character for the other
players, make him interesting and
sympathetic. You might employ
description of his actions, dialogue or
even internal monologue in depicting how
and why the character acts and thinks.
Finally, the rest of the players are AUDIENCE.
It’s an easy job, but important nonetheless,
and omitted at your own peril.

Do not ignore what is going on when your
character is not in the scene! Lean
forward, smile, nod, laugh at entertaining
bits and in general make it worthwhile for
your friends to play.

Comment on the events and offer
suggestions for what might happen or
what things might mean. JUDGE the
events and the other characters — cheer
for the heroes, boo at the villains.

Relax and unwind for the couple of
minutes it takes for your next scene to
come around, so you can play your own
character intensely when the moment
comes.
The goal of free play, apart from enjoying the
characters, situation and the setting, is for
player characters to passionately drive
towards their goals while the Story Guide
problematizes these choices by introducing
uncertainties and ethical conundrums. The
actual matter of play is generated from the
interaction of the characters with the
situations they end up in. Such interaction
comes in roughly two forms, CHOICES and
CONFLICTS.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Choice as content
A player character, as an imaginary person,
will have convictions and beliefs he will
strive to fulfill. We, as an audience, are
interested in what those choices might be —
drama is created when the character judges
a situation and acts upon his
understanding. The role of the player is to
express and advocate for the character,
depicting the thoughts and deeds of the
protagonist to the rest of the group, his
audience.
Often enough much of the content of
play consists of events that prepare a
character for making a choice he would not
have been ready for earlier: the Story Guide
strives to set up situations that problematize
the values of the character and introduce
different viewpoints on the matter of play.
Thus the choice might well extend into
several scenes worth of development as
characters explore their options.
KEYS, described in depth in “Keys and
Experience” on page 50, play an important
role here, as they reveal how the player
views his character and mechanically
reward him for certain choices over others.
The Story Guide simplifies his job
immensely by directing the choices he
presents in the fiction towards the Keys of
the character: will the character do this sort
of thing if that’s what his Keys require?
Which Key will he choose when he has to
choose between two? Will he get rid of a Key
that leads towards corruption?
22
Conflicts
Choice leads to conflict; sometimes
immediately, sometimes later on. Conflict
play is a very elaborate part of Solar System,
which is an action rules set at heart: often
loving attention is heaped upon descriptions
of exciting chases, tense arguments or
deadly duels, which are some examples of
conflict between characters in play.
When player characters end up in conflict
with each other or secondary characters, the
Story Guide may invoke the conflict rules,
which are described in great detail starting
on page 36, in chapter “Conflict Resolution”.
Generally speaking, conflicts are a matter of
great stress, tear and wear for characters:
they burn up their resources, especially their
Pools, which are depleted in conflict. Abilities
play a dominant role in resolving who gets
their way in conflict situations, but
willingness to sacrifice progressively more
drastic resources often ultimately decides
the conflict.
Although it might seem that way, players
are not actually disagreeing when their
characters go into conflict; the characters
might be passionate about how they’d like a
situation to be resolved, and the players
might well sympathize, but ultimately
everybody is there for cooperative
entertainment — the task of each player is
to not compromise the interests of their
characters, but this does not mean that the
players themselves are trying to make each
other fail somehow. The relationship
between the player and the character might
be most comprehensively described as one
of ADVOCATION.
 8 “You’re all minding your own business at the Krajina East pink zone checkpoint in the
early morning, when somebody opens fire somewhere in the south-east. Only Gryet is
outside at the moment, taking quickly to cover. What do you do?”
That was my scene frame at the beginning of the session. The campaign was about
Yugoslav wars, and especially the UNPROFOR peacekeepers entangled in them. As the Story
Guide, it was my job to kick play to gear by providing a situation that demanded a response.
“They’re attacking us? Who are they?” John asked, playing Gryet, the Danish
reservist MP.
“No visual ID, although you can see muzzle flashes in the dark. There is also
shouting, sounds Serbian“ I answered. “Will you return fire? The others should get out
soon enough.”
“Heck yeah, I’m returning fire.” John made a snap decision.
“Hey, that’s against procedure. You don’t know what’s happening out there.” Alf, a
third player, remarked. “I’m getting out of there to see what’s going on.”
“I’m not going to get shot for these ungrateful wretches. Besides, this is just suppressing
fire, I won’t hit anything anyway.” John countered, playing to Gryet’s personality.
The decision over how John’d react to a night attack was pretty much what I wanted
from the scene, so there was no need for a conflict procedure. Instead, I narrated how the
opposing gunfire lagged off and the night quieted down. Alf’s careerist lieutenant warned
Gryet (who was all smug about scaring off the attackers), but that was pretty much it,
aside from paperwork. Or so they thought.
etting into trouble is fun stuff, The next morning, I sprung my actual scene: a crowd of Croat villagers came by all

G the first prelude to adventure,

scorned only by fools.
flustered, demanding access to the enclave. The peacekeepers soon figured out the reason
for the angry demands and babbled accusations: a Croat civilian was found shot in the long
grass. Found by his own mother, insofar as the translator figured it.
“I thought that it was friggin’ strange for the Serbs to attack us for no reason over here.” Alf
mused. “Perhaps they were hoping for exactly this, I’m sure that bastard Babic is laughing his ass
off at anything like this.” (Milan Babic being a smarmy secondary character from earlier.)
The situation itself was pretty simple, I’d nabbed it from some old tv series: the
peacekeepers would need to figure out who shot the boy, and Gryet would have an
opportunity to try to spoil the evidence. They might also find out that the Croat boy was

Eero Tuovinen actually a paramilitary who got entangled in a night reconnaissance. Or they might not,
in which case Gryet might have to take the fall.

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 III Playing the Game
Consequences
Choices and conflicts both have
consequences, which means that they direct
play towards new scenes. Sometimes
characters choose not to follow up on an
opportunity, sometimes they irrevocably
lose what they had; often new opportunities
are opened by choices and conflicts as well.
This continuity provides much of the
structure for on-going play in the Solar
System: scenes follow each other as sensible
consequence from previous events. Play
might jump back and forth between different
locations and characters as different player
characters are followed, but even then the
Story Guide makes an effort to provide
connections. More advice on tying scenes
together is provided on page 73 in “Framing
Scenes”.
An important consideration is that there
is no one player who determines how
consequences play out and where the next
scene leads play. While the Story Guide has
the task of framing new scenes, continuity of
consequence and character choice provides
the array of possibilities. Usually character
intent as depicted by the player provides
more of a determining agent for the direction
of play than the Story Guide ever should.
Experience
As described on page 50 in chapter “Keys
and Experience”, the most important long-
term consequence of the events of play are
EXPERIENCE POINTS that characters collect by
participating in events relevant to their own
identity. In the long term experience may
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
change a character’s identity or increase his
ability to influence the world around him;
ultimately it leads to TRANSCENDENCE, the end
of an individual character’s story.
Harm
Another basic consequence is negative:
characters making the wrong choices or
losing dangerous conflicts are in danger of
suffering Harm, which reduces their
immediate efficiency and may ultimately
threaten death or other nasty and
permanent ends. Essentially, a character’s
story may end prematurely for a character
who decides to risk it all.
Secondary characters react
Unlike the above, this sort of consequences,
while very generic, concern only the fiction:
support characters always have opinions on
the deeds of the player characters, so the
Story Guide should make sure that
whatever the player characters do, there are
secondary characters reacting to it in
different ways: some will come to debend on
the player character, some to resist him.
Thus the storyline progresses with little
effort.
Pool Refreshment
As intimated above, conflicts are pretty hard
on poor player characters — they get beaten
around and have to spend Pool points to
succeed in getting their desires, especially at
the beginning stages of their stories. What
such a weakened character needs is a POOL
24
REFRESHMENT, which is to say, he needs to get
some rest!
Characters refresh their Pools by
relaxing and letting their guard down,
simply enough. Drama-wise this is an
opportunity for a slow point in the action, as
a suitable refreshment scene is not about
struggle or action at all. Rather, it is an
opportunity for developing character and
looking for new directions to take the
campaign.
Individual Pools are refreshed in slightly
different conditions, like thus:
Vigor: Physical exertion with another
character, such as hard
partying, martial arts sparring,
massage or doing drugs, as long
as its for the purpose of
enjoyment.
Instinct: Acts of social pleasure with
others, such as a cocktail party,
going on a date, gambling or
other pleasurable pastimes.
Reason: Intellectually stimulating
interaction, such as poetry
recital, a late-night philosophical
debate or a chess match.
As can be seen, a character pretty much has
to interact with others to refresh himself.
This is intentional — such situations are
great for introducing new secondary
characters or other human interest.
Likewise it’s clear that the same activities
might well refresh several Pools at once,
which is just dandy.
When a player wants a refresh for his
character, there are essentially two
situations: either the character is already
 III Playing the Game
well positioned with his friends at hand and
a mutually acceptable pastime in mind, in
which case the scene can just proceed
normally, or the character might be at loose
ends and explicitly going to look for a
refreshment. In the latter case it’s up to the
Story Guide to frame a refreshment scene
and let the character make some friends.
There are two specific narrative motifs
that the Story Guide should consider when
a refreshment scene arrives:

The refreshing character has his guard
down, so the refreshment scene is a tacit
permission to mess with the character’s
fate in unexpected ways. If the player had
his character go drinking in the bad part
of town for his refreshment, say, it would
be quite possible for him to make an error
in judgement and end up in a compro-
mising situation related to his current
troubles; having a refreshment scene
means doing some pretty foolish things.

If the refreshing character has resolved
most of his troubles and seems to be
settling in comfortably, the Story Guide
may well use a refresh scene to introduce
new stories: a refreshing character often
ends up meeting, greeting and getting
friendly with new secondary characters
who may then get the character involved
in something serious later on. Whenever
the current story matter seems to be
running down, the Story Guide does well
to introduce new material in refreshes —
the stuff need not combust immediately,
but it’s useful to have some preparations
in place for when the character’s current
trouble is resolved once and for all.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Harm
HARM is a very important concept related to
conflicts, character capability and the
overall story — a character with too much
Harm is in danger of dying or getting
removed from the game otherwise!
All characters have a HARM TRACK
consisting of three MINOR levels (1-3), two
MAJOR levels (4-5) and one MORTAL level (6).
(Check the character sheet on page 81 to see
what it looks like!) When a character suffers
a given level of Harm, the player crosses that
level off and marks down the Pool related to
the Harm. Each level causes penalty dice for
the character: a Minor level causes the
character to suffer one penalty die to his
next Ability check; a Major level causes one
penalty die to all Ability checks associated
with the same Pool; a Mortal level Harm
causes a penalty die to all Ability checks and
forces the character to spend a point from
the Pool associated with an Ability to use it
at all.
(I know that I haven’t discussed penalty
dice yet at this point. They’re explained in
detail on page 32 in chapter “Ability Check”,
but for now it’s enough to know that Harm
makes it more difficult for the character to
succeed in his endeavours.)
As for the setting, Harm may represent
any negative effects upon the character’s
integrity. Physical bruises and wounds are
typical in action stories, but mental
anguish, doubt, shame, erosion of social
stature or just losing face might be depicted
by Harm. Ultimately this depends on the
Pools used in the campaign, as each Harm is
associated with one.
25
Harm is obtained from fictional events:
the Story Guide may declare that a given
course of events will result in Harm for a
character. This decision is always made
before the Harm happens so as to allow the
player to react and declare a conflict. Thus
the Story Guide might warn a player that
having his character fall from the cliff-side
into the river will be cause for level 2 Harm,
which information would then be available
for the player when making an Ability check
to climb up.
An important special case is when a
character suffers Harm of a level he already
has marked earlier: in that case the Harm is
bumped up one or more levels into the first
empty slot. Another special case is when a
character comes out of an extended conflict:
all the Harm in the Harm tracker SHAKES
DOWN at that point, so that all the Harm the
character received so far moves to fill any
empty levels below their current level.
The most common juncture for declaring
Harm is in determining the STAKES of a
conflict, where it naturally belongs.
Sometimes Harm comes first and the player
might even decide to not contest the Harm,
provided that the character is getting what
he wants otherwise.
Level of Harm caused by events in the
fiction may range all over the place, from
level 1 for minor annoyances to level 6 for
going through something that would break a
man. In conflict it is not atypical for Harm to
be assigned asymmetrically to two sides: an
unarmed man attacking one with a gun
might threaten with just level 1 Harm while
risking level 4 himself.
 III
Healing Harm
Playing the Game
Harm is healed in two manners, by NATURAL
HEALING and Ability checks. The former is
simple: the player needs to spend Pool
appropriate to each level of Harm equal to
the level to heal that Harm. This is mostly
done between scenes. (If the character
doesn’t have high enough Pools, the player
may pay in parts and jot down the progress.)
Healing by Ability check works by having
a character make an appropriate Ability
check (depending on the type of Harm and
other conditions in the fiction) to heal the
target: the healing removes a level of Harm
equal to the result (or the highest level
under the result); if all Harm is higher than
the check, nothing is healed.
Only one healing check may be made per
scene, and a character may only be healed
once with any given method per session. The
Story Guide may encourage players to figure
out new treatments and other story content
when they want to heal a character with
multiple healing checks in quick succession.
Bird’s Eye view
Looking at the above description of the play
process, an overview emerges: the Story Guide
has the initiative in thrusting player
characters into exciting situations in the
story, wherein their choices then lead to
consequences that dictate new scenes.
Choices that lead to conflicts cause characters
to suffer Pool expenditures and Harm, which
in turn require refreshment scenes to
overcome. The end result is a cycle of play
where choice, conflict and refreshment scenes
alternate in a flexible manner, depending on
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
A rough overview of the cycle of play
Refreshment
Characters let their guard down, providing
an opportunity for complications or
entirely new plots. The refreshing Pools
provide the characters with new
resources.
Conflict
Characters struggle for their interests,
spending Pool and suffering Harm. Choose
how much each character cares to suffer
for his goals.
the choices each player makes. If all goes well
and the players appreciate each other’s input,
the end-result should be an exciting story-
creation session!
The following chapters provide the core
rules material of the Solar System, the
conflict rules that are used to resolve tense
and uncertain situations that player
characters often face. After that, on page 50,
the experience rules describe how
characters change and develop as the result
of play. Finally, in chapter “Story Guide” on
page 68 there is some more concrete advice
26
Sta
rt her
e:
Free Play
Story Guide frames an interesting scene
based upon what came before. The players
participate in molding and interpreting the
framed situation by the choices their
characters make.
Consequences
Choices lead to consequences that modify
further free play. Old scenes are cut and
new ones framed when the immediate
situation has been resolved. Characters
gain experience points.
on how a session of play is arranged to
satisfaction.
Unless the reader is looking for a
particular topic at this point, it’s probably
best to continue directly to the next chapter
which lays down the groundwork for how
Abilities are used to resolve situations the
player characters encounter in their
adventures. Before trying to play the game
it’s important for at least one player to have
a firm grasp of how and why the Ability
checks and conflict rules work as they do.
 8 The previous scene was a huge showdown, a rap concert in the squat
arranged to resolve the tension in the quarreling community. Supple Rat
was able to convince Iron Arse that avenging the illegal arrests at the cops
would be just plain stupid. Still, Supple Rat took in some serious Harm
in extended conflict. Janne, the player of Supple Rat, burned the rest of
his Instinct points to get rid of the Minor Harm and needed then to
refresh that Pool.
"So, how do the anarchist rappers relax? Booze and babes, like in their
songs?" Tero grinned.
"Sort of. Supple Rat drinks kilju straight from the bucket like he was
dying of thirst. Actually I wonder if that's the only way to drink that
stuff: swallow as fast as one can", Janne smiled.
"So, your character is getting drunk fast. And before he even realizes
it, he's dancing with the newbie girl", Seppo described.
"Oh, I sure see where this is going. Conflict! Supple Rat is dating
nowadays and resisting the seducing", Janne declared.
"Nope, not an option. You see, this is a Refreshment scene. No
conflicting here. Take it and the filled up Instinct pool or leave it and
miss the refreshment", Seppo explained.
"Fine. But Supple Rat is cautious. After all, he is a faithful dude. One
girl at a time", Janne compromised.
ll s fair in love, war and
’
"Sure. Thought it would be easier to be cautious if he wasn't totally

A Pool refreshment. Not that

my character cares of fair.
wasted. But don't worry, I'm not breaking the modesty rule here", Seppo
calmed Janne's suspicious mind. "The way it goes down, nothing
happens. Supple Rat is partying with this girl and after the rough night
passes out fairly quickly behind the torn sofa. Sometime later the new girl
decides to doze off near Supple Rat because he seemed like a trusty guy,
even drunk and all.
So in the morning Supple Rat wakes up next to this pretty-in-a-non-
anarchist-way girl and cannot remember much about the last night. That's
of course when Speedy-Anu steps in."
Sami Koponen "Of course. Well, at least the Instinct pool is full again. Supple Rat
lets Speedy-Anu do the yelling", Janne said.

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 IV Ability Check

Ability Check
Ability Check Results
Value Result Meaning Basically, the ABILITY CHECK is the core added to the value of the Ability to find out
The character does not
resolution mechanism in the Solar System: the check result. As Abilities range from
0 Failure benefit from his effort. whenever players want to find out whether a MEDIOCRE (0) to GRAND MASTER (4) in value
character succeeds in a tight spot, an Ability while the roll ranges from -3 to +3, the
The expected check may be used to find out. Ability check result is a value from 0 to 7.
1 Marginal
routine result. Most Ability checks are made in conflict (We’re not counting negative results at all,
Some bragging rights against other characters as described on they’re all zero.) Attached find a table of the
2 Good
among comrades. page 36 in chapter “Conflict Resolution”, but different results and their significance.
there are other uses for the Ability check as TRANSCENDENT Ability checks are
A matter of personal
3 Great well. For example, a character might wish to discussed in more depth on page 54 in
pride for the person.
use his secret alchemical lore to brew a love “Transcendence”, as they are extremely
Others give kudos to potion; should the group want to know important in an on-going campaign. Other
4 Amazing
the result as well. whether the brew was any good, an Ability than Transcendent results, most of the time
The deed inspires check could be a nice idea for finding that players are most interested in whether a
5 Legendary out. given Ability check SUCCEEDS or FAILS. Any
stories and songs.
To make a simple Ability check, the positive result means that the character was
Breaks conceived norms
6 Ultimate of human capability.
player chooses an appropriate Ability for the successful in doing what he was trying to;
character to use in the check and rolls three this does not necessarily mean that the
7
The deed transforms the
Transcendent world, permanently. Fudge dice. (I introduced the dice on page 4, character succeeds in his overall goals, but
remember.) The Fudge dice results are the immediate task was successful and

28
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
 IV Ability Check
perhaps even amazingly successful. In
practice the overall effect of a character’s
success in Ability checks is determined by
the conflict resolution system described in
chapter “Conflict Resolution”.
However, a great deal of useful play can
be derived from simple Ability checks alone
when the character is in a simple and
straightforward situation: the player just
chooses an Ability, rolls the dice and
announces whether the character succeeds
in his deed. Climbing difficult cliffs,
successfully piloting a starship on a routine
run, filling tax return forms correctly or
whatever interests the group in the
character’s activities can be resolved with a
simple check to find out how well the
character does.
When an Ability check should be used is
largely a matter of taste, any player may call
for one when he would find it interesting to
find out how a given character does in a
situation. Obviously players don’t need to
make checks in situations that aren’t
interesting: checks should be used only
when resistance from the setting will be
welcomed as a friend and ally to the group’s
dramatic efforts, not when it might bog
down play by providing ultimately
meaningless results.
When an Ability check is considered, the
Ability a character uses is always the one
most suitable for the situation in the fiction.
For simple Ability checks this is obvious
most of the time: if the setting has a CLIMBING
(V) Ability or similar, then that’s most
certainly the one to use when a character is
trying to scale a cliff, for example. The Story
Guide may help the player to pick the
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
correct Ability by clarifying the situation
facing the character.
Timing and stakes
Ability checks always arise from free play:
players describe action in a scene and at
some point the Story Guide calls for the
check. Or perhaps a player takes it up. It is
important to note that until and unless the
dice hit the table, all this talk is just
speculative — players are trying to find out
what the check would be like, they’re not
committing to have their characters act in a
certain way.
This is an important point when the
players, Story Guide included, go into a give-
and-take about the details of an Ability
check: an Ability might be picked for the
check only for the Story Guide to
recommend something else based on the
situation, or there might be penalty dice
involved (more on those later). At the very
least the players need to all be on the same
page about the scope of the check, why it’s
being made, it’s stakes. All these matters are
negotiated freely before the check and before
the player or the character commit to any
particular course of action.
The STAKES of an Ability check are worthy
of elaboration, important as they are: each
Ability check is made for a reason, which is
called its stakes. Players should always
know why an Ability check is being made, if
for no other reason than to have their
character refuse to risk it. Being aware of
the stakes enables the group to consciously
determine the scope of the check.
29
Narrating success
Those varying levels of success can be used
to great effect in introducing interesting
consequences to any Ability check where the
degree of success might make a difference.
The group, and especially the Story Guide,
are in a good position to use the level of
success as an inspiration in narration.
A FAILURE (0) result does not have to
mean that the character’s efforts just fizzle;
most of the time failure in the Solar System
should be a cinematic affair full of dramatic
consequence. A character who fails in a
CLIMBING (V) check isn’t going to just “not get
on the top of the cliff”, he’s going to fall down
from high and break his collarbone, being
stranded alone and wounded in the
wilderness.
A MARGINAL (1) success might sound dull
and predictable, but what it actually means
is that the Story Guide is welcome to add a
little twist, some complication to the
success. The character might indeed get to
the top of the cliff, but it might take so long
that night falls during the climb, for
example.
What characters really want is a GOOD
(2), solid success, as that’s something to be
proud of. Colleagues won’t find flaws in it,
it’s the real thing. A bit dull, perhaps, but
secure, as nobody’s going to interpret it as
anything but solid fulfillment of the stakes.
A GREAT (3) success is essentially master-
level, it’s good and a little bit more, yet. The
player would be well within his rights to
describe how his character not only
succeeds, but also does it in style. Getting to
the top of the cliff is a given, but the
 IV Ability Check
character might as well find an easy route
up, one that makes a second climb nigh
trivial for him later on.
An AMAZING (4) success, as the chart
says, is something that onlookers would be
astounded by. A character making that kind
of check deserves to have a solid edge
further in the scene — finding a sheltered
cave in the cliffside to spend the night could
be a positive twist supplied by the Story
Guide, for example. Not exactly what the
character tried to do, but a further positive
development for him nonetheless.
A LEGENDARY (5) success goes into the
realm of heroic fantasy in many ways,
influencing the character’s whole situation
in a positive manner. New and even slightly
unrelated opportunities might appear —
meeting unexpected allies or friends waiting
at the cliff top might reflect this dramatic
influence, for example.
Characters making ULTIMATE (6) Ability
checks should not have to check the same
Ability again in this session, barring
dramatic circumstance or player initiative. It
would be reasonable to decide that a
Climbing success at this level overflows into
long-term success, making the whole cliff-
climbing a non-issue for the rest of the
journey.
Finally, a TRANSCENDENT (7) check, as the
name implies, really means that the
character broke the limits of what the Ability
actually means. Every Transcendence is
different as described on page 54, in chapter
“Keys and Experience”; the character’s story
is clearly at an end, but it’s up to the player
to describe how.
While the above guidelines are certainly
useful when considering the meaning of a
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character’s success, they’re nothing to worry
unduly about in routine checks; all Ability
checks are not created equal, sometimes you
just need to know the number and not have
to care about any extra consequences it
might signify. On the other hand, thinking a
bit about the “something extra” that the
degrees of success provide is a great way of
giving definition for an otherwise vague and
unexciting situation in play.
No suitable Ability?
Sometimes characters do not have an Ability
suitable for a situation. There are two
different possibilities here:

The character has a background where it
makes sense that he would have the
Ability in question at Mediocre (0); the
player just has not written it down yet.
Doing that fixes the situation.

The character is trying to do something
that he is not equipped to do at all, such
as fly without wings or use a computer
with medieval schooling. In this case the
character fails automatically.
The latter situation seems pretty blatant,
but that’s all a matter of degree in some
settings. For example, if the campaign
setting includes special individuals with
psionic abilities, it’s kinda important to
know whether a person can resist the
psionics in any way, or whether trying such
would be an automatic failure. How intricate
these questions become depends on the
setting more than anything.
In general, the rule of thumb is that if a
character should be able to try something
but the group can’t name the Ability that
30
would be used, the default assumption is to
make the check with a MEDIOCRE (0) Ability.
It’s not necessary to name the Ability when
making the check, it’s enough to know that
it exists in some form.
Bonus and penalty dice
The basic Ability check is a simplistic
randomizer that gives results very close to
the Ability rank most of the time. BONUS and
PENALTY DICE are a powerful tool for changing
Narration of Ability Checks
The rules do not determine who should
describe what happens after an Ability
check. As far as the Solar System is
concerned, the narration is a value-
neutral task: the group chooses the
ideas that best represent the mechanical
results and enacts them into the fiction.
If players feel a need to determine who
gets to decide on the details, that’s
probably a sign of somebody using the
Ability check process to push a partisan
agenda.
Regardless, if there is some
disagreement as to how play should
proceed from the Ability check, the
check result can be interpreted by the
player who called for the check in the
first place. Often this is the Story Guide,
simply because one of his tasks is to set
up resistance and challenges for the
characters, and thus many Ability
checks originate with him.
 8 My character, Wally Koerner, was an experienced sledder, but the conditions were far
an has little but his pride,
M so ask not why he be so
foolish in defending it.
Eero Tuovinen
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
from ideal: after the argument at the research station, Wally had little choice except
return alone to Anchorage. The alternative would have been apologizing to Toni,
which wasn’t going to happen. The trip would take him a week at most, after which
he could well spend the rest of the spring season drunk out of his gourd.
“It’s a pretty simple trip...” Kelly mused. “However, you might as well make
an Arctic Survival check here to see how well the trip goes. I’ll give you a penalty die
for it, too, due to having to travel alone.”
“What for? It’s not like Toni is trying to follow me, right?” I asked. Kelly was
Story Guiding for the first time, so I wanted to make sure she knew what she was
doing. “What are you going to do if I fail the check? Seems pretty harsh.”
“I have a plan, it’ll do Wally good to suffer a bit. Others might come save him later,
you know. Just go for it.” Kelly assured me, so I made the check. Wally’s Ability was
just Competent (despite being set in Alaska, the campaign hadn’t so far been very involved
with the natural world), and of course I managed to roll a -1 total, makings for a failure.
“So Wally’s all distraught about Toni when he puts his pack together, but
luckily that’s pretty routine. However, when harnessing the dogs, you put the two
young Malamutes together in the point position out of pure carelessness. They might
get out of control there.“ Kelly narrated, describing how the failure would manifest
in the fiction. “Want to do anything about it?”
“Actually, I’m fine with this for now. Wally could stand a bit of suffering in
the wilderness for now.” I said. Wally had been rather rotten, and while I’d have good
odds at improving the Ability check with a bonus die, it would be interesting to see
whether the rest of the station crew would come rescue me.
“OK, then. Although you’re pretty well equipped for the trip as it is, and the weather’s
clear, the trouble comes from your handling of the sled: you drive the dogs without mercy,
and while they’ve come to know you a bit since you came, you’re not half the musher you
think you are: you’ve been on the way for a couple of hours when the harness breaks as you
carelessly peak over a hill and the point dogs suddenly disagree with the lead.”
“Oh, so I’ll need to repair the harness on the ground, then?”
“No. The dogs just look at you, and then look at the lead dog, the one Toni gave
you. Then they all turn tail and wrangle out of the unravelling harness. They run
back towards the station, it seems.”
 IV Ability Check
the situation. These are normal Fudge dice
that are added to the three rolled in an
Ability check.
Whenever a player has one or more
bonus dice in an Ability check, he rolls them
right alongside the three default Fudge dice.
After rolling, the player picks the three best
results for his check and discards the rest of
the dice. With penalty dice the procedure is
similar, except the player picks the three
worst dice and discards the rest.
Variant: Complex Extra Dice
Some tactically inclined groups might be
bothered by the free order of dicing in
Ability checks; bonus and penalty dice
added later in the process have more
impact on the final result, which might
cause annoying tactical conditions.
A simple way to counteract the
tactical benefit of dribbling the bonus
dice into a check is to instate an extra
surcharge of one Pool point on each
batch of extra dice after the initial roll.
This way players are encouraged to add
their dice before the initial roll, or at least
to add dice in as few batches as they
dare; adding dice one by one would cost
a prohibitive 1 extra Pool point per die.
Alternatively, a group might develop
Secrets that worked with the stages of
Ability check resolution, as described in
chapter “Secrets and Crunch” on page
58. Those tools make it relatively easy to
balance the check procedure to one’s
liking.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Bonus and penalty dice are attained
from many separate sources, but perhaps
the most common one is spending Pool for
effort: the player spends one point from the
Pool associated with the Ability to add one
bonus die to the roll. A player may do this
only once per check, but more bonus dice
might well be gained from elsewhere as
described later on.
If the player ends up with both bonus
and penalty dice in one roll, they simply
cancel each other out on a 1:1 basis. An
individual check will never have both bonus
and penalty dice in it when the dice are
rolled, in other words.
An important detail is that bonus and
penalty dice may be added to the roll either
before or after the initial dice are rolled.
Extra dice after the roll are simply rolled
immediately (unless cancelled) and the
player picks the three best or worst results
normally. While the exact order of additions
and their timing in relation to rolling the
dice affects the final outcome, the players
may choose their play freely for simplicity’s
sake; just add each batch of dice and reduce
to three until everybody is happy or unable
to modify the result any further.
Circumstance penalties
The most common type of penalty dice is
freely adjucated by the Story Guide:
whenever a character is trying something
under considerably adverse conditions, the
Story Guide may just decide that this
requires a penalty die. For really hard deeds
the Story Guide may assign two penalty dice
as circumstance penalties.
32
It is important to realize that the adverse
conditions here really need to be so
significant as to be obvious to a movie
audience viewing the action: something like
driving an old car with clunky transmission
in a car chase hardly bears consideration,
we should be discussing driving at night
without lights on an unfamiliar road to get
even one penalty die. Not having breaks at
all or putting a blind man at the wheel is
more like it for two penalty dice in a car
chase situation.
Both external factors and lacking tools
may be considered for circumstance
penalties, so having a somehow faulty car or
just a blinding storm are both fine, as would
be trouble with the driver, such as a
blindfold.
The Story Guide should remember that if
he really, truly feels that two penalty dice is
not enough for some outrageous stunt, such
as escaping in a car without a fourth wheel
(or the engine block, whatever it takes in
your genre to make a car truly unusable),
then it is more than likely that the deed to
be considered is simply impossible — the
character simply fails in such a futile
endeavour, should the player wish to try it
in the first place.
Supporting a check
Sometimes characters have several Abilities
that could be used for a particular deed, or
parts of it. In these situations the Abilities
are ranked and checked in order: the result
of each check turns into support dice for the
next check in the series, so rolling a GOOD (2)
check in support provides two bonus dice for
 IV Ability Check
the next check, for instance. Pretty simple,
so far.
The order of the checks is determined
based on how the player describes the
situation: if any Abilities are used in the
deed in a clearly consecutive order, it’s
pretty natural to have those follow each
other in sequence. If Abilities are in play
both at once, then the less important Ability
is checked first. If the Abilities are equally
important in the situation and used
simultaneously, then the stronger Ability is
checked first. For example, if a character
tried to intimidate somebody and
supplemented it with blackmail dredged up
from the Internet, the natural order is to
have the player check INTERNET USE (R) first
and then INTIMIDATION (V), as that’s the order
of action. When a character is trying to
supplement his FIGHTING (V) with RIDING (V)
for mounted combat, though, the Abilities
are used simultaneously and thus Riding
might be checked first, were it deemed less
important in the exact situation.
Players may chain Ability checks as
makes sense in the situation, but any
failures in the supporting checks cause dire
consequences: if the failing Ability does not
play a critical role in the situation, the next
check suffers a penalty die, but if the Ability
was actually necessary for the deed, then
the whole deed fails.
Ability checks may also be supported by
other characters: the players just describe
how the characters work together and chain
the Abilities normally. As before, the check
order is shuffled based on the order of
Ability use in the fiction.
Supporting Ability checks with other
Abilities is perhaps the easiest way to earn
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
bonus dice to an important check, but
remember that a single check may only ever
get support from one source: multiple
sources need to give their bonus dice to each
other and have only the penultimate check
provide bonus dice for the last and most
important check. In practice this means that
actively hunting for a lot of support Abilities
isn’t worth the effort.
However, the Story Guide has the
pregorative to allow exceptions to the rule of
only one support chain: when a character is
supported from two completely independent
directions that couldn’t sensibly support
each other (and thus be the part of the same
support chain), he may allow separate
sources of support dice. Situational call,
that, and whatever makes sense for the
group should rule.
Recording Effects
A player may opt to make a special kind of
Ability check called EFFECT — or rather, the
player looks at an Ability check he just made
and decides to record it as one. Any Ability
check that is not used for other mechanical
effects (such as supporting another check or
activating a Secret) may be recorded as an
Effect immediately after the check is made.
Effects are little notes players make for
themselves on their character sheets; they
remind the player of the deeds and
preparations a character might have made.
So if an Ability check was made to see
whether the character succeeded in brewing
a love potion and the check came up
Amazing (4), the player would write “Brewed
a love potion 4/R” on the sheet. Or just
33
Variant: Gift of Dice
The right group will find it very
rewarding to increase the number of
bonus dice flying around by instituting
the GIFT OF DICE, a way for the players in
the audience to comment upon play.
At the beginning of each game
session, distribute 20 Fudge dice
between the players, Story Guide
included. (Or use tokens instead of
actual dice, of course.) These dice can
then be given out as bonus dice to any
but the player’s own character at his
discretion. Excess dice are lost at the
end of the session.
The Gift dice enable the audience to
participate even when their characters
are not in the scene. They allow players
to express their sympathy for
characters. It’s an all-round good deal if
you just remember to actually use the
dice.
An alternative is to pool all the dice
in the middle of the table and let
anybody give gifts to others from this
common pool, but only one die per
check per player. This might work even
better as long as the players remember
to act as sympathetic audience and not
partisan tacticians when using the pool.
(If you play very short or long
sessions, try 5 dice + 5 per hour of play
or so instead. Or just refill everybody
when all but one player have spent their
gift dice.)
 IV Ability Check
“Love potion 4/R” for that regard; the player
chooses how to describe the Effect, as long
as it makes sense for the situation and he
remembers to mark down the associated
Pool and check result from the Ability used
to create the Effect.
Recording an Effect costs a Pool point
from the Pool associated with the Ability the
character used, so any old Ability check is
probably not worth the trouble to record.
The reason for recording Effects at all is
that the player may CALL on the Effect later
on to provide bonus dice to any check that
pertains to the Effect; he just marks down
how many dice the Effect loses and takes
those as bonus dice. When the Effect loses
its whole value the player may cross it off
altogether.
(Another way to use Effects is to put
them up as obstacles for other characters;
more on this in “Solo Conflicts” on page 40.)
Using Effects
Effects are great for when a character knows
that he’s going to be facing adversity: he
might stock up on tools suitable for the job,
hire mooks to help him out, set up traps for
that monster that’s going to call at midnight
or make whatever other preparations he has
in mind. An Effect might be used all at once
(especially when it’s the kind that is not
useful for a second shot) or spread out over
several checks. The character might also
have his Effects stolen or give them to others
voluntarily; a scientist whose notes
disappear during the night would lose the
Effect tied to them, for example. Or the
character who made that “love potion 4/R”
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might give half of it (two dice’s worth) to TRANSCENDENT (7) Ability check becomes a
another character easily enough. permanent, non-transitory setting-feature
Characters may also sometimes declare as part of the player’s Transcendence
an Effect out of something another character narration, as per page 54, “Transcendence”.
did: when a character makes a motivational Such Effects lose their nature as character-
speech, for instance, it would make sense specific Effects and become normal,
that the audience can take the result of the permanent features of the setting.
speech as an Effect representing the
motivation. Only one character may make
an Effect of each individual Ability check, My check is resisted!
however, so several characters would have
to share or distribute the Effect between If a character is going to do something
them. The Pool cost is always paid by the important and another player is all agitated
character who gets the Effect. about it and wants to have his character
There is no particular guarantee that a interfere, then congratulations, you have a
character gets to use any Effect he makes, it conflict. Conflicts are explored intimately in
all depends on whether a suitable situation chapter “Conflict Resolution”, starting on
comes up later. Furthermore, Effects are the next spread. To tell the truth, the
transitory: players remove all Effects conflict is really the primary reason for
associated with a particular Pool when they having these Ability checks in the first place;
refresh that Pool, unless they pay one Pool this overview of how Ability checks are made
point per Effect to preserve it. The idea is is here in a separate chapter just because
that the character who lets down his guard it’s more clear to lay it out this way.
feels confident enough to discard any
temporary preparations he might have
made; Effects are not actually a part of the
character concept like Abilities or Secrets
are.
Effects are sometimes required or
generated by SECRETS, as per page 58 in
chapter “Secrets and Crunch”. As a general
rule, Effects and Ability checks can be used
interchangeably wherever that would make
sense; an Effect is essentially just an Ability
check result saved for later need, so
whenever it makes sense in the fiction for a
character to be able to switch an Effect for
an Ability check or vice versa, go for it.
One more point should be made about
TRANSCENDENT EFFECTS: an Effect created by a
34
 8 “But if my character could invent a new, improved way to make fire, our tribe
could really prosper, right?” Rob planned.
“Sure. And that would definitely boost your position in the tribe as well”,
Nicole confirmed.
“Alright. So, he's Competent in crafting stone” Rob continued and put
three dice on the table to signal an impending Ability check.
“Flint and steel kind of solution in mind? It isn't that easy, since you don't
have any proper tinder. A penalty die for that”, Nicole said and added fourth die.
“You cannot stop the wheel of cultural evolution. I'll back Rob up with a
Gift Die” I said and removed the fourth die.
“Thanks. But I still need something more... How about searching for dry
leaves with Foraging?” Rob suggested.
“Sure. But if you fail you don't find any good ones and you have to work
with more fresh stuff, like grass”, she said.
Another set of dice hit the table: (+), (+) and (-). “Yes! My Foraging Ability
is Mediocre, but still it's SL one, making for one bonus die”, Rob exclaimed and
added a fourth die to the original trio. “Then I gather the leaves, fetch the sparky
stones and start working”, Rob said gesturing with his hands like lighting a
match.
His roll was bad. (0), (-), (0), (-).
“No! Three best of those makes -1 plus my Ability still makes a zero. Oh
uman progress comes in bummer”, Rob complained.

H short steps, except when

the dice hit the table.
“'It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. Go for the Reason pool”, I pointed out. Rob
reorganized the dice, leaving the best three on the table and rolled another one.
New series: (0), (0), (-) and (+).
“Hurrah! This is almost as sweet as inventing hugging during last session”,
Rob said. The dice gave +1 and his character's Ability gave +1, so together success
level was 2.
“Your male realizes that you have to feed the fire carefully with more dead
leaves. Behold: fire”, Nicole said solemnly.
“Hey, could I buy a Secret of Fire Making?” Rob asked.
Sami Koponen “Sure. How about you can make fire by succeeding in Stone Crafting check
and spending a Reason point?” Nicole suggested.
“Right on. I like that it's a bit expensive”, Rob said.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
 V Conflict Resolution
When two characters in the fiction have a
CONFLICT OF INTEREST, there is a whole array of
rules available for seeing how that plays out.
Conflicts are one of the high points of drama
in the game, as characters with convictions
clash in different ways to find out whose will
and strength triumphs. Thus conflicts
provide for sudden reversals in the progress
of events and the all-important closure as
well.
The Solar System uses ABILITY CHECKS to
find out which character wins a given
conflict. The notion is that the character
with stronger Ability is going to triumph,
unless the weaker has luck or greater will to
victory on his side. Ability checks are used
for some other things as well, so they were
explained in depth in the previous chapter.
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Conflict Resolution
Initiating conflict
Conflicts happen when a player declares
such as he notices that a disagreement
between characters in the fiction might be
characterized in terms of conflict. This
requires for the characters to have intents
that are clearly in cross-purposes in the
immediate scene. They need to want for
contradictory things, in other words.
The exact events in the fiction that are
represented as conflict might involve
violence, arguments, challenges and
competition; the essence of conflict is two
characters in opposition.
When a conflict is declared, the players of
the participating characters well might wish to
describe the GOALS of their characters so
nobody misunderstands why the characters
36
are in conflict. The purpose of the conflict
resolution procedure is to find out which
character gets their way in the situation.
The conflict itself is resolved with
OPPOSED ABILITY CHECKS: the players each
make an Ability check normally and
compare their results, with the better result
triumphing. But first, the conflict needs to
have its stakes clarified.
Conflict stakes
The Story Guide has the specific
responsibility of declaring the STAKES of the
conflict after hearing the goals of the
characters. This is a slightly intricate issue,
so pay attention.
Normally, when a conflict is initiated, it
is pretty obvious what the conflict is for: a
 V Conflict Resolution
character wishes to bed another, say, and
the conflict is over whether he manages to
convince the other character to play along.
The goals of the characters are rather
unambiguous in this sense: whatever the
characters want to do, that’s usually what
the conflict is about. In these cases the Story
Guide just nods and gives the go-ahead for
players to proceed with resolving the
conflict.
The most typical situation where the
Story Guide needs to clarify the stakes is
when a player’s declared goal is TOO SHALLOW.
For example, a player might describe that
his character is going to shoot another
character. All well and good, but that is not
actually a goal, it’s just what the character
is doing to achieve his goal. Is the character
trying to stop the other from hurting him? Is
he trying to subdue the other by wounding
him? Is he trying to kill the other character?
For conflict resolution the Story Guide needs
to find out and bring these intentions on the
table, as the players will need to know what
they are resolving when narrating the
conflict sequence.
Another situation where the Story Guide
needs to modify the stakes from the intents
described by the players is when a character
wants TOO MUCH. For example, a character
might want to rob the emir of a valuable
jewel kept on the bosom of emir’s daughter.
Can the player just declare a conflict over
this and resolve the exciting situation in one
roll? This is a matter of LEVERAGE, PROPRIETY
and SCOPE.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Leverage, propriety
and scope
When a character can try to succeed in
something, he has LEVERAGE. A character
who has wings might try to fly because of
those wings, for example. A character who
has sneaked into the bedchambers of emir’s
daughter might try to steal a valuable jewel.
Leverage is being in the fictional situation
that allows a character to attempt a given
goal in the first place.
When a character’s declared goal is
kinda sudden and unexpected in the
context, it is a matter of PROPRIETY. This is
not so much about moral judgement most of
the time, but rather about the norms of the
fun game — a very typical campaign norm is
that named, important characters are not
killed just like that, off-hand. So in this kind
of campaign the Story Guide might question
the propriety of the goal and perhaps clarify
that while the character might seem to die,
he might also come back later as the result
of a miraculous rescue, a common motif of
adventure stories.
When the group thinks that some matter
of fiction should not be skimmed too
quickly, it is a question of SCOPE. If the emir
and his jewel are not important, the group
might think that it is a swell idea to have the
daring thievery resolved in one conflict —
just roll THIEVERY (I) against the emir’s
SUSPICION (R) and be done with it. If that pace
is too quick, however, the group might wish
to insist on a smaller conflict scope —
finding out whether the character can even
get into emir’s seraglio, or how he outwits
37
the guards, or how he charms the emir’s
daughter — these are all fine and exciting
conflicts on their own, well able to branch in
unexpected directions.
When determining the stakes of a
conflict, the Story Guide should keep an eye
on all of leverage, propriety and scope: is the
character in position to try for this goal, or
should he first maneuver into position? Is
the goal an appropriate event for the genre?
Do we, as a group, want to skim or slow
down over these events? Making these
decisions is not as difficult as it might
sound, and the rest of the group will
certainly have their own notions. If in doubt,
go with the goal declared by the player — if
the emir’s jewel is just a step in some
interesting story, take care of it in one
conflict and move on.
Selecting Abilities
As mentioned earlier, a conflict is just a
matter of compared Ability checks: the
character with the best check wins the day.
However, choosing the Abilities most
pertinent in a conflict might be tricky: if a
character is tracking a bear to tame it, will
he need ANIMAL HANDLING (I) to handle the
bear or WOODCRAFT (I) to find it?
The answer is that the choice of Ability
condenses the overall situation into one
TURNING-POINT where everything hinges in
balance. The notion that great feats of
Ability actually resolve conflicts is basic to
the Solar System; it’s not the weather
outside or price of tea in London that
resolves conflicts, but rather the immediate,
 V Conflict Resolution
dramatic clash of Ability during one
moment.
The TURNING - POINT is sometimes
important as a concept simply because
different characters would benefit from
different Abilities. For example, if the bear
(not wanting to be tamed) is weak-willed but
good at hiding, it would benefit from getting
Always Using Your Best Ability
Some players might question why they
couldn’t just use their character’s best
Ability all the time — after all, an Ability
like SWORDFIGHTING (V) goes a long way
when it comes to getting out of pickles!
The first answer is that the rules very
well assume that the characters are
going to rely on their strengths! The
whole point in having different Abilities
is that they characterize the kind of
things the characters usually choose to
do when given a choice.
The second answer is that what the
character does in the fictional situation
depends on which Ability you choose: if
you pick SWORDFIGHTING, then the
situation needs to be described to
involve swordfighting, which might
make your character a jerk or a brute.
The third answer is that the player
might not always wish for his character
to win — it’s entirely possible to
advocate for your character’s vile
passions while hoping as audience that
he’ll fail. Besides, the character’s story is
more interesting if he both wins and
loses believably.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
to match its HIDING (I) against the
woodsman’s WOODCRAFT (I), other things
being equal.
In practical play the turning-point might
often be obvious in that the players have an
actual scene at hand, with actual,
uncontested narration going on. If the Story
Guide narrated the woodsman encountering
the bear out in the woods, the bear would
actually forfeit the hiding option by making
that appearance. That’s quite possible when
the bear (or the Story Guide, or even the
player) doesn’t know that the woodsman
would decide to try to tame it.
Other times, when characters are aware
of each other and have room to maneuver,
the resolution is different: if the bear knows
to keep out of the way of the woodsman, it’s
obvious that the woodsman needs to find
the bear to even have an opportunity to try
taming it.
Where the turning-point in setting up a
conflict lies is ultimately up to the players
who take initiative in narrating matters and
shaping the fictional situation. A large part
of the Story Guide’s job is to make sure that
scenes are framed and characters encounter
each other in conditions that allow for
exciting conflicts. Even then, however, the
player who takes the initiative often gets to
choose not only his own Ability, but the
Ability his opponent will use as well!
Of course, Abilities may support each
other in support chains as described in
“Supporting a Check” on page 33.
Sometimes the Story Guide might even
explicitly require this, such as when a
character first needs to find the bear before
befriending it.
38
Ultimately, the matter of choosing the
correct Ability checks is first and foremost
an aesthetic issue for the group to suss out.
The choice that makes the most sense in the
fiction is the right one, be that just one
Ability check or several chained checks. The
best Abilities to use are often not the ones
the character is best at, and the Story Guide
shouldn’t hesitate to encourage the players
to use that untrained, MEDIOCRE (0) Ability if
that’s the one that actually makes sense,
considering what the character is trying to
do in the first place.
Resolving the conflict
When stakes have been defined, Abilities
selected and the situation described, the
players may make their Ability checks. The
group gets to narrate the events according to
who rolled highest: that character achieved
his goal (or as much of it as the stakes
concerned, anyway) in whatever manner
seems appropriate.
Mostly narrating conflicts is simple, but
a word on stomping other characters: while
a given conflict might force a character to act
in a certain way, this is always interpreted
as a temporary loss of control, not wholesale
limitation upon further behaviour. For
example, “I flirt with him and lure him to my
room tonight” is a fine goal in conflict, but it
implies nothing about how the other
character reacts in the morning; he might be
happy, mortified, angry or however the other
player chooses to depict the event.
Tied conflicts are fun, too: if both sides
get the same Ability check result, the group
is encouraged to narrate the situation in a
 8 One of my jobs as the Story Guide is provoking the player characters by setting them
riends and kin in weakness are
F weakness and pain for those
who would care.
Eero Tuovinen
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
up in difficult situations with secondary characters. This is what I did with Bill and
Ted Cochran, the intrepid miners and part-time scoundrels.
Bill was Lauri’s player character, while Ted was mine to control as a secondary
character. Furthermore, Ted had always been a bit of a problem child in the duo, prone
to the liqueur and trouble-making. Less so for hard work, unless rewards kept
coming. This being the case, the situation was natural:
“You’ve been working for the last week, but now Ted’s been all dark and quiet
again. You’ve found tracks near the mine, might be that indians have been here. Now
Ted left half an hour ago to put together dinner, and when you get out to figure out
what he’s up to, you find him outside the mine with a bottle, with no food in sight.”
This was of course pretty blatant, but it segued nicely into an argument between
the brothers. Ted confessed that he’d bought spirits from the indians, but he wasn’t
that repentant, just repeating that a man’s got his needs.
“Thing is, Ted’s not happy with the mine and its production. He wants out of
here, at least for a while. So unless you’re bending over and going with him to visit
the town, it’s time for a conflict.” I told Lauri.
“So he wants us to go out and spend all our savings? We’ll never get out of the
mines if that attitude doesn’t start improving. I’m resisting and putting him straight
again.“ Lauri said, thus accepting conflict over the issue between the brothers.
“OK, the brothers are arguing and we’ll use Ability checks to find out who leads this
company from now on. Ted’s using his Resist Ability here, naturally enough: this is all
about his stubbornness, he wants to go out and resume banditry with you.” I expounded.
“Hmm... both Bill and Ted are rough sorts, so I guess I’ll be using Resist as well; it’s
just two bucks locking horns here, with little ability at fancy words. Although, I’ll support
with Bill’s Christianity; he can quote scripture if it comes to that.” Lauri described.
Having figured out the Abilities, we made our respective Ability checks. While
both brothers were stubborn, this time Bill was more so: my check came up
Marginal, while Lauri’s was Great. Consequently we described the brothers
exchanging harsh words, keeping quiet for the rest of the day, only resolving the issue
that night when the exasperated Bill sermonized Ted with a Bible in hand — to his
surprise, Bill soon had his brother sobbing in his arms, asking forgiveness for being
so bad in thought and deed. Disaster averted, for now at least.
 V Conflict Resolution
way that frustrates or fulfills both sides
equally. Perhaps something comes up to
interrupt the characters, or they come to
negotiate the situation (verbally or not), so
that the conflict need not play to the finish.
Or, you can just roll again if nothing
particularly inventive comes up.
Ability checks in conflict
The result of an Ability check is calculated
normally in conflict. Often both sides have
SUCCESSFUL Ability checks but one side FAILS
in the conflict — this is really easy to
narrate, the mutual success with the
Abilities just means that one side’s success
The Joy of Tied Conflict
Tied conflicts are a great tool for pacing
stories, frustrating characters who try to
resolve their problems. They’re
especially common with low-Ability
characters whose stories are just
beginning. Consider ties carefully.
An interesting notion is that a tie
warrants Story Guide interception in the
form of an overbearing new condition
that annuls the conflict: the floor gives
in and drops both duelists into an
underground river, for example.
Another good idea is that perhaps
both characters can get what they want,
at least partially. Perhaps the two spies
trying to drink each other into stupor
both let slip the information the other
side was looking for.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
is made ineffectual somehow in achieving
his goal, or perhaps an otherwise flawless
maneuver was blocked by the even better
play of the opposition. Liberally following the
narration guidelines on page 29 in chapter
“Ability Check” is sure to make for an
interesting scene!
Most of the time you don’t see lead
heroes in fiction making goofy mistakes that
allow their opponents to triumph — much
more likely it’s random bad luck or the
opponent being even more able that causes
a character to be frustrated. Follow this
same principle with the Solar System: your
opponent’s victory does not mean your own
incompetence, there are plenty of other
reasons for why things might turn the way
they do.
When Ability checks are used in conflict,
the WINNER gets to use his Ability check
result for recording an Effect, supporting
another check, activating a Secret or other
mechanics that might require a successful
Ability check. The loser’s check is
considered to fail in this regard.
Several characters
in conflict
When several characters are supporting
each other in conflict, it’s easy: just use the
rules for supporting Ability checks.
However, when there are more than two
characters in conflict and they actually all
have different goals, the situation is a bit
different. Have all the separate parties make
their own Ability checks and then compare
them all: the strongest party gets their way,
40
but others might also get part of what they
were after if the goals are not completely
opposed. In each case the stronger party
triumphs over all weaker parties when
figuring out who gets their way in the
situation.
Solo conflicts
It is relatively rare, but sometimes a
character needs to make Ability checks to
overcome unliving obstacles on his path.
The rules for Ability checks in chapter
“Ability check” on page 28 largely deal with
this already; just pick the appropriate
Abilities and check them to see how the
character does against the obstacle. Any
result apart from FAILURE (0) means that the
character succeeds in the “conflict”.
However, there is a situation where a
mere success might not be enough, and that
is when a character ends up going against
an EFFECT (page 33) established earlier.
When that happens, the character needs to
get a check result higher than the Effect’s
value. It’s just like if the character was going
against the character who created the Effect,
the situation is just delayed somewhat.
Going against Effects might happen
when a character sets up Effects as traps or
other obstacles from the start, or an Effect
might just happen to come between a
character and his goals inadvertedly. The
Story Guide may well decide to make certain
extraordinary, lifeless features of the setting
into Effects (perhaps created some time ago
by secondary characters); this option should
not be over-used, as Effects can be very
powerful.
 V Conflict Resolution
Effects that go against characters in
conflict might erode, akin to how characters
suffer Harm in conflict: the Story Guide may
determine that an Effect that loses a conflict
against a character takes Harm by lowering
its value, if it’s not just outright destroyed by
the triumphing character.
The group should keep in mind that
conflicts without active opposition are only
rarely appropriate or necessary; if the
situation is such that the character may be
assumed to succeed without significant
consequence sooner or later, then running a
conflict over it is unnecessary. This is the
same as saying that conflicts should have
significant stakes, and when such may not
be formulated, the Story Guide should take
that as a sign that no conflict is needed in
the first place. Thus climbing walls,
interpreting old documents, masquerading
as somebody else and other feats of skill are
only pertinent solo conflicts when failure
carries some weighty consequences.
Secondary characters in
conflict
Secondary characters run by the Story
Guide are perfectly able to participate in
conflicts; most conflicts are usually between
player characters and secondary characters.
Secondary characters acting against or
for player character interests may engage in
conflicts. However, secondary characters do
not run conflicts between themselves — the
Story Guide just decides what happens
between secondary characters, at least
insofar as he happens to play them all.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
(Some Secrets might allow players to control
secondary characters, so the actual rule is
more exactly stated by requiring there to be
more than one player participating in
conflict.)
More information about running
secondary characters can be found in the
chapter “Story Guide” on page 75. The
chapter also discusses the reasoning behind
having different events occur by Story Guide
decision.
I lost the conflict!
Sometimes characters lose conflicts that the
players would rather not, as the results
might be embarrassing or even fatal for the
poor character. Luckily, there is a specific
out in the rules: the player may decide to
EXTEND the conflict to retry in detail. Such an
EXTENDED CONFLICT is then played out in blow-
by-blow detail. An extended conflict has
great potential for Harm and Pool attrition
for characters, and it also takes a bit of time
compared to a normal conflict. Usually only
the most important conflicts are extended.
41
Opponent Cannot Oppose
The issues of leverage and propriety cut
both ways in conflict, so sometimes it’s
possible that a character objects to an
event, but cannot do anything to oppose
it.
While characters (and players) have
many rights in the Solar System, they do
not have a right to conflict just because
they dislike the turn of events. This does
not mean that the burden of proof is
very heavy, however; if being able to stop
another character is at all conceivable,
the character may try, even if the result
seems very unlikely.
An example I like to use is one of a
jungle man getting sued in court.
Presuming that the jungle man has a
hostile attitude towards legalities,
doesn’t speak the local language and
won’t even appear in court, he cannot
really stop another character from
getting an injunction against him; the
attack simply happens in a venue he is
not equipped to defend himself in at all.
The lawyer would probably still need to
make a successful Ability check,
though.
While a character might not be able
to do anything immediately against an
opponent who chooses the TURNING-POINT
of the conflict smartly, that doesn’t
mean that the character cannot EXTEND
the conflict (see the main text). The
classical example is a physical attack
that comes as a surprise: the attacker
might get the initial check unresisted,
but the target will surely extend the
conflict.
 VI Extended Conflict
Most conflicts are transitory matters of
moderate scope and propriety. Those few
and worthy that could be considered major
turning points, however — those deserve our
attention in detail.
Any player apart from the Story Guide
may declare that he wishes to EXTEND a
conflict his character participated in and
turn it into an EXTENDED CONFLICT. A conflict
is always extended only after the initial
Ability checks, and it may be done
regardless of whether the character won or
lost. An extended conflict will then
commence, allowing characters to settle
their differences in a detailed blow-by-blow
manner.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Extended Conflict
Why extend?
There are two reasons for escalating: one is
that you’re unhappy with the result of a lost
conflict and wish to have your character
strive hard to turn the outcome. Another is
a matter of STAKES MANIPULATION: as discussed
in chapter “Conflict Resolution” on page 37,
there are some conflict goals that might be
inappropriate for an outright conflict.
Extending is a way of bringing those
conflicts in play, regardless.
For example, the matter of PROPRIETY is
very much a campaign issue. A heroic pulp
adventure game might have the notion that
you can’t really, for sure, kill off important
characters. Reichenbach Falls might not
actually be the end. Similarly the superhero
actually permanently abandoning his lady
42
love for another is probably not something to
resolve with a simple conflict check. These
kinds of campaign-specific norms may often
be overridden by escalating — what was
inappropriate as an off-hand event becomes
the centerpiece of an extended conflict.
(There are also, of course, things that
players might want to never entertain as a
possibility in their campaign, especially if
there are kids participating or the events
might clash with the intended tone of the
campaign. These possibilities need never be
accepted as stakes for conflict, simply
enough.)
In either case an extended conflict
means that the involved characters go into
full-body contact with the rules system,
burning resources to overcome each other,
often consuming their own well-being to
succeed. This is fun stuff if the conflict is
 VI Extended Conflict
weighty enough, but if the stakes are not
involving it might be just dull — lots of
dicing and detailed description of the events,
but if nobody cares about the stakes it’s all
likely to get boring quickly. So think
carefully before extending, and be sure to
remember to give up when the time is right.
Scope and stakes
in extended conflict
When a conflict is extended, the result of the
original conflict is annulled in a way:
whatever the stakes were, they’re still on the
table after an escalation! This might mean
that the players have to “rewind” the
narrated action a bit, but most of the time
it’s enough to note that the seeming victory
was just a lull in the action before the real
conflict begins. So a character might stand
up exhausted from his wrestle with a bear,
only to watch in horror as the bear rises as
well, to coin an example.
At the beginning of the extended conflict
the Story Guide makes sure that the GOALS of
the characters are clear. It is entirely
conceivable that a character might change
goals between the initial conflict and the
following extended conflict; the situation has
suddenly grown more serious, after all!
The goals of the characters are even
more important in extended conflict than
they are otherwise, as players are allowed to
change them mid-way into the conflict.
Action also shifts the narration around the
scene, so it’s not a given that the conflict will
retain it’s original form. A wrestling contest
might turn into a chase which might become
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
a matter of hiding from a tracking hunter —
essentially, the extended conflict sticks
around however long the characters stand
opposed, regardless of whether their
opposition changes form in the meantime.
Negotiation phase
Extended conflict is resolved in rounds of
Ability checks; essentially the characters
butt heads as long as they dare, until one
side gives up or is overrun.
Each round begins with a NEGOTIATION
PHASE: players each describe what their
characters are doing this round to further
their goals. They also declare the Ability the
character uses during the round. The
negotiation phase is so named because it’s
not a matter of second-guessing the
opposition; the players discuss the situation
and describe actions that make sense to all.
There are several factors the players need to
declare for their characters at this point:
Ability used: Just like a normal Ability
check, the player chooses the Ability.
However, extended conflicts are so
immediate that characters do not have time
for support checks from other Abilities. Thus
the player only needs to choose one Ability.
Opposition: The players of the
participating characters need to determine
whether the actions of their characters are
directly opposed or not. Each pair of actions
is either OPPOSED or PARALLEL in this manner:
opposed actions cancel each other out, while
parallel actions go around the opposition
and have their full effect against the other
party. This is purely a situational matter
and the players should pick whichever
43
makes more sense for the situation: if one
character is trying to convince the other with
CHARM (I) while being beaten with FIGHTING
(V), say, then the action might well be
parallel as the two efforts do not really
impede each other. On the other hand, if
both characters opted to use similar
Abilities, the chances are that their actions
would prove opposed in the fiction.
Effect: Each player needs to decide for
themselves whether they want their
character’s action to provide HARM
(explained back in “Playing the Game” on
page 25) or BONUS DICE for some other action.
This is again largely a matter for the fiction:
if the activity of the character somehow tries
to directly achieve his goal, then Harm is the
obvious effect, while bonus dice are more
satisfying for actions that concern setting up
an edge for later in the conflict.
While this might seem tricky at first,
pretty soon players will routinely declare
“parallel FIGHTING for bonus dice as I seek
the high ground” or whatever makes sense
at the moment. Note that the players may
change their action in reaction to what
others say they’ll be doing: the negotiation
phase only ends when everybody is happy
with their declared action.
If the players keep switching their
actions around because they want different
action types, the Story Guide helps them
resolve the disagreement. Ultimately the
player who wants opposed actions will need
to make a DEFENSIVE ACTION or back down.
Finally, remember that it might be easier
at first to just have the players tell the Story
Guide what their characters are doing,
which the Story Guide can then convert into
rules-speak for them. The extended conflict
 VI Extended Conflict
is the most detailed part of the Solar System
rules, so it might feel tiresome for some at
first; best to use it sparingly and only when
escalation really is the word of the moment.
The defensive action
The DEFENSIVE ACTION is a special action
available during the negotiation phase. It is
always made with a PASSIVE ABILITY (one of
ENDURE (V), REACT (I) and RESIST (R)) and it’s
always an opposed action for bonus dice.
Furthermore, it’s the only opposed action for
bonus dice — other Abilities may only
generate bonus dice with parallel actions!
The defensive action is always, by Ability
definition, a passive action that doesn’t
achieve anything proactive in the fiction.
The Default Passive Abilities
Endure (V)
The character’s capability for enduring
physical pain and fatigue, whether caused
by climate, injury or great exertion.
React (I)
The character’s ability of thinking and
acting quickly and clearly, as useful for
seizing initiative as noticing hidden things.
Resist (R)
The character’s strength of will and resolve
in the face of adversity, stress or social
pressure alike.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
The character might cover in fear, jump
nimbly aside, ignore pain and continue
whatever he was doing, for example. By its
nature the defensive action is always
available to the character regardless of
conditions — the opponent might be able to
force a specific passive Ability, but there is
no situation in which a character couldn’t
make the defensive action, even if there is
nothing else he can do in the fiction.
Furthermore, the defensive action has
one very cunning use: the player who
declares the defensive action may
immediately change his character’s goal in
the conflict. Thus a character might find out
in the middle of an extended conflict that the
masked avenger assaulting him is actually
his wife; certainly a cause for pause and re-
evaluation of priorities! The Story Guide (or
any player, really) is well within his rights to
require a character to spend a round in a
defensive action when the character’s goals
change.
Resolving actions
Resolving the actions is simple after the
players have sussed out the negotiation
phase: everybody just makes an Ability
check for their character with the chosen
Ability, with each check having full effect
according to action type.
There are two notable differences
between normal Ability checks (as depicted
in chapter “Ability Checks” on page 28) and
those made in extended conflict. One is
support checks: a character may not use
multiple Abilities to support a check in
extended conflict. Instead, the player needs
44
to make an Ability check for bonus dice and
spend those dice on the next round if he
wants to use multiple Abilities.
The other difference are SURPRISE DICE on
the first round: the winner of the conflict
that was escalated into the extended mode
gains bonus dice equal to the difference
between his and opposition’s checks on the
first round of the extended conflict. This
depicts his initial upper hand before the
conflict gets really under way.
The action type negotiated during the
negotiation phase determines what each
player’s Ability checks do in the conflict:
Opposed checks are deducted from
each other so that only the higher check is
left. Specifically, the higher result is lowered
in degree by the lower result as far as
extended conflict effect goes (but not for
purposes of narration or Transcendence, for
example), while the lower check disappears
entirely. Parallel checks do not affect each
other at all, they both take full effect.
Harm checks cause Harm to their
targets of level equal to the check result,
while bonus dice checks grant bonus dice
for the character equal to the result; these
dice have to either immediately support
another character’s ongoing action, or kept
and rolled in the character’s own check
during the next round.
In other words, an opposed check for
Harm causes the difference between the
opposed checks as a Harm level to the
opponent (assuming you rolled higher in the
first place), while a parallel check for Harm
causes a Harm level equal to the full check
result. Likewise, checks for bonus dice cause
either the difference between opposed checks
or the full parallel check as bonus dice.
 8 The hard-boiled campaign was a mix of old-style morality play and modern
Hollywood murder thriller; the crime wave my intrepid gumshoe was investigating
dealt with nothing less but brutal serial murder. The trick was in depicting it all in
a classical crime story frame, so we had all the guts and blood, but also mysterious
women with a dirty past and police forces who largely ignored the killings. And in
the middle of it all, the murderer himself like some sort of Ripper-Jack.
Without going into the details, the story experienced an abrupt turn when my PI
suddenly encountered the man who very well might be the killer. I surprised the Story
Guide with a hard-line stance: I’d take the guy down before he’d do the same to even
one more girl’s sister.
The initial conflict happened at a night club our predator was stalking. My goal
was to restrain him, but I failed utterly in the initial conflict check against his
“React”, which allowed him to spot me and dash out of the backdoor before I got
through the crowd. Two choices: let him go or extend the conflict. I decided to go for
the extend, no way was I letting the bastard kill anybody anymore. As our goals were
crystal clear, we went directly to the first negotiation phase:
“I’m going to run up to him and tackle the mofo before he can lose himself out on the
rainy Reeperbahn.” I declared. “I’m using my ‘Nastiness’ Ability, should be appropriate.”
“He’s not running, though; he’s going for your jawbone, out there in the alley.”
countered the Story Guide. “That’s ‘Scrapping’, by the way; he’s got it at Competent
level. Opposed checks?”
ssuming a nice and tidy “Right. I’ll disarm him and bash his head on something hard.”

A solution is folly with streets

and virtue so tarnished.
Doing the Ability checks, we found out that I was actually beating the guy by a
margin of two despite his initial surprise bonus dice. That became a Minor Harm,
so he was at disadvantage for the next round. As my success was Amazing, the Story
Guide also described how the hard rain covered most of the sounds of our fighting.
The cold bastard had some tricks up his sleeve yet, however:
“While you bash his head at the brick wall, the poor devil starts crying and
confessing. Surely you can’t use your Nastiness Ability at such an unresisting guy,
sick as he is?” the Story Guide described in the new negotiation phase.
“I guess not. I’ll go with Scrapping as well, then, and sit on him while I try to
Eero Tuovinen find my phone and call for a squad to pick him up.”
“Right. Except that he’s got a knife. And ‘Murdering’ at Master level. Which
you’ll get to experience now. Still going for that phone?”
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
 VI Extended Conflict
Player or Character Gives Up?
As elsewhere in these rules, it’s
important to note how I use my terms
here: it’s the player who gives up when a
conflict turns against the character. This
is not accidental.
Some players might be reluctant to
give up in an extended conflict because
the character thinks that the situation is
important and would strive “to the
death” to defend his view. All well and
good, but this need not be the player’s
angle. It is quite possible that a
character fighting to escape from evil
cultists, for example, fights to
exhaustion, while the player decides
that he can’t actually win the conflict
and thus gives up — or perhaps he isn’t
even that interested in belaboring the
point when it’s much more exciting to
have the hero get captured!
What’s more, the character “fighting
to his utmost to escape” does not need to
mean that the player’s mechanical
resources are exhausted. A character’s
Harm track especially is a rather
abstract measure better used as a
“drama tank” than a fictional measure.
Thus the character might be injured and
exhausted without having a blemish on
his Harm track, or vice versa!
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Rolling a tie
If opposed checks tie each other, neither
takes effect. Instead, the characters tire
each other out in an extended struggle —
both players need to immediately spend an
extra Pool point from the associated Pool of
their Ability or drop out of the conflict out of
sheer exhaustion (or other reason, whatever
makes sense in the fiction).
A tie is a great opportunity for the Story
Guide to change the situation — some time
passes and other characters come into the
scene, the conflict participants move into a
different location or a temporary effect in the
conflict environment runs out, for example.
Ideally each tie heralds a drastic enough
shift in the fiction to cause the characters to
reconsider either their goals or methods: the
new conditions might force a character to
use some other Ability than the one he’d
used so far, for instance.
Parallel checks can’t tie each other per
se, as they take effect independent of each
other. Even then, a group might decide to
have FAILURE (0) result in parallel checks
require a Pool point for the character to
spring back up into the fight.
Ending a round
After the Ability checks are made to
determine what happens, the group should
take a moment to narrate what happens in
the fiction: each character either succeeds
or fails in what they are doing, and their
actions change the situation around. This
has implications for the next round of
46
resolution, as players need to choose new
actions and new Abilities, so describing
events in dynamic manner is key for having
an exciting extended conflict resolution.
The end of the round is also a typical
moment for a player to decide to GIVE UP.
This is a very important concept, so
important that the Story Guide should
probably make it a habit to ask at the end of
each round whether any participant (himself
included!) wants to give up on behalf of their
character.
Should a player decide to give up, the
conflict ends with the opponent’s victory.
The situation is narrated with the latest
character goals in mind. If some
disagreement about the consequences of the
conflict remain, the extended conflict
continues until all players with a character
in the scene accept the overall outcome.
Another way for the extended conflict to
end at this point is if one party has suffered
Harm at level 7, past MORTAL (6). Such a
character cannot continue and drops out of
the conflict automatically, too tired and
injured to go on regardless of the stakes.
Furthermore, such a character’s fate is now
in the hands of the victor, who may
determine any conceivable consequences,
up to and including death for the loser. (Any
other permanent fates are quite feasible as
well depending on the situation; being
crippled for life or losing one’s soul, for
example.) This is a powerful incentive for
giving up earlier.
Finally, the conflict always ends if a
character cannot fulfill required conditions
to continue. Typically this is a matter of
paying Pool for acting when suffering a
 VI Extended Conflict
MORTAL level of Harm, or when tying the
opposition.
If the conflict does not end yet, however,
then the players start a new round,
beginning with a new negotiation phase.
This continues until the conflict ultimately
ends, one way or another.
The rules of leverage, propriety and scope
hold for actions in extended conflict just like
they do when stating conflict goals. A
noteworthy special case is that a character
cannot negotiate for an action that sidesteps
the goals of the conflict — so a character
trying to save his sister from the cult priest
couldn’t just declare an action to kill the
priest, as success in that action would
presumably resolve the conflict itself.
Instead, all actions need to be framed in
terms of effort and only narrated after
seeing how much Harm the character does
and whether the opponent might wish to
give up.
Whether an action is unacceptable or
not is, contrary to intuition, a case-by-case
issue. The opponent may always object if he
thinks that the action leaves his character
too strenuous grounds for continuing the
conflict. The CHOREOGRAPHY OF CONFLICT is
formed by all the possible activities that
characters might perform in their efforts at
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Special actions
Sometimes characters do things that are not
immediately for Harm or for bonus dice,
insofar as the action’s effect is concerned.
Usually this comes up in relation to Secrets,
as detailed on page 58 in chapter “Secrets
and Crunch”: a Secret might allow a
character to do things that do not fall into
either of those two categories, such as
Unacceptable Actions
forcing the opposition to give in; the
choreography is conceptually con-
strained by effectiveness on one side
and fairness on the other; anything a
player might declare as conflict action
needs to somehow help his character
overcome the opposition, while at the
same time being considered fair by the
opposing player.
The philosophical basis in running
an extended conflict is that the
opponent has the right to have his
mechanical weight present and
accounted for until forced or convinced
out of the conflict according to the
formal mechanics. Characters might
maneuver for advantage with
entertaining and smart moves, but that
results in conditional penalties for the
opponent, not shortcircuiting the
conflict rules. The only way to close
another character off from conflict is to
fill his Harm track.
47
attacking his enemy in some way that does
not cause Harm.
Another typical situation is when a
player wants to create an Effect in the
middle of an extended conflict — this is
likewise allowable, as long as the character’s
action makes more sense as an Effect than
simple bonus dice for his next action.
The simple rule of thumb in resolving
such special actions is to treat any action
that requires an Ability check as the
character’s action for the round, unless the
action is explicitly phrased as not requiring
a round in extended conflict. (Thinking of
Secrets here, as they can include their own
rules for this kind of thing.) All sorts of other
minor action, such as speaking, moving
around and so on may happen during a
round or between rounds freely as long as
they do not require an Ability check.
A special action is opposed normally,
should the opponent have the means.
Whether an action to cast a spell, say, would
be opposed or parallel would depend on
what spellcasting looks like in the setting as
well as what the opponent was specifically
doing.
All actions with Ability checks have a
concrete mechanical effect in extended
conflict. It might be Harm or bonus dice or
reducing an opposing success (as happens
with opposed actions), or it might be
establishing an Effect, or any number of
other things. In general, every Ability check
will spend its result in something, there are
no mechanically meaningless actions.
 VI Extended Conflict
Multiple characters
in extended conflict
When multiple characters participate in an
extended conflict, the procedure gets a teeny
bit more complex. The basic structure is the
same, however.
Variant: Teams
You might find this method both simpler
and more fun in multiple character
extended conflict. A group of characters
may declare themselves a TEAM when
their goals are all similar. Members of
the team gain robustness in defense, but
lose out on some flexibility.
A team always makes one Ability
check for Harm each round instead of
each character getting to act separately.
One character is chosen to act for the
team each round. The others may make
Defensive checks or parallel checks for
bonus dice as situation warrants.
The team members may spend Pool
for each other and SPLIT HARM: whenever
the team suffers Harm, it’s level may be
distributed into smaller Harms (a 4 into
two 2s and so on) for multiple team
members. If the team can’t agree on
Harm distribution, the primary
character takes the full Harm.
Leaving the team or joining it in the
middle of conflict requires a Defensive
Action to change intent.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
During the negotiation phase the players
need to figure out who their characters are
targeting with their actions and against
whom the actions are opposed and against
whom parallel. These factors are determined
based on the fiction: a physical attack is
against whomever it is targeting, while
defending the good name of the heiress is
opposed against any attempts at slandering
her, whether one or many.
The tricky part of this is that a given
character may well end up either attacking
or defending against several other
characters. Who attacks whom is adjucated
based on the described actions. While this is
simple in theory, it might cause some slight
problems in practice for a new group. Thus,
some specific situations:
Choosing targets
A character’s target for Harm is usually the
character whose action opposes his, but this
need not be the case when a character
protects another. Even then, though, the
protector might force the Harm to be
directed against himself, depending on the
described situation.
Attacking several targets with Harm
When a character’s action affects several
other characters, the check result is
compared against each separately. Thus,
dropping a big rock on several characters
with an AMAZING (4) check would cause each
a 4th level Harm, unless somehow opposed
on individual basis.
A defender might well act to save several
characters at once, just as the attacker
48
might try to Harm several. Whether a
character can protect others beside himself,
or needs to choose who to protect, depends
on the situation.
As both multiple-attacking and multiple-
defending depend on the situation, neither
are usually possible without explicit
advance preparations. Let the Story Guide
make the call when a situation might be
interpreted either way.
Defending against several attacks
When several characters act to Harm an
individual character, the defender’s action
might oppose several of the attacks, just like
above. Each opposed attack would get
deducted separately by the defender, which
might result in several Harm for the
defender, one Harm to several attackers, or
some combination of both.
Defending against several characters is,
of course, just the reverse of attacking
several characters. As a rule of thumb,
Defensive Actions should be able to oppose
all or most attacks simultaneously, unless
they come in wildly diverse forms.
Acting for bonus dice
As mentioned earlier, a character making an
action for bonus dice may opt to roll the
bonus dice immediately into another
character’s check during the same round.
When a Defensive Action is opposed by
several characters, the action generates
bonus dice according to the strongest
opponent’s result.
 VI Extended Conflict
Against Effects
Effects can play an important role in
extended conflict as well, even to the extent of
being the only opposition to a character who
extends a solo conflict according to the page
40. Another possibility is that a character
brings one or more Effects with him to the
conflict.
While Effects can be called upon for
bonus dice normally in Extended conflict,
their values can be used directly against an
opponent as well. Effects do not act,
however, only resisting when a character is
forced against the Effect by circumstances.
Against Nothing?
When a character fails in a solo conflict
(page 40) that is not against an Effect,
the extended conflict is nigh trivial: the
character simply needs to make one
successful check for Harm to win
“against nothing”. Rolling a FAILURE (0) is
considered a tie against “nothing”,
though, so the character might still lose
by running out of Pool points or having
the conditions change as narrated by
the Story Guide; hostile characters
might arrive, for example, and turn the
extended conflict into a real challenge.
Almost certain victory in extended
conflict with no opposition is an
intentional feature of the Solar System;
player characters are assumed to be
competent or lucky enough to get by
somehow, unless the opposition is
actually interesting.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
For example, an Effect representing a wall,
“Wall 3/V”, would not act at all in extended
conflict unless a character tried to break,
climb or go around the wall.
When the Effect represents something
proactive, such as a mob of angry citizens,
think of “active” in terms of personal
initiative. A mob as an Effect is about as
capable of directing its strength as a rolling
boulder would be; the character leading the
mob might set it to a general direction, but
other characters who maneuver out of the
way might never need to face the angry
extras directly.
When an Effect does get to act, it’s owner
determines normally whether the “action” is
opposed or parallel and whether it is for
Harm or for bonus dice. The Effect does not
make an Ability check, however, but uses it’s
current value directly, instead.
When a character supplements his own
action with an Effect, the character needs to
make his own Ability check and use the
Effect as bonus dice. The line between the
Effect acting independently and the
character using the Effect to supplement his
own action is sometimes a bit hazy, but you
can’t go wrong by following the group’s
notion of what makes sense in the fiction.
When a character acts to disable an
Effect with Harm, the Harm is directly
deducted from the Effect’s value. Thus
Effects are rather frail and will succumb
near-immediately to parallel actions, if such
can be attempted: while a computer
program represented by an Effect might
prove a difficult opposition for a hacker,
taking a sledgehammer to the computer
itself as a parallel action is sure to reduce
the Effect to nothing in short order.
49
Strategy in Extended
Extended conflict is a good idea when the
character wasn’t using his best Ability in the
initial clash or he had bad luck. The luck of
the dice will even out with several
consecutive checks. Opposed checks are a
good idea for characters with more staying
power, while the stronger party should angle
for parallel checks. Bonus dice for your own
checks are only efficient if you plan to win
with a few high-power blows, perhaps
supplemented by Secrets.
Change goals as the situation warrants.
Negotiate with the opposition and try to find
a goal against which they are willing to give
up. Often winning is as much a matter of
credible Ability as of managing to suggest a
turn of events where both characters get
what they want.
Use narration actively to your benefit:
the success or failure of individual actions
changes the situation, often influencing
different approaches.
If you get into conflict against multiple
opponents, it’s crucial to negotiate goals and
actions that allow answering several at once.
Escaping from the scene is often just such a
goal, as running away helps you equally
against all foes. If you must go against
multiple opponents, set up smart Effects. A
“Plate mail 5/V” will take care of most
physical defense for a short while, allowing
you to perhaps even the odds.
Give up soon and give up often! Losing a
conflict in the Solar System has no
mechanical penalties, its only meaning is in
the fiction. The side that has more to lose
will often win by simple persistence.
 VII Keys and Experience
Keys and Experience
Key of Romance (person)
The character is involved in a romance with
another person. Our interest is in seeing
what sort of relationship comes of it, or if
the characters stay with it at all.
1xp: Flirt with the romantic interest.
2xp: Interact positively with the person.
Go on a date or save her from a
death-trap, for instance.
5xp: Develop the relationship to a new
level, whether the “next base” of
physical intimacy, betrothal or
something else.
Buyoff: Break off the romantic
relationship.
Key of Love (person)
The character is passionately in love with
another person. He doesn’t necessarily
know what to do with the feeling, though.
1xp: Express the love.
3xp: Make an important decision based
on the passion.
Buyoff: Put aside and forget the love.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
A Solar System campaign is centered
around the theme of character growth,
change brought about by experience and
adversity. Player characters begin at relative
loose ends and come to find their place in
the world when their choices close off other
options and shape a more permanent
identity for characters who begin as little
more than a colourful image devoid of
meaning.
The mechanical instrument players use
to guide this process of character growth is
called a KEY, of which each character
possesses one or more. Keys in turn supply
characters with EXPERIENCE POINTS (XP),
which are used by the character to grow in
power. The rising power-level of the
character in relation to the setting around
him leads to independence and increasingly
important opportunity to choose, both for
50
himself and others. The logical end-result of
this progression is called the TRANSCENDENCE
in which a given character’s story ends after
he’s proved his heroic nature once and for
all.
But before that can happen, a character
needs to have some Keys to define and breed
his theme. To the left are a couple of
examples of what Keys look like.
As you can see, Keys are simply short
rules of some fictional circumstances that
award experience points to the character.
The BUYOFF is a special circumstance as
well: when it happens, the player has the
option of removing the Key and scoring 10
XP at once. The catch is that characters may
never regain a Key once bought off: the
buyoff is always a permanent change to the
character.
 VII Keys and Experience
The KEY OF ROMANCE vs. KEY OF LOVE
comparison deal here demonstrates that
there are different types of Keys, KEY
FRAMEWORKS. The two most common and
perhaps most useful frameworks are the
DRAMATIC and MOTIVATION frames:
Dramatic Key framework
Keys of this type describe dramatic motifs.
1xp: The dramatic issue is involved in
a scene.
2xp: The character encounters
significant challenges related to
the theme.
5xp: The motif progresses.
Buyoff: The theme is discarded from the
game.
Motivation Key framework
Keys of this type describe psychology.
1xp: The character expresses the
motivation.
3xp: The character follows the
motivation despite risk, personal
cost or other considerations.
Buyoff: The character opts to let go of the
trait represented by the Key.
The frameworks are used for building new
Keys, which is something the play group is
rather likely to do along a campaign (just fill
in the details!). Keys are often personalized
to the characters who possess them, but
even then all players in the group need to
understand and appreciate the Key,
considering it interesting. It is also quite
appropriate to prepare a list of likely Keys
when starting a new campaign in a new
setting, as different genres obviously
concern themselves with different themes.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Something like the KEY OF BLOODLUST would
hardly be appropriate for a setting based on
CARE BEARS, for example.
As the above example of two different
romantic Keys suggests, it is often possible
to depict almost the same theme with
different frameworks. Players may choose
the one that better matches their preference
or the prepared setting material may suggest
one type over others. However, characters
should not have overlapping Keys, so no KEY
OF LOVE and KEY OF ROMANCE towards the
same person. (Of course, two Keys of Love
towards two different persons would work
just fine!)
For a number of example Keys, see page
84. As the list demonstrates, however, be
ready to build your own as well: human
issues are as numerous as could be hoped
for, so any one list is rather unlikely to
satisfy everybody.
Gaining And Using
Advances
The primary means of gaining experience
points during play is for characters to do
things or have things done to them — events
of play, in other words. Whenever such
events happen to trigger a Key possessed by
a character, the player should make
mention of this to the other players and jot
down the number of experience points
gained. (Shouting “Bingo!” would be cheeky,
but not entirely inappropriate.)
What this means in practice is that
players will constantly maneuver their
characters into situations that are pertinent
51
Key Abuse
It is not particularly rewarding to abuse
the Key experience system in actual play,
so for the most part we are not worried
about that. The Story Guide is well
positioned to take it up if players seem to
be confused about the point of play.
A good maxim for gauging Key abuse
is whether each Key possessed and scored
by a character actually corresponds with
separate interesting events and
meaningful choices in the fiction. Just
having many Keys and scoring them
quickly is all good as long as it follows
from interesting events in play!
A group experienced with some other
roleplaying games might get worried or
even distressed with the ease of “scoring
XP” in the Solar System — such worry is
baseless, the system is intended to work
the way it does! The players should plan
their actions to maximize experience
flow and it’s perfectly normal to have a
player score experience several times in
one scene. That’s how you play the
game.
It is also quite usual that different
characters progress at different rates. A
player is not failing if his character is
slow in gaining experience, just as it’s
OK to gain a lot. Experience flow is a
function of character development and
player awareness of character issues;
players who are still figuring out what
their characters are really about will
have slowly progressing characters, as
will players who opt to tone the drama
down a bit. In the Solar System, the
journey is the point, not the destination.
 VII Keys and Experience
to their Keys: this will allow the player to are all costed according to the table below.
develop the character and the character to While each of those character benefits is
gain strength for important conflicts ahead paid for in Advances, there are some
in his story. Such strength may then be particular considerations related to each:
brought to bear when it really matters. New Abilities may only be added when
Gained experience points are ultimately the character has gone through some events
traded in for ADVANCES, the actual currency justifying the new aspect. Finding a teacher,
of character development. Whenever the undergoing physical transformation,
player accumulates enough experience working at a new job or concerned study are
points for an Advance, he can just make a good examples. This does not concern
note of it and start looking for interesting implicitly present MEDIOCRE Abilities, note: if
ways to spend the Advance. an Ability is such that the character has
Advances cost 5 experiences points each. some background exposure to it (it’s not
Players might like to keep track of both FREE entirely inconceivable to his lifestyle or
ADVANCES, which they have not used for being), it may be added whenever the player
anything, and used Advances, which shows gets around to writing it down.
how many Advances they have already used Existing Abilities may always be bought
to develop their characters; the latter up, even in the middle of scenes, should the
number is not actually used for anything, player have sufficient free Advances available.
but groups often enjoy some small It is quite acceptable to invest in an Ability
upmanship related to the xp hunt. just before you need to use it, for example.
Advances may be spent on Abilities, However, the same Ability should not be
Pools, Secrets and new Keys as well. They increased several steps at once, should such
extraordinary circumstances ever become an
issue.
Pool size may be gained at will with
Benefit Advance Costs sufficient Advances, but the character may
only improve a Pool once in each scene. Note
Benefit Cost that very high Pools are cumulatively more
expensive.
New Ability at MEDIOCRE 0
Secrets (further explained on page 58, in
MEDIOCRE Ability to COMPETENT 1 chapter “Secrets and Crunch”) are
COMPETENT Ability to EXPERT 2 exceptional in that they require the
EXPERT Ability to MASTER 3 character to fulfill specific requirements in
MASTER Ability to GRAND MASTER 4 the campaign, such as finding a teacher,
before the character may acquire such.
Add to Pool size 1
Many Secrets concern rather specific
- for each full 10 points Pool size +1 individuals, such as Secrets only revealed to
Add a new Secret 1 members of some mystery cult; the
Add a new Key 1 benefit — a character studying the PARADOXES
52
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
character needs to fulfill or get around these
default requirements to gain the Secret.
Finally, Keys may be added only if the
character has not had the same Key before
and the player deems the new Key an
appropriate part of his character’s harmony.
Advance Debt
In some situations a character comes upon a
situation where they should immediately gain
some benefit, even if they don’t have the
Advances to pay for it. For example, in a
fantasy setting there might be a SECRET OF
NOBILITY that represents special divine
mandate bestowed upon the leaders of the
people. When a character is then inducted
into the noble ranks in feudal manner, the
group might deem it obvious that he would
gain the Secret in question right away.
If the player cannot pay for a benefit
immediately in a situation like that, he goes
into ADVANCE DEBT regarding the new benefit
until he manages to pay for it by gaining
experience. A character in Advance debt
suffers one penalty die for each Advance’s
worth of debted benefits activated in play; if
the benefit is not immediately utilized in
conflict (such as a Key or specific types of
Secrets), the Story Guide saves the penalty
dice and assigns them to the character’s
checks later, as soon as practical.
A character in Advance debt has to pay
off the debt immediately when he gains new
Advances, and may not acquire any new
benefits voluntarily meanwhile.
Of course, the group might also decide
that a character fails in learning some
 8 So, I was playing a roguish pirate in a vaguely “Pirates of the
Caribbean” game setting and I was doing well.
I had just finished my side quest. I had needed to “collect” some
money from a deadbeat for my gangboss and had picked up about 35
pieces of silver that I “found” lying around (in someone else's safe),
as well as notes that would aid us on the final encounter.
I needed to refresh my Reason pool and gambling seemed to fit
the bill.
Then it struck me, if I lost my money gambling, it would make
it easier to fulfill the conditions of my Key of Greed in the next
scene.
So, that's what happened. I said, “my character gambles until he
has about 5 silver left” the SG says, “you don't want to roll for it?”
“No, but I do want to meet someone interesting or find
something out about the slave trader in town. I am trying to make
it easier to double my money for my Key of Greed.”
This floored him for a second, he checked the wording of the
key and then said, “That's awesome, you are now a high roller at
the casino/hotel in town.”
This exchange was short but sweet, but the point is, there is no
“cheating.” Use your character creatively and try and see how the
here is no cheating; or if various mechanics work together to make interesting and active

T there is, I didn’t do it.

Honestly.
characters.

Dave M

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 VII
OF DEFENSE
Keys and Experience
might be simply wasting his time
until he gains some real martial experience
(and experience points), for example.
Variant: Slower XP
Slowing down the rate of experience gain
artificially is not a good idea; the system
works best when the players score
points at the rate they find comfortable.
Regardless, the group may find that
they want their campaign to proceed
slower than the default; this would allow
for more setting exploration and
development of character depth, which
many would prefer to having the
campaign be finished quickly.
The simple and quite painless
solution to this is to change the default
Advance cost: the default cost is tuned to
a practical minimum, which means that
most groups will find characters gaining
several Advances per session. This is
easy to change into a more leisurely pace
by making Advances more costly.
As a rule of thumb, consider upping
the cost of an Advance in five point
increments. Always use the same
Advance cost for all characters in the
campaign and do not change any other
constants (e.g. Key Buyoff).
The best way to find a good Advance
cost for a group is to start the campaign
at 5 XP per Advance and go up at
intervals if the characters seem to be
gaining too many Advances. Going above
20 XP is probably not a good idea even
then, though.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Losing Benefits
A basic principle of Solar System is that
characters do not usually lose Advances in a
haphazard manner: if a character comes to
a situation in the fiction that necessitates
losing some benefit, the player regains the
equivalent number of Advances. For
example, should a character own a valuable
item that is represented by a Secret, he’d
regain the Advance from the Secret if the
item was lost somehow.
The only exception to this general rule is
that when characters set aside some aspect
of their being in full cognizance, the Story
Guide does well to determine whether the
character retrieves any Advances. Often a
Secret that might be discarded in this
manner makes special note of it. The SECRET
OF NOBILITY, for instance, might specify that
characters who commit heinous deeds and
are judged for that by their liege lord may be
divested of the Secret without receiving
recompense. Regardless, the player needs to
always know of the potential Advance loss
before making the pertinent choices.
A separate issue is that character cannot
usually voluntarily remove benefits (and
regain Advances) just like that. Removing
benefits is only possible when it would make
sense in light of the events in the game:
giving away a treasure is a common
example.
Transcendence
TRANSCENDENCE is the natural end-point of a
character’s story. The current context
54
becomes meaningless for the character who
surpasses his limitations and leaves the
campaign for something more. It is a
combination of mechanical and narrative
pressures telling the player that it is time to
make some final decisions over who and
what this character is about.
The Transcendence happens when the
character achieves the result of
TRANSCENDENT (7) in an Ability check made
for any reason. This is only possible for
GRAND MASTER (4) characters rolling a perfect
result, so a beginning character won’t be
achieving Transcendence. However, as a
campaign progresses and characters
develop strength, it is only a matter of time
before one is pushed to break all boundaries
in this manner. A player might intentionally
delay Transcendence by investing Advances
in lateral development, but likewise another
player could go directly for the ultimate
power. Thus reaching Transcendence might
take anywhere from one session to a score of
them for a given character.
When a character Transcends, that
means the end of the campaign insofar as
that character is concerned: the player has
until the end of the current session to tie off
any loose ends and exert the influence of the
character before narrating his final fate: the
character might become a powerful
secondary character, disappear into legend
or get taken into the heavens, all depending
the campaign setting and situation.
A player with a Transcending character
has the right and obligation to narrate his
character’s last moments in the campaign.
Generally speaking this means that any
outlying issues that concern primarily that
character should be determined by the
 VII Keys and Experience
player without further interference from the
rest of the group. It is also traditional for the
player to narrate one permanent change to
the setting wherein the character’s influence
turned the world; Transcendence never
passes without a mark. Starting or ending
wars, overturning a scientific paradigm,
healing a culture or inspiring a religion are
not out of the ordinary in a campaign with
Variant: Transcendent Play
Usually Transcendent characters do not
need conflicts or Ability checks; the
player just narrates how the characters
goes out of play. This narration might be
paced through the session and reach out
considerably from the conditions of the
Ability check that caused the
Transcendence.
However, in some rare situations
there might be need for conflict with
Transcendent characters, such as when
another player character is tangled with
the goals of the Transcendent. The
following rules may then be used:
The player of a Transcendent
character never rolls the dice, he is
always assumed to gain a +3 result.
Conflicts cannot be extended with a
Transcendent character. Transcendent
characters refresh all Pools between
scenes. The only exception is that
Transcendent characters conflict with
each other normally.
The Story Guide probably should
never have secondary characters engage
a Transcendent character in conflict.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
an epic tone, should the player do good with
the groundwork, earlier.
There is a bitter side to the
Transcendence as well, however, and the
player should not forget that. Being too large
for the world means that those issues that
can’t be set right just by stepping up and
declaring a solution will now be left
unresolved. A big part of pre-Transcendence
play is having the forces of the setting
pressure the character into taking his stand
and Transcending before he is ready, before
he is in place, before he can travel to his
home for one more time. It’s up to the player
Variant: Reincarnation
Some players do not feel like having their
character Transcend yet. The solution is
simple: do not roll a TRANSCENDENT check
result. Not raising an Ability to GRAND
MASTER (or using Abilities at that level
only reluctantly) makes this pretty easy.
Raising an Ability to Grand Master is like
saying that your character’s story is
almost done.
Often, though, the better question to
ask is why a player doesn’t want his
character to Transcend. The reason
might be something that doesn’t really fit
the ethos of the Solar System, like
wanting to immerse in the character
persona indefinitely in a campaign
without an end. The reason might,
however, as well be that the player has
more ideas and new stories for the
character.
55
how he deals with these themes, but the
whole group is free to proffer suggestions!
Having a character leave the campaign
via Transcendence doesn’t have to end the
campaign; the player might well create a
new character that approaches the setting
and the current focus of play from an
interesting, new direction.
Wrapping up the campaign
The Solar System does not really address
how and why the individual campaign
actually ends. It is common for a player or
In the latter case a group might,
depending on the particulars of the
campaign, agree that characters that
Transcend in a certain manner might return
to play as beginning characters; for example,
a character that discarded his body to
become an AI in a scifi game might return as
a new character. Such returning characters
are rebuilt as new characters and do not
retain any mechanical benefits. It depends
on the particular case how much of the
character is still the “same” as before.
(An alternate way of transforming the
character is to simply halve all Abilities,
rounding down, and lowering all Pools to
1/2/3 points. This method preserves
Secrets, which might be important for the
character to “feel” right.)
 VII Keys and Experience
the whole group to be satisfied with the
game at some point, which is always a good
time to stop. This might even be in the
middle of a session sometimes, when the
players only then realize that all the good
stories have already been told and it’s time
to wrap up this particular game.
Usually campaigns do not naturally end
as long as there are open dramatic issues
still unresolved in the game. Some groups
might benefit from keeping explicit note of
whether there are still knots untied just so
they can roughly estimate when the game
approaches its end. Keeping the issue on the
table good ways before the actual end
ensures that everybody is on board when
the closure finally comes.
Other groups prefer to plan for the long
term, or at least presume that the game will
go on for a long while yet with no agreed-
upon ending. This usually ends up with the
game “drying up” by implicit consensus
when the players each individually lose
interest and fail to arrange for a new session
for some time. This method lacks the explicit
and satisfying epilogue a deliberately ended
campaign gets, but some players feel that
this is preferable to “jinxing” a game by
agreeing on an end in advance; after all, the
game might continue to even greater
adventures if it weren’t amputated un-
naturally!
However, assuming that the group is
interested in orchestrating an ending,
sometimes players have some slight
difficulty with characters who Transcend at
different times. What should a player do
after his character Transcends?
One approach is to simply create a new
character and continue play from a new,
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
different viewpoint. This works if there are
still interesting angles in the setting and
situation to be addressed, and if the
campaign is not already winding down. If
there is not sufficient space in the campaign
narrative for a new protagonist, however, the
new character might be doomed to a
supporting role from the start.
A variant that works sometimes is for the
characterless player to promote a secondary
character already established in the
campaign into his new character. An
important antagonist might be very
rewarding to play in the twilight sessions of
an extended campaign, as making the
character into a player character gives him
new depth and direction that might work for
some excellent turns. Likewise, a long-term
side-kick or ally of a character, perhaps the
player’s own, has already established
motivations and a role in the story.
Another method is to make the
characterless player into a Story co-Guide
while the game approaches an end. There’s
certainly enough work for several players in
framing scenes, playing secondary
characters and doing all those other things
the Story Guide does. The Story co-Guiding
role is also very flexible in that the multiple
Guides may split up their tasks very fluidly,
ranking from extensive audience partici-
pation to intensive directorship. The original
Story Guide might even opt to take up a new
player character to make the switch
complete.
56
 8 The campaign had shaped out into a “Space Now” type affair, with player characters
ever is man as spiritual as
N when he meets his limits,
except when surpassing them.
Eero Tuovinen
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
involved in ground control, shuttle missions and, ultimately, in the new Mars colonization
effort set up by the UN space agency executive founded by Mary’s lobbyist character.
Jon’s character, as well as mine, were both brave astronauts involved with the Mars
missions. We (the characters, I mean) had a bit of a personal career competition going: Eric
Tenner, my character, was a bit obsessed with expeditionism (getting his name in the
history books, like; it became an epidemic in the Mars mission on all levels during the
campaign), while Robert Byrd, Jon’s character, just wanted to be the best astronaut in the
team. At first Eric ruled the coop, being the first to set foot in Mars, but later Robert
increasingly matured into a leader type.
Anyway, the point is that Robert had improved his “Mars Research” Ability up to
Grand Master on the course of the expedition, which meant that his time was clearly
coming up. Jon was careful with using the Ability, but didn’t hesitate to go all out when
Robert, Eric and some other astronauts got stuck on Hellas Planitia after their crawler
broke down. The situation was pretty serious, as a large sandstorm was threatening the
crew and we couldn’t contact the ship, which was on the other side of the planet at the
time. Robert’s earlier mysterious dreams and other strange events got their explanation as
he finally made mental contact with the Martians sleeping far below the crust of the
planet. A bit of New Age flavour for the campaign finale, that.
The Transcendent “Mars Research” check meant that it’d be the last session for
Robert; Jon narrated how his character, deep in a trance, led the rest of our expedition to
a submartian entrance. We camped out for what must have been 40 hours or more while
the sandstorm slashed at everything outside. Inside the cave was dark, so when Robert
decided to go, nobody noticed except Eric, my character. This was a nice touch, as Eric
really did have some difficulty making the call, but ultimately he decided to let Robert
go down the lava tube.
Robert was pretty much written off as missing in action, but afterwards everybody
who was on that plateau started having those dreams he’d had. The campaign itself lasted
for two sessions more, during which it took a general turn towards spiritual stuff. The last
sign of Robert was when, in the second to last session, the astronauts were setting up to
separate some com-sats from the ship trunk: Eric, as well as the others out there, saw a
strange light phenomenon, vaguely human-shaped. It rose up from the planet and went to
Deimos, but we didn’t know what happened next.
 VIII Secrets and Crunch

Secret of Telepathy
The character masters the Memetic
Coincidence and may communicate with
others mentally. Long range communi-
cation or trying to communicate with
strangers requires RESIST (R) checks.

Secrets and Crunch

Cost: 2 Reason per scene to activate.

Secret of Training (Ability)

The character has been formally schooled in
the use of the chosen Ability. You may buy
however many bonus dice you want with
Pool points when using the Ability.

Secret of Literacy
The character knows how to read and write
any languages he speaks. Any conflicts
related to literacy are resolved with
appropriate language Abilities.
Secret of Nobility
The character gains a bonus die to any
interactions with other nobles. His blue
blood also allows him access to further
privileged crunch presumably detailed in
other campaign materials.
Secret of Pyrokinesis
The character’s psionic abilities overflow
the Memetic Plane, causing crude physical
phenomena. The character may set
flammable materials in fire with RESIST (R)
checks, but only when the SECRET OF
TELEPATHY has already been activated.
Cost: 1 Reason per scene to activate, 1
Vigor per Ability check to burn things.
Requirements: Secret of Telepathy
A central character benefit in the Solar
System are SECRETS, remarkable special
qualities possessed by characters. A given
Secret usually provides the character with
extra competence or options related to their
Ability use. Usually Secrets also require the
character to spend Pool points to power
them, further encouraging the Pool
economy.
Secrets are best explained via a series of
examples such as those displayed to the left
here. As can be seen, Secrets may allow
characters to do things that people normally
couldn’t. They are very setting-dependent,
even similar things might be done in a
different manner from setting to setting. For
example, the SECRET OF TELEPATHY would fit
pretty well in spy-ops weird fiction or pulp
stories, but not so well in superhero stories,
where telepathy is, generally speaking,
much more powerful. It wouldn’t of course
fit at all if the setting didn’t include this
manner of psionic powers. Also note the
flavour explanation, “Memetic Coincidence”,
which (along with the pertinent details of
how telepathy works) may be replaced with
the appropriate flavour for the setting.
Secrets often modify the rules of the
game for the character who possesses the
Secret. It is also usual for the Secret to have
some significance inside the setting — it’s
not just a generic mechanical bonus for the
character, but rather something explainable
and defined within the setting. In the case of
the SECRET OF TRAINING, for example, the
mechanical effect is paired with the idea of
formal training, thus giving the campaign
using it one axis of separation for
emphasizing the difference between the
lucky amateur and formally competent.

58
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
 VIII Secrets and Crunch
Which Abilities would be appropriate to be
formally trained in this manner would,
again, be a setting matter.
Secrets do not always concern Pool
expenditures, they might be purely about
character capabilities. The SECRET OF
LITERACY would be appropriate for a primitive
fantasy setting where literacy might be an
interesting game issue, but not enough so to
warrant an entire Ability devoted to it. The
last sentence of the Secret description may
well be ignored for settings where linguistic
issues are not actually a matter of conflict at
all; in many cinematic settings language
issues are actively ignored in preference to
weightier matters. The reader has probably
noticed this in how Hollywood movie heroes
never seem to encounter people who don’t
know English when they go to Cairo.
Secrets may have special requirements
for when a character may have them or
when they can be used. Secret descriptions
favor implicit rules implementation and
simplicity of description, which means that
the advanced implementations of a Secret
are not necessarily spelled out in its text.
For example, in the case of the SECRET OF
PYROKINESIS, it could be used by the
character against hard-to-burn materials
with circumstance penalties, although that
has not been explicitly stated. Likewise, the
Story Guide would be very likely to set Harm
as part of a conflict where a pyrokinetic
threatened to set another character in fire.
In general, any new uses of Abilities defined
by Secrets work by the same rules normal
Ability checks do.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Learning Secrets
The concept of character advancement is
very important in the Solar System, and
nowhere as much as with Secrets. While
Secrets are not mandatory for a character to
transcend, they certainly often are when a
character wants to make something of
himself. As the experience rules have it, a
character can’t get the SECRET OF NOBILITY by
just declaring it to be so and paying an
Advance for it; rather, the character would
have to somehow get to be part of the noble
class in play, details depending on the
setting. For some settings this might even be
impossible or nearly so: in the modern era,
for instance, especially the highest echelons
of traditional European nobility are
judicially closed to new entrants.
In general, each Secret should only be
introduced into play with a firm
understanding of the context it has in the
setting: where does it come from? Who know
it? How is it transmitted? The answers to
these questions are instant fuel for certain
sorts of campaign as characters strive to
conquer the Secrets they need.
Developing new Secrets
Turn to page 86 to see a small list of generic
Secrets easily adapted to specific settings.
They can also be used as a baseline for what
might be appropriate in terms of character
empowerment for the typical adventure
fiction settings. While usable as mechanical
inspiration, though, putting this array of
59
Secrets into use without winnowing leads to
a somewhat colourless game.
All Solar System campaigns are generally
predicated upon the group developing their
own Secrets in step with their developing
understanding of the setting at hand. A
ready-made setting such as THE SHADOW OF
YESTERDAY will include dozens of appropriate
Secrets and whole sub-systems accessed via
the Secret system, but even then the group
is presumed to let their understanding of the
setting determine what kind of Secrets they
let their characters have, not the other way
around.
New Secrets are easy to create by
modeling them upon the samples in this
book and the many hundreds of examples
available in the Internet. Generally
speaking, the following are some of the
baseline effects a Secret might typically
have:

Gaining a permanent bonus die to a
specific use of an Ability is the “power
baseline” of Secrets as illustrated by the
rather generic SECRET OF SPECIALIZATION.
Other Secrets that empower Abilities in
winning conflicts should be similar in
power.

Buying bonus dice with Pool points at a
1:1 rate is the basic exchange rate
allowed by Secrets such as the SECRET OF
TRAINING. Other Secrets that cost Pool
points or give bonus dice are easy to
balance against it.
 VIII Secrets and Crunch

Gaining a minor special skill is typical of
Secrets, illustrated by the SECRET OF
LITERACY. While the skill itself is bestowed
by the Secret, using it in conflict will still
require the use of some appropriate
Ability. As a rule of thumb, if the main
effect of your new Secret is some special
ability in the fiction (as opposed to
mechanical effects), adapt the SECRET OF
TALENT (page 86) as per it’s own pricing
guidelines.

PENALTY DICE are not bought at 1:1 with
Pool points in most settings; the dicing
odds and bonus dice being generally
more common in the Solar System mean
that penalty dice are more efficient in
most situations. As long as Secrets
providing penalty dice are not readily
available, consider adding a 1 point
surcharge on effects that create penalty
dice.

A main purpose of Secrets is to allow
characters to spend Pool points to power-
up their actions; favor Pool costs as
limiting features for Secrets.

Do not discount Pool costs because a
Secret has many or difficult requirements
to obtain. Price all Secrets in terms of
Pool and other costs based on how big a
deal using the Secret should be during
play.

Be careful of creating Secrets that only
work in extended conflict or other specific
situations. They might work really well,
but only if the group is committed to
using those systems actively.
An important principle in thinking about
Secrets is giving specific mechanics an
exciting flavour by aligning the setting’s
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
fictional properties with the Secret
mechanics. For example, the existence of the
SECRET OF TRAINING in a given campaign does
not mean that it should be available for all
Abilities; if such training is only available
from government agencies and only for
SHOOTING GUNS (I) and MARTIAL ARTS (V), that
creates a fruitful asymmetry with all the
other Abilities in the game and allows a
strong character for the government
resources.
Advanced Crunch
This booklet, being intended as a generic
overview of the Solar System, doesn’t really
address the full scope of crunch possibilities
of the system. Such possibilities need to be
discovered in relation to actual setting
concerns, as creating long lists of Abilities,
Secrets and such without knowing anything
of the setting and campaign framework
would be entirely futile. I cannot know what
kind of “vampires” or “G-Men” a particular
campaign would require, as I do not know
what kind of thematic motifs or other
concerns they would be supposed to drive.
That being said, creating crunch is fun
and useful, especially if you want to start a
new campaign without getting a ready-made
setting such as THE SHADOW OF YESTERDAY.
Therefore, here follow several examples of
how individual fictional concerns might be
translated into rules crunch for different
campaigns.
The following advanced implementations
of the rules-system range over all sorts of
rules concepts detailed earlier; the reader
should at this point be familiar with the
60
whole array of rules introduced in the
preceding chapters to understand what is
going on here.
Balancing New Crunch
Balancing Secrets in the Solar System is
not very difficult to do in rough terms;
fine-tuning, on the other hand, is
unnecessary, because the Secret
landscape actively evolves during a
campaign and never stays exactly the
same from one campaign to another.
A Secret might be considered
“unbalanced” if all players want to have
that Secret solely for the mechanical
benefits it proffers. A “non-sensible”
Secret, on the other hand, is one that
doesn’t make sense to some of the
group. If a player has trouble with a
Secret, work to correct it before
introducing it to play.
If the group deems a Secret too
powerful after some play, it’s pretty
simple to remove it and regain the
Advance. If the group wants to keep the
Secret, though, consider increasing its
Pool cost by one point and playing a bit
more. A balanced cost/benefit situation
should emerge sooner or later.
 8 OK, so the group had individually gone on side quests and had all
love it when a plan comes
I together. Goes without saying
that it rarely does.
Dave M
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
collected different info about the big bad voodoo mama Madame
Pearl. She ran the swankiest brothel at the top of the hill. And each
of us had figured out a way to get in. For instance, my high roller
status with the gamblers meant I could easily find someone to vouch
for me.
We had figured out how to sneak in, how to navigate the maze
of deathly vails and free the spirits she kept as working girls. We
even were able to eventually find out how to navigate to her private
quarters. We made it to the quarters just fine. It was almost too
easy.
When we were ready to leave, that's when She appeared...
There hadn't been many extended conflicts and I think Doyce
was fired up to give it a proper go in this encounter. But he hadn't
counted on me!
I had been saving my pool points for just such an occasion. I
spent 3 Instinct points and used Secret of Contacts to reveal Pearl as
an ex-lover.
“Masha, is that you, I haven't seen you in ages! Still up to the
same old tricks, eh?”
“You! You snuck off in the middle of the night, you old
tomcat!”
I “distracted” her while the group took her artifact and escaped
intact. And the next morning I snuck off too...
 VIII Secrets and Crunch
Secret of Equipment
The character possesses a rated piece of
equipment, represented by a freely
preserved Effect. (If the character creates
the equipment himself, he has to create the
Effect as well with a suitable Ability check.)
The Effect level determines how many
ratings the equipment has; the player
creating the equipment may choose one of
these while the Story Guide allocates the
rest. The equipment may be damaged or
destroyed by attacking the Effect normally.
Secret of Gadgeteering
The character is skilled at creating useful
jury-rigged equipment on the spot using his
technical Abilities and available materials.
The player makes an Ability check and
writes that down as an Effect which
represents the equipment. The Effect level
determines the maximum number of
ratings the created equipment may possess.
Cost: 1 Reason per equipment rating level
(1 for a +1 rating, 2 for +2, etc.)
Secret of Equipment Use (Ability)
The character is skilled at making use of
available tools. When the character uses
equipment DECLARED by the Story Guide as
rated, the player may add higher rating
values related to the declared rating, for
this character only. The ratings need to be
usable with the chosen Ability and have to
be specializations of the declared rating.
Created ratings last for the scene.
Cost: 1 related Pool for a +2 rating, 3 for a
+3.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Equipment ratings
The simple way to handle character
equipment in the Solar System is with
Effects — a character with a letter of marque
might “spend” it in convincing a governor of
his credentials, for example, having to
reneve it by corresponding with the capital
later.
There are alternatives, however, which
might become interesting for campaigns
where players want more distinction
between temporary preparations like Effects
and more permanent types of equipment. Or
players might simply decide that the Terran
Space Service uses Effect values to
represent their equipment, while the space
aliens use EQUIPMENT RATINGS; whatever
works for an individual campaign.
The EQUIPMENT RATING is a value in the
range +1 – +3, combined with a short phrase
describing where it might be applicable. For
example, a simple sword might have an
equipment rating “+1 to injure men or
beasts”. This sword would then be
applicable when the character using it tried
to injure men or beasts with it.
Furthermore, the equipment’s scope
depends on the rating as follows:
+1 rating applies to certain sorts of activity,
with the scope roughly similar to an Ability.
Examples:

A musical instrument for a +1 when
making pleasurable music.

A Brahmin caste mark for a +1 when
interacting with people.

A shield for a +1 when protecting one-self
from attacks.
62
+2 rating only applies in specific
circumstances, akin in scope to the SECRET
OF SPECIALTY. Examples:

Snowshoes for a +2 when moving in
snow.

A haute couture dress for a +2 when
interacting with high society.

A rifle loaded with hollow-point bullets for
a +2 when shooting soft targets.
+3 rating applies in very specific
circumstances that rarely come up of their
own accord. Examples:

A filter mask for a +3 when breathing
mustard gas.

A Masonic certificate for a +3 when
interacting with other Freemasons.

A magical amulet for a +3 when travelling
along a Ley line.
Variant: Declared Equipment
If the group decides to use equipment
ratings, they might also want to have
them appear by DECLARATION: according
to this rule, the Story Guide may assign
a temporary +1 rating to any equipment
at will when he feels that the equipment
is conferring a significant advantage to a
character. Higher ratings need to still be
created in other ways.
The benefit of this rule is that
equipment ratings are brought into the
game much more frequently and in a
more “realistic” manner. It means
slightly more responsibility for the Story
Guide, however.
 VIII Secrets and Crunch
A single piece of equipment may have
several ratings, of which one is used in a
particular situation. An equipment may
have at most three +1 ratings, two +2 ratings
and one +3 rating.
When the equipment rating counts for an
Ability check and the check is successful, the
player may add the rating to the check
result. This may not increase the result past
ULTIMATE (6), however, and one check may
only be affected by one equipment rating.
Additionally, a piece of equipment may
be used passively against another
character’s Ability check when the rating
applies to the situation and the equipment is
defensive in nature. Passive equipment use
deducts the equipment’s value from the
opponent’s check result, down to a
minimum result of MARGINAL (1). The same
piece of equipment may never be used both
actively and passively simultaneously, but
it’s quite feasible to have two separate
equipments that both apply to the same
conflict check, for example.
Drugs
Drugs, including medicines and poisons,
have pride of place in a great variety of
literary genres from pulp fantasy to modern
speculative fiction. Being as common as
they are, I thought that they’d make a good
example of advanced crunch, easily
adaptable to most settings in some way.
Drugs are also very versatile, able to heal,
hurt or simply confuse or entertain,
depending on what the people of the setting
can do pharmacologically.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Primitive settings use Abilities such as
HERB LORE (R) to create drugs. Simple drug
is an Effect created by the practice of the
Ability. The Effect has an appropriate name
such as “Black Poiture” or “Hashish” and is
normally usable for bonus dice in healing,
poisoning or whatever it is the drug is
supposed to do. Players making one-off
drugs could just use generic names like
“Hallucinogenics” in describing their Effects.
(As always, you don’t strictly need to
make the check result into an Effect if the
Herb Lore (R)
Familiarity with the varied plant life of the
primitive society, their effects on humans
and growth patterns. This Ability could be
used to collect rare herbs or keep a garden.
Climate and ecology would make obtaining
some sorts of herbs more difficult than
others.
Secret of the Apotechary
The character is schooled in creating drugs
and thus able to make his drugs infinitely
more specific in application by utilizing the
apotechary drug effects. The character is
also schooled in distilling drugs and may
learn the ALCHEMY (R) Ability.
Alchemy (R)
The character knows how to distill drugs
into more pure forms. The resulting
infusion is liquid and needs to get into the
bloodstream by ingestion or injection to
take effect. Only highly skilled apotecharies
learn this stuff in less advanced settings.
63
drug is consumed immediately, as a normal
Ability check.)
The player may describe what kind of
drugs his character is trying to collect when
making the Ability check; the Story Guide
may then apply conditional penalty dice for
rare-seeming ingredients, lacking equip-
ment or other conditions.
The method of application for simple
drugs depends entirely on the Ability and
methods used to create them. Herb drugs
are usually chewed or smoked, for example.
Secret of Metastasis
The character may add more Apotechary
effects to his distilled drugs past the first
two at the cost of stability.
Cost: 1 REASON and 1 penalty die to any
Alchemy checks with the distillation for
each extra effect.
Secret of the Serpent Blade
The character may boil down a drug
infusion into a sticky paste with a success-
ful ALCHEMY (R) check, applicable to edged
weapons and preserving near indefinitely,
until the edge pierces skin. The infusion
Effect is spent as bonus dice and replaced
with the poisoned weapon Effect for free.
Cost: 1 Vigor
Secret of Drug Digestion
Constant use of high-grade drugs allows
the character’s physiology to shrug off
adverse effects of Apotechary drugs: the
player may pay Vigor to lower Harm caused
by drug use on a 1:2 basis. The character
might still suffer from other ill effects that
do not cause Harm, though.
Cost: 1 Vigor per 2 lowered levels of Harm.
 VIII Secrets and Crunch
APOTECHARY drugs are the next step from
simple Ability use, obtained from the SECRET
OF THE APOTECHARY. A drug created with this
Secret works normally as an Effect, but also
has special effects from the Apotechary list
below.
Each drug created by an Apotechary may
have one effect chosen by the player and
must have one deleterious effect (chosen by
the Story Guide) for the imbiber. All effects
Apotechary List

One bonus or penalty die to all
checks associated with a specific
Pool.

Increase the potential Harm caused
by the drug by one level.

Unconsciousness or daze.

Fogging or sharpening a sense,
causing three bonus or penalty dice to
any checks that depend on the
affected sense. Over-exposure or being
unused to the drug may turn bonus
dice into penalty dice moment-to-
moment.

Addiction, depicted as a penalty dice
pool equal to the Effect value spent
by the Story Guide whenever the
character suffers withdrawal.

Spend the Effect as penalty dice for
the imbiber instead of bonus dice for
the character who calls upon the
Effect.

Other effects are easy to include, but
don’t go overboard in any one
campaign.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
last until the end of the scene unless
otherwise determined by the Story Guide.
When creating a new drug, the player
records its name and effect for further
reference. It is notable that while an
Apotechary drug is being used, the player
does not have to spend the Effect value in
any way; he can just use the Apotechary
effects. Similarly, the Apotechary effects do
not need to be spent when spending the
Effect value normally, if the character
somehow uses the Effect to his advantage
without anybody imbibing the drug; trying
to raise money by selling the drug could be
one such situation.
When a character takes an Apotechary
drug, he makes an ENDURE (V) check against
the Effect value. If the check succeeds, the
drug only causes its positive Apotechary
effects (the target’s player chooses which
effects work, in other words), while failure
means that it causes all of its effects and the
character suffers Harm equal to the Effect
value as well.
A DISTILLED drug is created with an
ALCHEMY (R) check from herbs collected with
HERB LORE; the Herb Lore check result or
Effect is spent as bonus dice for the alchemy
check. The undistilled base drug is recorded
as well when creating a distilled Effect.
The benefit of distilling drugs is that the
Apotechary may choose both effects of the
drug freely and even make them the same
effect. The base undistilled drug affects the
effects of imbibing the drug, however: when
the patient succeeds in the Endure (V) check
against a distilled drug, he still suffers the
full effects of the base drug.
(A more modern, industrialized take on
drugs would probably get rid of separate
64
herb drug and distillation Abilities in favor of
PHARMACOLOGY (R).)
There are many other things a given
setting might do with drugs, but those need
to wait for the specific settings to flesh them
out.
Werewolves
Monsters are ever-popular, so let’s see how
one might build a set of werewolf rules in the
Solar System. This also allows us to
highlight the potential role of Keys in
distinguishing the moon-mad wolf-man
from other characters.
These werewolves are not particularly
pop-cultural, but rather the sort you find in
old European accounts. They’re blood-mad
people reveling in the lycanthropy
contracted by deliberate witchery or from
another werewolf. The line between a witch,
werewolf and a lunatic is completely vague
here, and intentionally so.
All prospective werewolves have the KEY
OF LYCANTHROPY, which rewards the character
for signs of lycanthropy in the scenes he
participates in. The trick is that nobody at
the table needs to know or determine
whether the signs of werewolf activity in the
story are caused by this character; all wolfy
stuff can potentially happen off-stage for a
long while, and when the werewolf appears
on-stage, the Story Guide may well run it
regardless of who it might be as long as the
character refuses to reveal himself.
 8 Our campaign was going to be a cyberpunkish thing in the literary vein, with all sorts of
ppression in free society
O comes not naked, but
shrouded in justifications.
Eero Tuovinen
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
future shocks and negative thinking. As I was Story Guiding, preparing some rules
crunch was part of my job description. Specifically, I was interested in Julia’s character,
who’d escaped from Fortress America and tried to set up a new life in Lebanon, where she
lived with the rest of the player characters in a big, happy commune.
Now, one of the big background deals in this particular campaign was American
fundamentalist revival, which I was more than ready to criticize in a bit heavy-handed
manner. To concretize the phenomenon a bit, I had this rogue government agency nominally
under the Surgeon General’s purview, tasked with research and investigation of “rainbow
people”. In practice the agency interned and victimized homosexuals and other politically
offensive people in the name of science. Cooky, but that’s how political scifi often is.
To give my agency some mechanical teeth, I designed a small set of crunch around
them. The centerpiece idea was “Secret of Receptor Surgery” that’d allow the trained
surgeon to rejig a character’s sexual impulses, forcing the character to buy various Keys,
albeit at reduced efficiency. The main amusement in the plan was that the powerful
American RS operatives could go around hijacking and programming characters from the
counter-culture, giving the players some pretty good reasons to loathe them. I didn’t want
a simplistic murder factory here (as one might expect from secret operatives who hijack
people), but rather a conscious medicalized bureaucracy that strived to solve the world’s
problems by fiddling with the human pleasure centers.
As the rogue agency was all about advanced brain manipulation, I also provided their
field operatives with mental conditioning via the “Secret of Impulse Surgery” used by the
operative surgeons on the field agents. This made them a bit zombie-like and scarily
inhuman as long as the Effect lasted, but otherwise they were just men in black; the
campaign wasn’t very high tech and flashy by any means.
Finally, I stole a page from The Shadow of Yesterday and allowed the master of the rogue
surgeon cabal to have the “Secret of Rerouting“, which would allow him to impose the
drastic addiction conditions goblins in Near suffer. That, and some nasty compulsions, too.
My actual plot here wasn’t even directed at Julia’s character, note, as she wasn’t one
of the rainbow people, really. However, her host commune in Lebanon certainly was,
which would give her mother in the RS operative arm some interesting leverage when she
came to get her daughter back...
 VIII Secrets and Crunch
Martial Arts
Our last example of how advanced crunch
can be used to create more intricate playing
fields are martial arts, which have become
very popular in many genres during our
generation. Similar rules are easy adapt to
other popular topics, such as wizardly
magic.
A modern setting with fire-arms and
such will probably make do with just one
MARTIAL ARTS (V) Ability, considering that
traditional armed and unarmed fighting is
not the be-all, end-all of violence in such a
Key of Lycanthropy
The character might be a werewolf; he does
not need to realize it himself. Depending on
the setting, lycanthropy could be contracted
in a totally frivolous manner, such as by not
going to church on sabbath.
1xp: Werewolves are discussed.
2xp: Signs of werewolf activity, such as
peculiar slain animals, are found.
5xp: The character is in danger of being
caught and convicted of being a
werewolf.
Buyoff: Prove that you are not a werewolf.
Key of Bloodlust
The character is a lusty, animalistic and
cruel individual.
1xp: Act in a bestial and crude manner.
3xp: Go straight for the jugular,
figuratively or not.
Buyoff: Be shamed and ashamed.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
setting. As always, other settings would have
other considerations; a game focused on
Chinese kung-fu might differentiate between
internal and external styles, for example.
MARTIAL STYLES use equipment ratings
from earlier in the chapter to make the
fighter even more powerful: each martial
school is defined by a style matrix of martial
ratings. The matrix involves three +1
ratings, two +2 ratings and one +3 rating
devoted to issues that are especially
pertinent to the particular martial arts style.
For a classical example, Shaolin Kung-fu,
below.
Secret of Lycanthropy
The character thinks he is a werewolf and
that he can change shape when alone in the
woods. The werewolf may impose the KEY OF
LYCANTHROPY with a bite in wolf-form and the
KEY OF BLOODLUST by seduction in human
form, as per the SECRET OF IMPOSITION. The
werewolf in wolf form has the Ability
BESTIALITY (V) and may not use other
Abilities (excepting Passive Abilities) in his
wolf-form. BESTIALITY starts at MEDIOCRE (0)
and gains one free Advance for every year
the character spends as a werewolf. The
character may buy unlimited bonus dice for
Bestiality with Vigor.
Requirements: KEY OF BLOODLUST, KEY OF
LYCANTHROPY
Bestiality (V)
The werewolf’s Ability at tracking, rending,
slaying, hiding, scrambling, jumping,
swimming and anything else a werewolf
might do. Specifically, Bestiality is used to
convince others that you really are a
werewolf.
66
A martial arts style need not be
complete, and not all equipment ratings
need to involve fighting in the strict sense.
Regardless, an Ability check utilizing an
equipment rating from a Martial Style is
always made with MARTIAL ARTS (V); thus a
character might use his martial skills to heal
or at least support a healing check, for
example, when the art includes medicinal
knowledge.
A martial TECHNIQUE is a Secret related to
a martial style. Generally speaking, they all
influence an extended conflict only, being
intended to be used in those important,
lengthy martial arts duels. Ideally, a martial
artist uses the relatively expensive and
powerful martial ratings of his style to win
simple conflicts, going for techniques when
the conflict extends.
Example: Shaolin Kung-fu
There are hundreds of specific styles
that claim descent from the legendary
Shaolin monastery. These styles are
generally external, Buddhist arts with
little else in common. I’m no expert on
the topic, but for giggles, here’s a sketch
of how “Shaolin Kung-fu” might appear
in a cinematic game:
+1 for health and injury recovery.
+1 for punching and kicking people.
+1 for acrobatics and gymnastics.
+2 for using the staff or spear.
+2 for positioning in combat.
+3 for fights against Shaolin stylists.
 VIIIA martial STANCE is a special kind of
Secrets and Crunch
technique that sets up an Effect for ongoing
benefit in an extended conflict. The stance
can’t be maintained for long time periods
(between scenes, say) and the same fighter
cannot use several stances at once.
Otherwise they are like other Effects and
may be spent for bonus dice, reduced by
others, etc.
The system presented here is easy to
extend with new styles and techniques as
necessary. A character might easily be an
eclectic practitioner as well, forming his own
style out of several influences.
Martial Arts (V)
An Ability representing formal training,
conditioning and experience in traditional
melee and unarmed fighting. Useful for all
sorts of punching, kicking, throwing,
locking, battlefield movement and such.
More esoteric skills such as different
martial weapons might be used to some
efficiency as well, depending on the context.
Secret of Martial Style (style)
The character has learned a martial arts
style and has access to the style’s martial
ratings when using MARTIAL ARTS (V).
Cost: 1 Pool point per rating level (2 for a +2
rating, etc.) per Ability check. Use Vigor for
fighting, Reason for healing and so on.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Sweep Technique (Shaolin)
Shaolin kung-fu has particularly powerful
sweeping techniques intended for
unbalancing and felling a careless
opponent. The sweep can be done for bonus
dice or Harm depending on the surface. The
fallen fighter needs to get up with a non-
Harming action before continuing fighting
(unless he can fight from the ground).
Cost: 2 Vigor
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE
(SHAOLIN)
Healing Points Technique (Shaolin)
The character makes one Martial Arts (V)
check to heal Harm caused by physical
injury. Each injury may only be treated
once in this manner.
Cost: 2 REASON
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE
(SHAOLIN)
Shaolin Stance (Shaolin)
A character takes the Shaolin Stance with a
MARTIAL ARTS (V) check. Turned into an
Effect, the stance may be spent to pay the
Pool costs for any Shaolin Secrets on a
point-for-point basis.
Cost: 1 VIGOR and the cost of creating the
Effect.
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE
(SHAOLIN)
67
Water Stance (Shaolin)
A character takes the Water Stance with a
MARTIAL ARTS (V) check. Turned into an
Effect, the stance adds its value as bonus
dice to all Defensive Actions the character
takes as long as he concentrates on the
fight. The Water Stance is also highly
efficient against direct martial strikes and
will usually defend against those, unless
the character chooses to oppose the attack
himself.
Cost: 2 INSTINCT and the cost of creating the
Effect.
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE
(SHAOLIN)
Secret of Conditioning (style)
The character has trained extensively in a
particular martial arts style and thus gets a
1 Pool point discount for activating any
Secrets from that style. However, the
character has to train regularly to keep up
the conditioning.
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE for
the same style.
Secret of the Master (style)
The character has mastered the basic
principles of a particular fighting style. He
may use any technique from that style for a
whole scene without having explicitly
learned it previously. (Pay an Advance to
keep the technique permanently.) He may
also modify the style’s martial rating matrix
to create a new style.
Cost: 1 REASON per recovered technique.
Requirement: SECRET OF MARTIAL STYLE for
the same style.
 IX Story Guide
Being the Story Guide in the Solar System is
an important job that might be deemed a bit
more challenging that being a player. That’s
mostly because the game stumbles sooner if
the Story Guide isn’t up to the job than
when the players are not, though; if you’ve
decided to be the Story Guide, be sure to
remind the players of how the overall
success of the game is up to them as well.
Trying to make a roughly exhaustive list
of the different tasks of the Story Guide is a
bit difficult, but let’s try it regardless:

The Story Guide might do some
preparation between game sessions. This
helps him manage the rest of his
responsibilities a bit better.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Story Guide

The Story Guide presides over play and
eggs it along, kinda like a chairman who
reminds the other players to move on to
the next step. This works on both large
scale (framing scenes) as well as small
(“Whose turn is it, again?”).

The Story Guide frames scenes, which is
one half chairmanning (that “Whose turn
is it, again?”) and one half dramatic
coordination. He needs to see to it that all
player characters get meaningful
opportunities and meet interesting
situations.

The Story Guide by default plays all
secondary characters. Usually this
means making judgements over their
motivations and priorities, complemented
with a dash of play-acting.
68

The Story Guide establishes conflict
stakes and guides the narration of
conflicts accordingly. Alongside the scene
framing powers this allows the Story
Guide to pace and coordinate the process
(but not the content) of play.

The Story Guide is the traditional high
authority in any rules disagreements,
because he might be a tad more detached
and neutral. It’s not unusual for the other
players to turn to the Story Guide for an
answer in a rules tangle.
While that list of responsibilities is a bit to
the heavy side compared to what the other
players have to do, surprisingly many
roleplayers seem to like the opportunity to
flex their creative muscles and engage with
the game on this level. As all things, being
the Story Guide becomes easier with
 IX Story Guide
experience, and it is also very satisfying to
be able to facilitate an intricate dance of
words and dice for a crew of imaginative and
entertaining individuals.
Preparing for play
It is very useful for the Story Guide to know
the rules, as well as the reasons for how they
are. This is, however, a one-time task. Most
of preparations for play concern the more
interesting issue of preparing ADVENTURES.
There exists a historical precedence of
roleplaying game adventure preparation that
should perhaps be addressed in the
negative: Solar System adventures are not
prepared by thinking up a plot flowchart or
an obstacle course, which are the two
common ideas about how roleplaying game
adventures are prepared. In general, being
the Story Guide is not about controlling
anything at all; think in terms of throwing
stuff at the rest of the players and seeing
what sticks, rather than trying to control
everything yourself.
When you’re the Story Guide and you
prepare for a session of play, think in terms
of fictional ELEMENTS that you’d be interested
in seeing make an appearance in the
adventures and stories of that session.
What’s more, think in terms of what the rest
of the group might wish to see as well. You
might even ask them in general terms, but
don’t go into specifics — you’ll all enjoy the
game more when there’s a certain amount of
uncertainty and neutrality in what you
present. Surprise your friends!
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Stuff you’re interested in
Remember to prepare material that you find
interesting yourself. If the campaign is set in
an old-school scifi setting and you’re
interested in Asimov robot themes, be sure
to plan on robots: develop advanced crunch
related to robots, create some robot
secondary characters or robot programmers
or whatever, put in tense situations
involving robots. Have fun with the game.
Follow the focal points
Or, more generally, follow the setting: you as
a group started the game based on a setting
and some focal perspective upon it, like
described in “Starting a Game” on page 4. Be
sure to involve the setting and the current
focal set-up in your preparations to be
relevant; if the rest of the group is all about
laser swords and stuff, give it to them.
Also remember that the focus of a
campaign will shift over time. Adapt to that.
This is stuff you might well discuss with the
rest of the group. “So, you guys cool with
putting aside that whole laser sword paladin
thing and doing space pirates, instead?” is
the sort of general campaign planning that
might be shared with the rest of the group;
after all, the other players have, through
their characters, quite a bit of control over
what actually is relevant in the game. You’ll
save work by asking the others whether
you’re interpreting the shifting focus of the
campaign correctly.
Involve character crunch
Look at the character sheets the other
players made: what sorts of Keys, Secrets
69
and Abilities do their characters have?
These tell you a lot about the sort of material
you’ll want to prepare, as the other players
have presumably chosen them according to
what they’re interested in. Thus, for each
Key, you might ask yourself how that Key
might be relevant to the choices the
character needs to make about the material
you prepare. And for each Secret, how that
Secret allows the character an edge in
specific situations.
For example, if a character in your game
has the KEY OF BIG GAME HUNTER, you
wouldn’t go far amiss to prepare some big
game situations. Even if the game setting
fully justified having the character get stuck
in the middle of Manhattan and going to a
dress party instead, you’d be a bit of a fool
to counteract player expectations like that.
Similarly, if my character had the SECRET OF
Protagonism
I write a lot about protagonism, so
perhaps it’s wise to define that a bit in
case the reader doesn’t do literary
theory.
PROTAGONISM is the property of being
in focal moral position in a story. The
protagonist is the lead character, simply
enough; the story-teller follows his
exploits and exposes his feelings to the
audience to produce drama.
In Solar System, the player
characters are always the protagonists.
We care what they think and they have
the power to make decisions and change
the world.
 IX Story Guide
PUNCHING LIKE IT HURTS, I’d certainly expect
the Story Guide to leave some venue for
violent solutions in his preparations.
Elements of preparation
Above I discuss the guiding framework for
preparing an adventure; I should probably
continue on that a bit by describing the
kinds of things that are useful to prepare in
the first place.
Places
You’ll be needing some imaginary places
during play to frame scenes in. It depends
on the setting whether you’ll need to prepare
such or not. For example, a campaign set in
Middle-Earth or some other well known
fantasy world might arguably get by with
Examples of Places

The cold plateau of Leng, where different
realities converge. A terrible corpse-
eating cult lives there. A player
character might end up here in search
of occult stuff of some sort.

The forest of Brodwood next to the town
of Middlehaven. The idealized sort of
English forest, useful for meeting with
outlaws and other fringe people not
welcome in Middlehaven.

The space cruiser that captured the
player character in the last session has
an extended service deck with a maze of
pipes and cords.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
just the locations from the books: a scene
set in Minas Tirith, perhaps, followed by
another in the Entwoods and so on.
Even if the campaign setting does not
really describe lots of specific places, you
might get by well enough by improvising.
Film noir is an example of a genre that
doesn’t put much emphasis on specific
places: events happen in pretty generic
hotels, pubs, apartments and so on.
Barring those conditions, however,
preparing places is often just the thing a
campaign needs. You might know
beforehand that the campaign is supposed
to be all about gothic horror, but also
deciding that the first scenes will be framed
at a sleepy fishing town and that you’ll be
wanting to use a Jewish synagogue in
Prague at some point goes a long way
towards concrete preparations.
Examples of People

Annie Crook is a poor shop worker
with a terrible secret. She needs help
from a trustworthy person or her life
is soon forfeit.

The Space Duke hides behind a mask
in his effort to establish an
independent star nation. He’s
ruthless at it.

Gargamel the wizard is greedy for
gold and opportunistic as well; he
will surely act to further his
perceived interests with cunning
magics.
70
Also remember to give names to any
places you invent before play. I have this
rotten habit of doing prep in my head, which
often means that I know that I’m
introducing a hidden jungle city, but then I
don’t have any name for it and end up
putting together non-sense syllables in the
middle of play. The smart Story Guide
names what he prepares.
People
Secondary characters are absolutely crucial
to good game prep; as we’ll see later in the
chapter, it’s very difficult to function as the
Story Guide without them.
When preparing secondary characters,
plan folks who can provide ANTAGONISM and
PROTAGONISM for the player characters.
Antagonist characters are those who resist
the probable goals of the player characters.
Examples of Situations

First contact with aliens is an
excellent situation to have in reserve,
as any character will surely have
some sort of interesting reaction to it.

The character is a circus entertainer
whose best friend is “Bill, the last
buffalo”. What happens when the
ringmaster wants to put Bill to sleep
due to a long sickness?

A colossal creature approaches the
village, blocking the sun and wilting
the grain. Most anybody will have an
interest in the situation, if not the
power to do something about it.
 8 New Age spiritualism is a fascinating campaign premise, but it’s no use getting too
ambitious. There are plenty of stories in the Beat Generation and hipsters, but first I, as
the Story Guide, want buy-in: the players need to get a feel for the setting and the situation.
As one of the characters is a travelling type (driving around on his chopper, too),
obvious situation elements to prepare are different hassles with the local authorities all over
America: the ex-serviceman Jones needs to either compromise on his vagrant lifestyle or get
back up on his bike and move on. Depending on what the player is interested in, this might
involve having to separate from a nice job or a girl he’s fancying, for example. It’ll be
interesting to see if the independence and the character concept itself can withstand the
sacrifices that freedom requires during the ‘50s.
Jones will need some secondary characters as well to egg him on, but in practice I’ll
opt to work with the inspiration of the moment on that one: I know that I’ll give him an
opportunity to meet girls (demure nice ones and wild girls as well, obviously) and
masculine authority figures such as sheriffs, fathers, shopkeepers and employers on his
grand roadtrip. These may easily be pretty superficial figures, at least until Jones really
decides to latch on to a situation.
The other characters in the game will have their own stories as well. I read somewhere
that one reason history doesn’t recognize many prominent beat poet women is that they
tended to get diagnosed for insanity and lobotomized or killed off with shock treatments
in the institutions their families closed them in. Scary? I’d say that this sort of content
works well as a far-off possibility for Miss Thompson, the girl who didn’t want to be a
earn to shout first so you southern belle.

L can whisper later. Touch

comes with practice.
In practice I’ll want to think up situation elements and dramatic coordination that ties
different characters together to provide some structure for the overall campaign. This sort
of game will have a rather leisurely pace, so there’ll probably be several shifts of time and
place even during one session. It’ll be quite possible to just say that after leaving town Jones
drifts around for a couple of years, only to come back and see how things have changed.
That sort of thing helps localize events if it proves that other characters are more sedentary.
Ultimately my notion is that I can’t really prepare for those spiritual moments that
are bread and butter in Beat narratives. The characters need to find their own dharma. Of
course we’ll discuss the issue with the players and I’ll provide influences, but that’s as far

Eero Tuovinen as my role goes. (Already have a funny Chinese Buddhist oldster lined up for a chance
encounter, should I need a sudden refresh scene.)

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 IX Story Guide
Supporting characters are those who
motivate and question player characters. Of
course, the same character might well end
up as both antagonist or support at different
times.
Furthermore, when thinking of
secondary characters, look into giving them
real motivations and ties to the setting.
While you might prepare a character with an
eye towards having him resist a character’s
kingship ambitions, his actual role will only
evolve in play when the player actually
decides whether his character really wants
to be the king. If you don’t have good
motivations and ties for your secondary
characters, you won’t be able to decide upon
their actions naturally.
Situations
Finally, situations are very useful to
prepare, almost as much so as secondary
characters. A quick-thinking and expe-
rienced Story Guide might do quite well with
improvisation, but most will want to create
some situations before play.
A “situation” we’re interested in here is an
event you can frame into the game according
to the advice in chapter “Playing the Game”
on page 20. Furthermore, we want such a
situation to be both interesting and open.
An interesting situation is created by
hooking it into the issues and themes of the
setting or a specific character. For example,
women in distress are an old standby for
Story Guiding, being as that’s the sort of
stuff stories tend to include nigh-on
universally, due to how we humans are and
what interests us. A more specific take
might be to have a vampire hunter character
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find out that his mother is a vampire; this
wouldn’t necessarily be so interesting if not
for the character’s vampire hunting vocation
clashing with his mother’s condition.
The situation you create needs to be
open as well, which means that you don’t
dictate player character reaction to the
scene. Just having ninjas come in and
attack the character isn’t a situation like we
mean it, really, in that the Story Guide is
pretty much expecting a ninja fight at that
Variant: Key Elements
Most Story Guides prepare material for
play. The group may decide to reward this
preparation in the form of KEY ELEMENTS.
When this rule is used, the Story Guide
will keep a list of the elements he has
prepared for play; these are the Key
Elements. Just like Keys, Key Elements
reward experience points to the character
who trigger them:

Places reward 1 xp to the characters
who come upon them. These might be
whole new lands or rooms in a palace
— whatever the Story Guide prepared.

Persons reward 2 xp to the characters
who meet them first. In general, count
only named individuals, not extras.

Situations reward 3 xp to the
characters who experience them. See
the main text for more detailed
explanation of how to build these.
When preparing places, people and
situations, put them all on the list of Key
Elements. During play reward the
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point. If the character has some reason not
to just resolve the situation in the obvious
manner (escaping, fighting, surrendering,
failing in any of the above), then we’re
cooking: if the character could escape from
the ninjas by leaving his trusty horse to
them, for example, then the situation starts
to have some teeth. The smart reader will
see how this links up with the advice in
“Choice as Content” on page 22.
experience to characters who interact with
this prepared material.
The idea behind Key Elements is two-
fold: it supplements the experience flow
from Keys and rewards creating prepared
material as well as experiencing it. The
Key Elements list might also be helpful to
Story Guides like me who mostly work in
our heads, as it forces keeping at least a
little bit of record if we want to reward
elemental experience at all.
Usually the Story Guide will keep his
list of prepared Key Elements mostly
hidden from the other players, although
he might reveal some if he likes. Used
elements are crossed over as the
characters experience them, while
elements that go unused are carried over
to new sessions. The Story Guide might
find the Key Element list useful as a
guideline for making his preparations; if
the list from last session is nearly empty,
it might be a good idea to add some ideas
before the next session.
 IX Story Guide
Adventure map
One more thing about preparing for the
game: the above advice might all seem a bit
abstract and even difficult if you’ve not done
this sort of thing before. Thus it might be
useful to consider a specific popular method
for preparing a Solar System adventure,
called an ADVENTURE MAP. It works like this:

Write down all player characters on
different corners of a sheet of paper.
These are your protagonists the prepared
materials are supposed to interact with.

In the middle of the sheet, jot down some
interesting places and concepts from the
campaign setting. This is the MATERIAL
CORE of your adventure; just pick
something you yourself find interesting.
This is probably a strong core image of
some cool stuff you’d like to see in the
game, such as an old Russian nuclear
missile rusting out on the taiga, or
whatever floats your boat.

Around each character, write down 3-5
most interesting Abilities, Secrets and
Keys of the character. Have at least one
Key from each character, those are the
most important bits. Thus you have
focused your attention to some specific
aspects of each character.

Fill the rest of the sheet with people and
situations that connect the material core
of your adventure with the crunch of each
character. Draw connections between the
elements. Try to have around three
connections to each character.
After finishing the adventure map you have
a list of places, people and situations
connected logically (in the sense that you
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
know how to jump from one to the next
during play while still making sense) with
both the player characters and your core
material. This is usually enough for a
session or two; just make a new adventure
map when the old one runs out.
If you find an adventure map useful,
experiment with other methods as well. The
preparations that prove most useful depend
on the campaign and the group of players,
really, as there are differences in how
characters connect to the setting and how
the other players react to your provocations.
You might find, for example, that you don’t
need to particularly connect your prepared
material with individual characters, as the
other players are more than proactive
enough in protagonizing themselves.
Framing Scenes
The primary responsibility of the Story
Guide during play is to frame scenes as
described in chapter “Playing the Game” on
page 20. This is where the aforementioned
prepared material comes in: places to set
scenes in, secondary characters who
interact with player characters and so on.
Strictly speaking whatever preparations you
do as the Story Guide are just to get you
over the hurdle of framing scenes as
necessary — what sort of preparation you
need to do depends on your skills in
improvisation and the nature of the
campaign.
The overall purpose of framing scenes in
the Solar System is to address character
issues related to each player character. This
is mostly done via plot: the characters move
73
about in the setting, interact with it and
change as a result. The Story Guide can
facilitate this process by framing scenes that
are relevant to the characters; he is not so
much choosing the contents of the game
session as focusing on the bits that actually
interest the play group.
As a rule of thumb, when framing
scenes, consider three principles:

Equality is giving protagonizing attention
to all characters equally. If all player
characters have their own stories, you
might just frame scenes for each in turn
clockwise around the table, for example. If
some characters share a story, perhaps
you’ll only frame once for the two of them.
Seeding Crunch
A good general trick for adding to your
adventure map: develop nice new
crunch for your co-players and
introduce it via the adventure. Look at
each character in turn and develop
something interesting for that character:
a new spell, perhaps, or a piece of
cyberware, or a weird royal pregorative.
Then give these Secrets and other
stuff to your secondary characters and
use them against or for the characters.
Give the players an opportunity to learn
the new, sexy stuff.
If you do this right, the players might
find their characters developing in
directions they did not expect when
starting with them.
 IX

Continuity
Story Guide
means allowing the
consequences of scenes to impact the
following events. If the player character
offended his lover in the last scene,
perhaps the next one will have him
accosted by angry men-folk of the family,
for example. This should make intuitive
sense.

Interest means that the scene is
pertinent and intriguing. This is what you
prepared for in pre-creating elements
before play; all those elements were
designed to be somehow interesting for
your group.
Generally speaking, when framing scenes,
checking each of the above principles should
allow a Story Guide to have a sense for
“what to do next”, which is pretty much his
most important task in allowing the game to
go on. Usually the best bet is to priorize the
three principles in the given order: frame a
scene for the character who needs the
attention, and follow any ongoing story he
might have brewing. If nothing interesting is
going on, throw in some prepared material.
When framing scenes, note that scene
framing powers are consentual in the sense
that the framed scene needs to somehow
represent character intent: you can’t just
frame a scene into which a character would
not have walked himself.
Furthermore, the advanced Story Guide
will consider issues of DRAMATIC COORDINATION
when framing scenes, simply because the
scene framing pregorative allows him to be a
powerful force for interesting, punchy story.
By skipping past irrelevant and
uninteresting bits and putting in amazing
coincidences and other narrative
conventions the Story Guide allows his co-
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
players to cut straight to the issues they are to come to the fore quicker and with more
interested in addressing. coordination.
Doing dramatic coordination does not
mean controlling story content, however; the
Story Guide does not need to decide whether
a given character is a hero or a villain, or
whether the player character is supposed to
fall in love and save the princess or not. All
this matter of story is the purview of the
other players, the reason for their being
there and playing in the first place.
Instead, consider the following
techniques and priorities of dramatic
coordination and note how they do not
materially force the emerging plot of the
game so much as allow whatever the plot is
Backstory Authority
An important principle related to that they facilitate choices and conflict
preparing materials and framing scenes situations.
is the concept of BACKSTORY AUTHORITY. On the other hand, a player usually has
This means that whatever the Story backstory authority over his own
Guide establishes into play, he’s the character’s background, just because he’s
authority over those elements. And what the main guy when it comes to shaping the
a player establishes, he’s the authority character’s protagonism. So it’s at least
over that. polite to ask a player before revealing that
Backstory authority comes up in his character used to be a meth addict in
practical application when somebody in Bangkok during the ‘80s. The player will
the group needs to decide whether the likely accede if the suggestion stays true to
Arcturan aliens can breathe under- the character and is somehow meaningful
water, whether there’s a hospital in for the campaign.
town or whether the king happens to be The same principle works in reverse as
a red-head. Barring any setting sources, well: a player might well suggest that there
the guy to establish this stuff is the could be a hospital in town, and most of the
Story Guide; it’s just his job to provide time there is no reason not to go with it. As
meaningful scenes, part of which is to always, the Story Guide makes his decisions
determine the conditions to be such on the basis of dramatic coordination.
74
 IX Story Guide
Specific techniques of
dramatic coordination

Tight framing is when the Story Guide
skips forward into the actually interesting
interaction in the story. So when the
curious PI character goes out to find out
who killed Molly, the Story Guide does
not frame a scene at a bar where nobody
knows anything; rather, he skips ahead
to when the PI has already worked his
beat for the night and finally comes to
some place where he might dig up the dirt
he was looking for.

Dramatic coincidence is when the Story
Guide stretches believability of timing
and luck to bring dramatic issues to the
fore. Thus, when a character is going out
to slay the sheriff as revenge for
murdering his brother, but the brother is
really alive and the character just thinks
he’s dead, the Story Guide has full
authority in determining whether the
next scene is the one with the brothers’
reunion or the one with the fight against
the sheriff. How likely it is for the
brothers to meet on the road or whether
the brother would “really” revive in time
to stop the revenge or stuff like that only
matters when and if a character makes a
conflict out of it, which is again the
pregorative of the player, not the Story
Guide.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

Crossing is a special sort of dramatic
coincidence where the Story Guide
intentionally prepares backstory material
and frames scenes that tie the stories of
individual characters together. This is
key in running an interesting story with
independent player characters! When one
character is an asteroid miner and the
other is a sleek Martian businesswoman,
their stories will not cross unless the
Story Guide makes them do so by
introducing contacts in the form of
secondary character interests and
postulating effects the characters have on
each other’s lives.

Threats are another special sort of
dramatic coincidence (really, there are
whole bunch of these; I’m just trying to
get you into the mindset) where the
dragon just happens to steal the player
character’s girlfriend from the village
instead of some nameless maiden. Skitch
movie genres usually overdo this stuff, so
the wise Story Guide does some
foreshadowing and keeps to the general
style of the campaign in these matters.
It’s easy to justify all kinds of dramatic
coincidences with little thought.

Resting is deliberately withholding
consequences contrary to player
expectation in an effort to allow for
reflection and player direction. So instead
of following a scene of frantic pursuit
through the streets of Cairo with some
more of that, have the player character
stumble into a shady opium den with no
immediate danger; the end-result is that
the player gets an opportunity to evaluate
the events so far and set a new course for
his character.
75
Secondary Characters
Playing secondary characters is a most
important Story Guide task. As I described
above, there are two primary functions you’ll
want secondary characters to fulfill.

Support characters are named secondary
characters with personalities and goals.
Their goals require the aid of player
characters, so they’ll come into scenes to
make demands to the characters, thus
insisting on choices.
Untouchable Characters
An oft-stated feature of the Solar System
is that nobody is untouchable and,
consequently, nobody is meaningless.
The way Ability checks work, even the
most mediocre of characters may
overcome the most powerful entities of
the setting when the conditions are
right.
If a given genre needs absolutely
overpowering “characters” like fantasy
gods, it’s better to handle them via the
rules on conflict stakes leverage, scope
and propriety: handle such characters
not as source of adversity to be
conflicted with, but as environmental
conditions similar to gravity or light;
such gods might cause conditional
penalties to Ability checks, but could not
be conflicted against in a meaningful
manner.
 IX Story Guide
Variant: Shared Story Guiding
As the above discussion of Story
Guiding duties demonstrates, the task
is composed of several parts that might
well be distributed differently in a
particular group of players.
Some groups will consider it fruitful
to have players share in playing
secondary characters, especially if they
do not like the pure audience role
described on page 22. The benefit is
added interaction, the drawback that
players might lack the overall
perspective into what the secondary
character is supposed to be doing to
protagonize the player characters in the
scene.
Rules and conflict arbitration are
duties that nigh-on disappear in
experienced groups simply because
everybody knows where play is heading,
leaving little need for Story Guide
regulation.
Perhaps the most distinctive kind of
“shared Story Guiding” is the sort where
players distribute scene framing and
backstory authority, as well as
attendant adventure preparation duties.
This often works in turns, so that each
player acts as the Story Guide in turn on
a session-by-session basis.
Finally, any group might wish to
establish Secrets that explicitly share
Story Guiding tasks in different ways.
The SECRET OF CONTACTS (page 86) is just
such an example, seizing a small bit of
backstory authority from the Story
Guide.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

Antagonist characters resist whatever
the player character is trying to achieve.
They also have names, personalities and
goals, which is what makes them
antagonists in the first place: they want
something contrary to the player
character’s interests.
Pretty much all secondary characters that
are not significant in those ways fall into a
third category:

Extras are usually unnamed characters
with little in the way of story-significant
goals. They fill the ranks and provide
some minor support or antagonism.
Obviously enough the Story Guide won’t
know before play which characters end up
being support, antagonist or extras. That
only develops in play, even if it’s easy
enough to point these roles out afterwards.
Mechanics of secondary characters
In principle all characters work according to
the same rules, whatever their role. In
practice most Story Guides will find that it’s
a tad too dull to provide full statistics with
Pool tracking and all for their secondary
characters, especially as they are working
with an essentially unlimited budget and
thus need to just set some “believable”
numbers for the characters.
The Story Guide has the pregorative of
taking short-cuts in creating the statistics
for secondary characters. What I do myself
is, I give each secondary character a “role
keyword” which describes the character’s
competence; a normal policeman might be
“Police: COMPETENT (1)” and so on. This is
simple enough to do on the run as we play.
76
When my secondary character needs an
Ability rating for something, I assign it based
on the keyword:

If the situation calls for skills related to
the character’s role, his Ability is equal to
the keyword value.

If the situation is only partially or
tenuously related, the Ability is one rank
lower.

If the situation does not relate to the role
keyword at all, the Ability is two ranks
lower.
To avoid having to assign Pool relationships,
and to avoid excess tracking, my secondary
characters only have one Pool. I give each
secondary character a low or high general
Pool based on how deep his motivation is;
around 8 points is “high” and around 3 “low”
here. So an extra I haven’t thought of at all
before the scene would have Pool around 2-
4, while the passionate, multi-faceted
heroine would work with up to ten points.
As for Secrets, that’s where most of my
mechanical attention goes with secondary
characters: new, weird Secrets are easy and
fun to introduce via secondary characters
who have the background for possessing
them. I also give myself the pregorative of
adding Secrets on the fly as makes sense for
the character, all in the interest of saving me
from having to plan the secondary character
statistics in advance.
A special note on extras: an individual
extra set against a player character might
get statistics like above (usually quickly
followed by a name and motivation; you
can’t conflict in this game without
motivation), but when I have many, I
invariably promote one into a captain on the
spot and only use the rest of the extra mob
 8 Mark’s character was the child emperor of a morally ambiguous fantasy empire, which
ower is not influence, unless
P coupled with ability and will;
how far reaches vision?
Eero Tuovinen
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made preparing for play rather simple for the Story Guide: normal routines of childhood
are pretty easy to contrast with the requirements of rulership, and being the ruler of a
huge empire set against the the rest of the player characters would be pretty dramatic even
for a more conventional emperor.
Emperor Rama had been the ultimate ruler of the empire since his birth due to the
byzantine routines of the empire, so I couldn’t start the campaign with his coronation.
Instead, we spent some time discussing how the emperor lived and how much (or, actually,
little) of his will manifested outside the palace. We also described a couple of important
courtiers who could influence the direction of the empire in different ways. That being
done, I needed to give Rama a push to get the adventure going:
A huge empire like Rama’s wouldn’t really be fazed by the border skirmishes we’d
already depicted for other characters interacting with it in the border-marches; even a full
war would probably have little impact in the capital. What would rock Rama’s world
would be personal: a marriage proposal.
So I had these two legates come in from the Synodine Deliberative, a religious order
with significant influence in the eastern half of the empire. Alongside gifts and claims of
fealty they brought an offer of marriage for the emperor. (This was supposed to be a
modern high fantasy setting, so lots more equality for women than one might expect of
an empire; taking a wife would be a big deal for the monogamous emperor.)
I’d prepared a name and personal agenda for one of the legates, Ansi of Macabees: not
only was he there to sell the princess Koldya (a player character, incidentally) to Rama as a
potential fiancé, but he also wanted to arrange himself a place in court, preferably as some
sort of chamber minister. The other, younger legate was there just for color, or so I thought.
Mark, however, had the emperor “judge the intentions of the legates” by requiring them
to participate in his childish games. Here the younger legate proved superior to his elder ally, so
far so that the child emperor (who judged the goodness of men according to their humbleness,
as his mother taught him) decided to only listen to the younger man from then on.
As the young man had but little characterization at this point, I needed to give the
bemused Synodic Initiate a name and some sort of motivations. As it proved, he became a
good support character who gave the emperor many insights and opinions when he travelled
to the east later on, to bring peace to the rebelling tribes himself.
 IX Story Guide
as an environmental condition. The Solar
System presumes that only named
characters with individual motives
participate in conflicts: represent masses of
people as Abilities, Effects or Secrets,
instead.
Regardless of the method used in
tracking the mechanical state of secondary
characters, the Story Guide should always
set the statistics for the characters in terms
of the setting. So an influential character
should have high Abilities, a deeply
motivated character deep Pools and so on.
This is in contrast to some other games
wherein you’re supposed to balance potential
antagonists in relation to how strong player
characters are; the rules of Solar System
ensure that antagonists can’t really
overpower characters any more than they
should.
Running Conflicts
A major responsibility of Story Guiding is the
task of determining stakes in conflict, as
described on page 37 in “Conflict Stakes”.
While an experienced group will get the stakes
right most of the time even with the Story
Guide just nodding along, it’s not at all rare
that the Story Guide needs to insert some
neutral consideration in terms of LEVERAGE,
PROPRIETY and SCOPE. It’s common that a
player, advocating passionately for his
character, strives for a conflict where his
character can’t really do anything to achieve
those goals (a matter of leverage), the goals are
even not appropriate for the style of the
campaign (a matter of propriety) and even if
they were, it’d be more fun to break the
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situation down into several sub-conflicts (a
matter of scope). It is very useful to have a
neutral party formulating the stakes in this
situation.
Players might propose some pretty weird
conflicts at times, so a good rule of thumb
for the inexperienced Story Guide is to think
ahead a bit and try to imagine how the
player character acts in the fiction to
actually achieve his proposed goal. If you
can’t imagine how it would happen, ask the
player to clarify and elaborate. A player
might want a conflict where his character
“convinces the princess to go with him”, but
Story Guide Stakes
A notable sub-issue in guiding conflicts
is that the Story Guide is not at all
immune to setting “bad” stakes himself!
Rather, he should just hope that the
rest of the group has the presence of
mind to interrupt him when he starts
with the nonsense.
The most typical problem in Story
Guide stakes setting comes when the
Story Guide has not really thought out
the role and motivations of his own
characters. Solar System works in an
extremely awkward manner when
characters do not really act like
humans.
The typical example of this
phenomenon happens when the Story
Guide sets up a fight to the death
between a player character and a
secondary character without preamble
or heavy dramatic motivations. Fights to
78
I wouldn’t let that stand just like that; I want
to hear what the character is saying to
convince the princess!
Another, related issue in conflict is the
narration of conflict results. This has been
touched upon several times earlier (pages 38
and 44, say), but a specific Story Guiding
issue is encouraging and guiding player
narration: the players should be interested
in narrating the details of how their
characters win or lose conflicts, but at the
same time the Story Guide should be
invested in keeping things fair and sensible.
Especially backstory authority tends to
the death are very drawn-out affairs in this
rules-system, as all participants are
committed to going through all of their
resources before giving up. Starting one
without a good, dramatic reason is the
height of folly.
The way to avoid mismatching stakes
and situation is to not make conflicts out of
minor affairs, and to think a bit about what
your secondary characters want. The first
point helps in genres where player
characters are supposed to slay dozens of
their foes: just declare a simple Ability
check to slay the success level in extras and
be done with it. The second point helps
whenever you feel like having fanatic ninjas
attack and fight to the death: are those
ninjas really so fanatic? Why do they
attack? What would happen to a ninja who,
say, escaped? Why did you put those ninjas
in there in the first place?
 IX Story Guide
come up here as anybody might describe
how the duke’s guards acts in the situation,
while only the Story Guide has the power to
decide whether there are guards nearby in
the first place.
As the group commits to the fiction and
gets comfortable with the campaign, the
Story Guide will probably find that he needs
to do less guiding in conflict. Stakes-setting
and narrational authority are only
important in keeping the players on the
same page over why they are rolling the dice;
when the group communicates well, the
importance of this function all but
disappears.
Rules Arbitration
A final Story Guide task is arbitrating rules.
This isn’t a Story Guide task in any rules-
assigned way, but in practice it seems to
work well that the Story Guide makes the
calls on niggling details, perhaps followed by
affirming nods from everybody else. As long
as nobody questions the authority the game
won’t get stuck in questioning details, which
benefit does not depend on who actually has
the authority.
The most important bit about usurping
rules arbitration authority, whether you’re
the Story Guide or not, is to be fair,
impartial and sensible in arbitrating the
rules. If you don’t have a reason for making
a ruling, don’t do it.
One interesting stylistic issue as regards
rules arbitration is FORMALIST vs. REALIST
rules interpretation. This has to do with
case-by-case interpretation of the
relationship between the mechanics and the
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fiction. For example, a realist interpretation
of Ability ranks would be that a master
swordsman needs to have MASTER (3) rank in
his SWORDSMAN (V) Ability. The formalist take
would be that Ability rank constrains fiction
only insofar as the Ability gets used and
thus the character might demonstrate
mastery of the sword — but whether he
actually is considered a master swordsman
within the fiction (by himself, others or a
generic narrator) is ultimately unrelated to
the existence of the Ability. He might even
not have the Ability at all, losing all
swordfights, but still be described as a
master swordsman who just happens to lose
consistently in practice due to adverse
conditions of all sorts.
The point of this discussion is that while
realism is certainly instinctual, it is also not
what the rules say. The rules suggest that a
high Ability rating might imply an
experienced character and high level Harm
might imply some sort of damage to a
character; however, this default relationship
is ignored with impunity by players
describing action, as actually Ability only
confers a propensity to win conflicts and
Harm just means that the character
weakens and might get removed from play.
In actual play it is wise to follow the
default interpretations of what the die rolls
and changing numbers “mean” in the
fiction. However, it is also very fruitful to
remember the case-by-case capability to
step outside the convention and follow the
rules by the letter, instead. Often this
allows, perhaps surprisingly, a more
sensible outcome.
79
Running a campaign
Looking at the Story Guiding process as a
long-term task, generally speaking the
Guide will find his job becoming easier in
the long run: as the campaign gains in depth
and texture, there is less need to prepare
new elements out of thin air. Consequences
of past play carry the campaign as it nears
conclusion.
When planning a whole campaign,
usually the Story Guide has some notion of
what he himself finds interesting in the
setting — he has a backstory in mind. Put
that backstory in use! Don’t save it up or
pace it, but rather disclose it all as soon as
you can. The player characters should get
enmeshed in your interesting idea from the
first session on. Ideally, have them create
characters who have lead roles in that idea
of yours.
After you get that one good idea out of
your system, then it’s time to look at what
else might be done in the setting. You might
surprise yourself, and the players certainly
will.
Remember that you are not telling a
story. You are a guide, the other players are
telling the stories with the choices their
characters make. Your primary task is to set
up situations that allow them to make
choices that create story.
 8
Although
Afterword
this booklet is already
considerably more detailed than any other
single source on the Solar System, I’m not
really convinced that this is somehow the
last word on the topic; to the contrary, I find
it likely that not only old-time players of the
game, but also new readers will find
themselves inspired with many questions,
comments and disagreements over minor
and major details.
The Solar System is pretty unique in that
it is an open system freely available in
different languages and formats, applied
and adapted by interested hobbyists as
inspiration strikes us. It would thus be
foolish to set myself up as some kind of
exclusionary game guru, when there are lots
of other talented and imaginative people
playing the game as well.
That being said, I’ll be happy to listen to
comments and discuss the Solar System with
interested parties. I try to keep myself abreast
of indie roleplaying forums like THE FORGE
(www.indie-rpgs.com) and STORY GAMES
(www.story-games.com), which are both fine
places for discussing Solar System gaming
with others. I’m also personally available by
e-mail at eero.tuovinen@arkenstonepublishing.net, in
case you have any questions about the game.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Sources, Influences and Acknowledgments
The foremost source for this work is, of
course, the most recent edition of Clinton R.
Nixon’s THE SHADOW OF YESTERDAY. Any
diversions are matters of clarification or
simply differing tastes.
A secondary source is MENNEISYYDEN
VARJOT, the Finnish edition of the above I
edited to shape in 2006 myself. Strange as it
might be, I’ve returned to that text many
times in composing this one.
Many of my topics and choices in this
booklet well from diverse discussions and
The Shadow of Yesterday and Beyond
The Solar System was originally conceived
by Clinton R. Nixon as the rules-set for his
fantasy adventure game THE SHADOW OF
YESTERDAY. The game’s all about sword &
sorcery adventure stories set to modern
sensibilities with slavery and ruined
civilizations contrasted to hippy, elk-riding
barbarians. The Solar System notions of
how roleplaying goes are in full harmony
with the world of Near, the setting of the
game.
Personally I like The Shadow of Yesterday
a lot. So much, in fact, that I’m going to
continue with my revision binge and do a new
edition of the setting as well at some point in
the near future. This’ll allow us to incorporate
lots of new ideas and details people have
created for the world of Near during the last
couple of years, which should prove pretty
interesting.
80
play with people such as Sami Koponen, Sipi
Myllynen, Harald Wagener, Josh Culbertson
and others too numerous to list here. I
probably wouldn’t have bothered in the first
place without these people.
I would also be amiss in not mentioning
the extensive work of Ron Edwards and the
rest of the Forge regulars in rpg theory and
game design; most of what I didn’t
appropriate from Clinton comes from the
assorted writings of Ron, Paul Czege, Matt
Snyder and the rest of that crew.
Meanwhile, though, I encourage the
reader to use the system as he would. The
Solar System is available under several
Creative Commons licensing terms, so in
addition to all sorts of private use you may
feel free to distribute your related creations
to the wider world with impunity.
The Solar System logo shown below is
something we whipped up for use in any
future publications, websites and such that
might need to communicate compatibility
with the Solar System. Apart from using it
myself, I welcome others to use it for those
purposes as well. I’ll put it up in the net
somewhere
when I have
the time.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu81

Experience _________ Advances __________ Player: _______________

5 5 Campaign: ___________
Character: ____________

Vig or Insti nct Reas on

_Endure____________________ _React______________________ _Resist_____________________

_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________

Secrets and Keys

Harm Track
________________________________________________
3 2 1 Minor
________________________________________________ Penalty die to next check

________________________________________________ 5 4 Major
Penalty die to all checks w/ Pool
________________________________________________
6 Mortal
________________________________________________ Penalty die to all checks, pay Pool to act

________________________________________________

________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
Effects and Notes
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________
________________________________________________

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)

 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu82
These examples of typical Abilities range widely over all kinds of imaginable settings. Remember to crop and
extend the list appropriately for a Solar System campaign to reflect the actual setting!
Academics (R)
If the given campaign does not feature more
exact academic skills, then this would be
the catch-all designation for a character
with an academic background. Most pulp
adventures and such will however benefit
from some differentiation, in which case
this Ability could serve as a secondary
gauge of general education.
Amorous Arts (I)
Courtesans and courtiers well versed in
pleasing others in intimate circumstances
are a staple of many genres. Often these
skills become a linchpin of the whole plot as
characters fall in or out of love in their
complex machinations. Especially
appropriate in historical fiction, wherein
female characters have few strengths as is.
Animal Handling (I)
For more developed settings vague “animal
handling” is probably too uncharacteristic,
but high fantasy (which romantizes nature)
or pulp fiction (with Tarzan-type “wild”
characters) could well make use of some
sort of animal empathy. More civilized
settings subsume animal handling into
specific occupational skills.
Bargain (I)
While it might not suit a knightly setting,
scoundrel characters often need to know
what things are worth and what others
think they are. Whether a character can
afford something might be resolved with
this very Ability; most Solar System
campaigns track character finances in
vague, cinematic terms.
Blaster Weapons (V)
Vaguely scientific energy weapons are a
staple of space opera, so an Ability
dedicated to fighting with them could be
appropriate, presuming that the weapons
require some ability in the first place. Such
a martial art might be used to repair and
care for the weapons, as well as fighting
with them or making trick shots.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Example Abilities
Combat Experience (I)
An Ability depicting the brutality and extent
of a character’s career in war. Useful in
making the correct battle-field decisions
and not freezing up in danger. Could also
cover shootery and everything else about
soldiering if the topic was marginal for the
campaign. Relevant mostly when there are
some non-combatants in the game as well.
Conspire (I)
Some Abilities are very setting-specific. A
specific Ability for running conspiracies
successfully probably would not develop
outside a culture in constant political
upheaval of a particularly roundabout kind.
More likely, a powerful and ancient
conspiracy might well actually possess in
its folds just such a knowledge-base.
Courtesy (I)
Social skills can be categorized in all kinds
of ways into Abilities. The best results are
achieved by emulating the setting: if the
setting culture has a concept for courtesy
as something learned, then it makes sense
as an Ability. European nobility in the
modern age used to be taught exactly like
this to facilitate social interaction.
Duelling (V)
Many cultures of the past and fantasy have
Duelling traditions for judicial, social or
religious reasons. A character well-versed in
the art would have an edge in any one-on-
one confrontation with familiar weapons;
the Ability would be less useful in a chaotic
melee or unhonorable surprise situations,
though.
Equilibristics (V)
A general name for all sorts of circus acts
from acrobatics to juggling, covering a
range of entertainment gymnastics. A less
abstract name such as “Circus Acts” or
“Acrobatics” would go better in a pre-
modern context, but this sort of Ability
might go well for a modern enthusiast of
circus arts.
Flying (I)
Whether flying is a Vigor, Instinct or Reason
Ability actually depends on who is flying
and how. A flying animal would use Vigor,
while a human pilot would probably use
Instinct. A scifi space navigator could well
use Reason. Just flying a plane wouldn’t
necessarily be an Ability at all in many
genres, though, being de rigueur.
Freeload (I)
Similar to a begging skill-set but fancier:
the freeloader knows how to leech off a
living from well-off friends, paying with wit,
entertainment or perhaps minor house-
work. A feasible Ability for a social
character, sure to lead to interesting
situations if the setting has a place for
layabouts.
Gadgetry (R)
A cinematic spy or pulp adventure setting
would certainly have something for
inventing and/or operating special
equipment. The Ability would probably be
supplemented by a range of Secrets (as per
page 58). On the other hand, a more
realistic or futuristic game would work with
specific scientific and tool-use Abilities.
Goetia (R)
Ability in Goetia is knowledge of the
practices of summoning spirits, demons
and angels according to the Lesser Key of
Solomon. It is a good example of how
fantastic magical arts work better with
specific names, purposes and ties in the
setting; calling the Ability “Summoning”
would be vague in comparison.
Hard Work (V)
Cinematic heroes do not usually shine for
their stamina and perseverance in honest
work, but roleplayers luckily have more
leeway in defining what their stories are
about. A character could prosper as a
simple farmer, win a threshing contest or
impress a prospective father-in-law with
this Ability, for example.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu83
The description of each Ability is first and foremost intended to make sure the players are on the same page
over what the Ability represents in the fiction of the game. Unlike many other games, Solar System Abilities are
primarily described in fictional terms, as they do not possess any Ability-specific mechanical effects — players
have to understand what an Ability does in the fiction to gauge any mechanical consequences.
Hypnosis (R)
The Ability to control others with
mesmerism is a staple of pulp-style stories
in all genres. Classically such an Ability is
used to both harm and heal in inventive
ways, as hypnosis opens the mind in
mysterious or even mystical manner. The
Ability might have less fantastic uses in a
modern thriller sort of thing, as well.
Internet Skills (R)
A modern and near-future Ability used in
the global networks. Useful in information
and contacts search, creating web content
and understanding web programming and
protocols, as well as getting around tracing
and censorship. Computer-literate people
would all possess this Ability, but only few
professionals have higher ranks.
Kung-fu (V)
A suitable catch-all martial Ability for
characters in a Chinese historical or
fantasy game; pure wuxia might also have
Soldiering (V) and Treachery (I) as other
violent Abilities to contrast the noble
martial scholar with other ass-kicking
forces. A character’s specific style would be
depicted with Secrets, again.
Language (specify) (R)
Language-skills are an example of an Ability
that is not appropriate for a cinematic
campaign. However, an imaginative game
centered upon anthropological issues or a
first meeting between cultures would be
entirely feasible. Alternatively, an Ability for
“knowing many languages in general”
would work for adventurous games, too.
Music (I)
Music and other artistic Abilities are fun to
play with in a certain kind of dramatic
setting that allows art larger than life to be
whipped out on command to impress and
influence. The Ability is probably
appropriate in more realistic settings only if
the campaign will actually have some
substantial interest in artists and art.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Re-animate (V)
An example of a purely fantastic Ability that
undead monsters in fantasy environments
or retrovirally vitalized scifi aliens might
possess. The setting would have to
determine how the Ability works, exactly,
and when; the players can’t use the real
world as a gauge here, so all they really
have is the agreed-upon setting and fiction.
Religion (specify) (R)
A religious authority in any setting will
probably have some use for an Ability
concerning his theology, knowledge of the
rites and “strength of faith” (unless the
latter is covered by some other Ability). In
general, combining a skill-set with cultural
abilities and communal contacts like this
makes for a strong Ability.
Riding (V)
Horseback-riding is a cinematic Ability
suitable for heroes in many historical and
fantasy settings. The Ability could be used
to care for equines, escape dangerous
situations on horseback, catch escapees or
gain an edge in battle. By analogy, an
Ability for keeping and driving a car would
be quite appropriate as well.
Servitude (I)
An example of an occupational Ability
useful in some settings: understanding and
fulfilling routine commands, not drawing
the ire of the master and acting
appropriately to the station would all be
covered by this, as well as any domestic
skill sets implied by the position and
household.
Sports (V)
In general, a sporting Ability resembles art
Abilities in when and where it might work
well. A modern game, or one set in ancient
Greece, might find an Ability dedicated to
athletic accomplishment appropriate. A
campaign focusing on the matter might
even have players specify which sport their
character excels in.
Streetwise (R)
Knowing the right etiquette, people and
habits of the local criminal underworld and
the streets scene surrounding it. Could also
count for actual criminal work skills when
the campaign has no major focus in that
direction. Similar Abilities are easy to create
for other subcultures; how widely useful
each is depends on campaign focus.
Super-strength (V)
Exceptional and clearly exclusive Abilities
are possible as well, such as those a super-
hero might possess. A whole race of
creatures might have a similar Ability in a
fantasy context. The exceptional nature of
the Ability can be further emphasized by
requiring a specific Secret for characters to
obtain Super-strength.
Surgery (R)
Surgery would likely be too narrow an
occupational Ability in a modern game
(something like “Medicine” would probably
serve wider interests), but as it was a
specific, less specialized occupation in the
Middle Ages separate from the academic
physician, it’d make a fine Ability in an
historical campaign.
Vampire Lore (R)
This Ability would only be usable in a
setting where a focal point of interest was
vampirism. Entirely appropriate for a
reinterpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula,
for example, where Vampire Lore could
winnow fact from myth and allow
characters to make informed decisions
about the mysterious threat.
Woodcraft (V)
There may be many types of wilderness
survival in some settings, depending on
whether the differences between forests,
glaciers, deserts and other environments
warrant such focus. Regardless, the Ability
facilitates moving, sheltering and finding
food in wilderness environments. Hunting
might be covered as well in some settings.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu84
Adventure
The character has adventure in his blood, it
even follows him around.
1xp: Go to new places, meet new
people and live a life of
excitement.
2xp: Participate in an unlikely, yet
dramatic coincidence.
5xp: Finish an adventure.
Buyoff: Settle down for good.
Aide (to whom)
The character is in service of another. Why?
How far? What of his own judgement?
1xp: Obey the master’s order.
2xp: Suffer in service.
5xp: Save the master from a tight spot.
Buyoff: Leave service.
Alignment (choose)
The character has a D&D-style alignment,
such as “lawful” or “evil”. You know how
those work.
1xp: The alignment comes up.
2xp: You and your party act to follow
the alignment.
5xp: Sacrifice party integrity and/or
resources to follow your
alignment.
Buyoff: Change alignment.
Badge
The character is a police officer, with the
associated responsibilities.
1xp: Uphold the law.
2xp: Bend the law.
5xp: Get shot in the line of duty.
Buyoff: Change careers.
Conan
The character is Conan.
1xp: Fulfill your urges to the max.
2xp: Grasp the adventure that beckons.
5xp: Triumph over your enemies.
Buyoff: Become soft and civilized.
Conscience
The character knows right from wrong and
might sometimes even act on it.
1xp: Help the weak and needy.
3xp: Save the innocent life.
Buyoff: Ignore the cries of the innocent.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Example Keys
Criminal
The character is a hardened criminal.
1xp: Interact with criminals.
2xp: Perform a crime.
5xp: Escape justice.
Buyoff: Make restitution for your crimes.
Cripple
The character is crippled or has some other
drastic disadvantage of the sort.
1xp: The disadvantage causes
difficulty.
2xp: Substantial problems, such as
penalty dice or narrowed oppor-
tunities.
5xp: Fail in an important situation due
to the disadvantage.
Buyoff: Accept the condition.
Dark Secret
The character has a mysterious past with
terrible secrets.
1xp: Your past comes up somehow.
2xp: Clues to your past are revealed.
5xp: Your past endangers your present.
Buyoff: Confide your story to another.
Despair
The character has lost his hope and gone
nigh insane about it.
1xp: Try to convince others to stop
their futile struggle.
3xp: Give up on an important struggle.
Buyoff: Find the courage to hope again.
Duelist
The character duels frequently, perhaps
because his paid to.
1xp: Challenge somebody into a duel.
2xp: Get challenged yourself.
5xp: Kill in a duel.
Buyoff: Lose a duel.
Edge
The character has a self-destructive
lifestyle.
1xp: Act in an irresponsible manner.
2xp: Others worry of your lifestyle.
5xp: Get hurt due to your choice of
lifestyle.
Buyoff: Commit to a responsibility.
Faith (specify)
The character is strong of faith in a
particular religion or cause.
1xp: Defend the religion to others.
2xp: Convert another to your faith.
5xp: Defend the faith despite personal
danger.
Buyoff: Deny your faith.
Family
The character’s family is an important and
ever-present condition.
1xp: Have a family scene.
2xp: Argue within the family.
5xp: Sacrifice for your family.
Buyoff: Leave your family.
Fan Service
The character ends up in some pretty
compromising situations. Luckily she’s not
hard on the eyes.
1xp: You get some hot description.
2xp: A wardrobe accident.
5xp: Another character gets a solid
peek.
Buyoff: Have an explicit sex scene.
Fighting
The character is all about the bloodlust.
1xp: Attack somebody.
3xp: Win a fight.
Buyoff: Refuse a fight.
Great Power
The character has failed his conscience and
now looks for redemption.
1xp: Use your power for good.
3xp: Suffer for redemption.
Buyoff: Abandon your role in community.
Idol
The character wants to be popular.
1xp: Make sure everybody knows how
cool you are.
3xp: End up as laughing-stock.
Buyoff: Choose friends over fame.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu85
These example Keys are just a shallow flash into the possibilities. Know your campaign and pick Keys suitable
to the issues — or establish some interesting tendencies in the setting, such as having almost all Arcturans
possess the KEY OF NECROPHAGY or whatever.
Insanity
The character is quite utterly insane.
1xp: Act insane.
3xp: Hurt yourself or others due to
your insanity.
Buyoff: Recover your sanity.
Greed
Wealth is its own purpose for the character.
Will anything be enough?
1xp: Act miserly in transaction.
3xp: Bend or break honor or law for
wealth and gain.
Buyoff: Abandon your wealth.
LGBT
The character belongs in a sexual minority.
1xp: The orientation comes up.
2xp: Practice the sexuality.
5xp: You are persecuted or shunned
for your sexual habits.
Buyoff: Renounce your minority.
Mad science
The character tinkers with forces man was
not meant to know.
1xp: Have a scene at your workshop.
2xp: Use your science to solve a
problem.
5xp: Your creation runs wild.
Buyoff: Lose your laboratory.
Metahumanity
The character is a superhuman, with
wondrous powers.
1xp: Use your powers.
2xp: Overcome a challenge thanks to
your powers.
5xp: Your powers change or you learn
more of them.
Buyoff: Lose your powers.
Minority (specify)
The character is a member of an ethnic
minority or a small nationality.
1xp: Express your ethnic culture.
2xp: Your people show up in the
campaign.
5xp: Win an important struggle thanks
to your cultural strengths.
Buyoff: Turn against your people.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Monster Hunter
A monster-hunter is dedicated to protecting
humanity from the secret threat.
1xp: Discuss the monsters with others.
2xp: Find evidence of monsters.
5xp: Face a monster.
Buyoff: Become a monster.
Mythos
The character is embroiled in the study of
the Cthulhu mythos.
1xp: Read forbidden books.
2xp: See forbidden sights.
5xp: Encounter monsters.
Buyoff: Become insane.
Pacifism
The character is committed to non-violence
out of fear or principle.
1xp: Advocate a peaceful solution to a
violent problem.
2xp: Solve a violent situation without
resorting to violence.
5xp: Suffer from refusing to use
violence.
Buyoff: Resort to deliberate violence.
Party (specify)
The character is a member of a group with
overriding common concerns.
1xp: Discuss the course of the party
with the others.
2xp: Cooperate with the party to
achieve your goals.
5xp: Side with the party against your
best interests.
Buyoff: Leave the party.
Prophet
The character has the gift to see the future,
or at least he believes so.
1xp: Make a ritual prediction.
2xp: Get into trouble because of the
predictions.
5xp: Your prediction comes true.
Buyoff: Lose faith in your own prophesy.
Pugilist
The character is a practitioner of the sweet
science.
1xp: Train for a match.
2xp: Lose a match.
5xp: Win a match.
Buyoff: End your career.
Quest (specify)
The character has committed to a
significant and valorous quest.
1xp: Strive to proceed with the quest.
2xp: Succeed in proceeding.
5xp: Reach a turning point in the
quest.
Buyoff: Abandon or fulfill the quest.
Rock Star
The character is an insanely famous rock
star, with gold records and all.
1xp: Get recognized on the street.
2xp: Rock out on stage.
5xp: Break laws and morals.
Buyoff: Get into a clinic.
Sorcery
The character masters the eldritch powers
of sorcery.
1xp: Explore arcane lore.
2xp: Gather arcane implements.
5xp: Summon a demon.
Buyoff: Banish a demon.
Space Exploration
The character belongs in the Terran Space
Exploration Corps.
1xp: Come to a new star system
2xp: Land on a new planet.
5xp: Find an alien civilization.
Buyoff: Leave service.
Vow (specify)
The character has made a vow or suffered a
geas concerning certain behavior or duty.
1xp: An opportunity to break the vow
comes up.
3xp: Refuse to break the vow despite
rewards or threats.
Buyoff: Break the vow.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu86
Aide (person)
Choose an amiable secondary character
who has no Abilities higher than the
character’s. (Create full statistics for the
character if not already done.) The
secondary character is now assumed to
stick with the player character and help
him out of loyalty to common motives,
payment or other suitable motive. The aide
follows instructions for the most part; the
Story Guide may contest individual
commands with a RESIST (R) check. The
secondary character has KEY OF AIDE for
free, but may not use any other Keys; the
player character may not gain experience
due to interaction with his aide.
Avoidance (Ability)
The character knows how to pre-empt
conflict: a successful action to avoid in
extended conflict ends the conflict without
resolution. This does not prevent the
opponent from re-engaging normally, but
the fictional situation might change to
make that unfeasible right away.
Cost: 2 Pool associated with the Ability.
Background (particular)
The character’s background is exceptional
for the setting; he might be a noble in a
medieval society, for example. Any rules-
effect depends on the particular
background. A noble might gain access to
further noble-only Secrets, while a vagrant
might be able to cherry-pick Abilities from
several cultural places and a hermit might
be able to refresh his Pools with animal
companions, for example. In addition, all
backgrounds gain a bonus die for
interactions involving the background.
Blessing (Ability)
Pick a motivational Ability such as PRAY (V)
or RHETORIC (I). When exhorting a group of
other characters towards a given task with
the chosen Ability, the player may define an
Effect based on the Ability check,
representing his commitment to the task at
hand; all listeners who accept the task may
buy the Effect normally, effectively
duplicating it.
Cost: 2 Pool associated with the Ability,
plus the cost of the Effect
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Example Secrets
Bodhisattva
The character (not necessarily a literal
bodhisattva) refuses to let go, preferring to
continue in the campaign: when the
character makes a TRANSCENDENT (7) level
success in an Ability check, the player may
opt to roll additional penalty dice into the
check before accepting the result, thus
potentially lowering it from TRANSCENDENT.
Cost: 1st level Harm per penalty die.
Requirement: at least one GRAND MASTER
(4) Ability.
Contacts
The character knows plenty of people all
around. The player may introduce a new
secondary character with a short phrase or
claim a character Story Guide just
introduced as his contact.
Cost: 3 Pool, type (and mix) depending on
the nature of the relationship: Vigor for ol’
buddies, Instinct for lovers, Reason for
colleagues and so on.
Difficulty (particular)
The character has some difficulty in
comparison to others, such as being
crippled or outcast. He has managed to
compensate, however: the character may
buy unlimited bonus dice with Pool points
whenever his difficulty causes him
conditional penalties. (This does not help in
situations that disallow a check altogether.)
Additionally, the character may regain the
Advances for any benefits he cannot use
anymore due to his difficulty, as he accepts
his loss.
Estimation
The character is adept at analyzing
conditions. A successful check with the
REACT (I) Ability allows the player a number
of questions equal to the level of success
concerning the game statistics of other
characters; names of current Effects, Pool
sizes, Ability ratings, etc. are all fair game
for estimation. Obviously, this Secret is only
feasible if the group limits this sort of
information in some manner in the first
place.
Cost: 1 INSTINCT
Equipment (particular)
The character has some unusual
equipment, such as a horse (for a
medievalish setting) or anything else that
most people wouldn’t possess, really. The
character may declare and possess one free
Effect representing the equipment. (In other
words, the first Effect related to the
equipment does not cost Pool points, while
the player may also pick one such Effect
during each refresh to preserve for free.)
Cost: 2 INSTINCT
Harrying (Ability)
The character is skilled in minimizing his
losses in conflict. When the character loses
a normal conflict with the chosen Ability,
the player may opt to deduct his check
result from the winner’s check, effectively
lowering the degree of victory drastically for
all purposes. Alternatively, he may make an
Effect from his own check result.
Cost: 2 associated Pool
Imposition (motivation key)
The character has learned to convince
others of his viewpoint. A successful social
Ability check (probably resisted) forces the
target or targets to immediately obtain the
chosen Key, going into Advance debt if
necessary.
Cost: 2 INSTINCT
Requirements: possess the Key.
Incubation (Secret)
The character has a treasure map,
recording contract or other opportunity for
gaining some Secret. When the character
has made three successful Ability checks
towards the process, this Secret is
exchanged for the chosen Secret.
Mighty Blow (Ability)
The character has learned to finish what he
starts: the player may increase the level of
Harm for any Harm-causing Ability check
with the chosen Ability on a 1:1 basis with
Pool points from the associated Pool. The
Harm may not be increased past BROKEN,
however.
Cost: 1 Pool associated with the Ability per
increased level of Harm.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu87
The Secrets here are all depicted in extremely generic terms and picked for mechanical variety; in actual play
every Secret would not need to have different mechanics and they would all be much more specific in describing
both their effects and how a character might come about learning the Secret. Examples of more specific
implementations are on page 60, in “Advanced Crunch”.
Quality Construction (Ability)
The character’s genius creates especially
potent Effects with one Ability. A character
using an item, condition or other
preparation made with Quality Construc-
tion gains one more bonus die per check
when spending it for bonus dice.
Cost: 3 Reason and cost of Effect.
Retraining (Ability, Pool)
The character has an esoteric background
or special training. Pick an Ability and a
Pool. This Ability is now associated with
this Pool as well. Depending on the Ability
this might allow the character to use it in
new situations and for new purposes as
well.
Shattering (Ability)
The character is especially skilled in
destroying Effects that might be affected
with the chosen Ability. Any level of success
destroys a whole Effect, and the player may
split excess success levels against several
Effects as the situation allows.
Cost: 2 Pool related to the Ability per
affected Effect.
Specialization (Ability, specialty)
Pick an Ability and define a specialty within
the Ability. The character has a knack for
doing especially well within the specialty,
gaining a free bonus die for any Ability
check for such checks.
Skirmish (Ability)
When the character is in conflict against
several opponents while using the chosen
Ability, the opposing checks are compared
against him separately instead of support
chains. In extended conflict, the player may
pay Pool to target several appropriate
opponents with the Ability, even when the
situation wouldn’t normally warrant such.
Cost: 2 associated Pool for normal conflicts,
1 per extra opponent in extended.
Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)
Surprise (Pool)
The character is adept at disorienting his
opponents in the physical, social or
intellectual arena (choose one Pool). In
conflict, when the character surprises the
opponent, they have to respond with the
appropriate Passive Ability instead of their
intended action. This works in both normal
and extended conflict.
Cost: 1 Pool as chosen.
Survivalism (Pool)
The character tends to be always prepared,
at least in one area of life. When refreshing
the chosen Pool, the player may make a
check with the corresponding Passive
Ability to off-set the Pool costs of retaining
any Effects associated with the Pool by the
success level.
Synergy (Ability, Ability)
The character has learned to combine two
Abilities seamlessly in situations that use
both. The player may support either Ability
with the other without using an action in
extended conflict. In normal conflict check
both Abilities simultaneously and have the
worse result support the better, regardless
of the details of the situation.
Talent (particular)
The character has an interesting special
talent that allows him to do things others
couldn’t even try. The talent might not
always work as a matter of course, or might
be useful in conflict, in which case it defines
the Ability used with it. The talent does not
have further mechanical impact, however.
Cost: 1 associated Pool point for minor
tricks that are rarely useful, 2 for useful
and flexible talents and 3 for major effects
that always change the nature of the scene
when used. Add +1 for prestigious stuff that
makes other players jealous and -1 for
talents that require an Ability check to
execute most of the time.
Summoning (type)
The character has some sort of summoning
powers, like he can summon demons or
animals from the woods, creating/
introducing a secondary character. The
character makes an appropriate Ability
check to summon. The new secondary
character will have appropriate Abilities and
Advances equal to three times the initial
Ability check result, to be distributed to
Abilities, Pools and Secrets. The Story Guide
distributes half of the Advances, the rest are
chosen by the character. Summoned
characters do not have Keys. The
summoned creature does not particularly
obey the summoner.
Cost: Check result in Pool associated with
the used Ability.
Teacher
The character is skilled at teaching. When
another character learns from this one, the
student regains one experience point per
Advance spent under the tutelage.
Cost: 1 Pool associated with the method of
teaching per Advance taught.
Training (Ability)
The character has been formally schooled in
the use of the chosen Ability. You are not
limited to just one bonus die from Pool
points when making an Ability check.
Wrestling (Pool)
The character knows how to force an issue
in his chosen arena. When his Ability check
with an Ability associated with the chosen
Pool ties an opponent (in normal or
extended conflict), the player may opt to
enter into a Pool bid with the opponent
(each using the associated Pool of his
Ability): the players pay Pool points one at a
time until the opponent cannot or will not
pay. The winner of the bid is considered to
have won the check by a margin of one.
 Solar System.qxp 21.7.2008 18:53 Sivu88

Table of Contents

What is Solar System like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Ability checks in conflict . . . . . .... . . . . . . .40

Also, what is roleplaying? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Several characters in conflict . . .... . . . . . . .40
Solo conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . . . . . . .40
Starting a Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Secondary characters in conflict ... . . . . . . .41
Choosing a Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Focal Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Extended Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
Overview of the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Why extend? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42
Introducing Crunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Scope and stakes in extended conflict . . . . . .43
Initial Crunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Negotiation phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
The defensive action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
Character Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Resolving actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 Rolling a tie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Heroic Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Ending a round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46
Character Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Special actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47
Cultural Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Multiple characters in extended conflict . . . . .48
Passive Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Against Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Dividing Pools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Strategy in Extended Conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Choosing Secrets and Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16
Finalizing the character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Keys and Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
Initial situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Gaining And Using Advances . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Player character party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Advance Debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52
Losing Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Playing the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Transcendence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54
Starting up the session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Wrapping up the campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56
Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Tasks in Free Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Secrets and Crunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58
Choice as content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Learning Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Developing new Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59
Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Advanced Crunch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60
Pool Refreshment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 Equipment ratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62
Harm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63
Bird’s Eye view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Werewolves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64
Martial Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66
Ability Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
Timing and stakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 Story Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68
Narrating success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 Preparing for play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69
No suitable Ability? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 Elements of preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70
Bonus and penalty dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 Adventure map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Circumstance penalties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 Framing Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73
Supporting a check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 Secondary Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
Recording Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 Running Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78
Using Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Rules Arbitration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Running a campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79
Conflict Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36
Initiating conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36 Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80
Conflict stakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Character Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81
Leverage, propriety and scope . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Example Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82
Selecting Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 Example Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84
Resolving the conflict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 Example Secrets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86

Jan Hykel (Order #32879713)