GENERAL PRINCIPLES
and Stoisism. The person who roll’s
The Most Important Rule: Whenever
the rules are unclear: use common
sense and personal preference. Have
fun.
Required Materials per person: Two
sets of dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and
d20), one character sheet, one mini or
totem representing the player
character, and one token.
Making a Character: Distribute 2
D8’s and 1 D4 between the 7 traits,
Body, Speed, Mind, Will,
Species/Race, Career, and Self, fill
any blank spaces with D6’s. Choose
the character’s Species/Race and
Career and fill in the associated gifts
and Skill Words associated. Then,
write 2 more Skill Words and choose 1
gift that you feel will associate best
with the personality of the character.
When choosing skills, think of any
particular verbs or descriptors that
would describe your character.
PLAYING THE GAME
Skill Checks: When a character wants
to accomplish a complicated or difficult
task, they will be asked to roll the dice
associated with one Trait and one or
more Skills. The player will roll these
dice, and if 1 rolls over the challenge
number the DM sets, its a minor
success, any success above that is
considered a ‘major’ success.
Other players can choose to ASSIST a
roll, to do that, they either make the
same roll, or a roll with similar Trait
and Skill that more matches what the
character does. If the player rolls over
a 3 on any die, the player they are
helping gets to roll one additional d8
VS. Checks: When a player is doing a
skill check against another player or
NPC, they may do a Vs. Check. In
order to do a Vs. Check, the two
combatants must roll a Trait and Skill
akin to the attack and defense. For
example, someone intimidating
someone with Body and Agression,
while the defender defends with Will
Damage: When a character suffers
highest is granted a success, if there
are multiple dice that rolled over the
opponent’s minimum, that means the
person gets multiple successes.
COMBAT
Deployment: When combat starts, set
up player characters as depicted in the
scene proceeding it.
Turn Order: Unless ambushed,
players start first. Starting with the
Players, each character and enemy
will have a turn activating. Players can
choose in any order their characters
will activate, but must take turns with
the DM activating enemy characters
until all characters are activated.
Actions: Each character is allowed to
do two actions per round. Once they
have done those two actions, an
Activation Token is placed next to
them reminding the player they’ve had
their turn.
The available actions are.
Attack: Beating a skill check or a VS
check against an opponent, each
success adding to the damage.
Move: Move your character to an
adjacent Zone
Defend: Temporarily add 2 shields.
Equip: Change weapons.
Special Action: Activate an ability
with the Special Action trait, or role
play a specific event or stunt.
MOVEMENT
Each environment is separated into
“Zones” around the size of a player’s
hand, or are different rooms. Moving
within or between adjacent zones
requires one movement. Any
environment that's considered ‘difficult’
will require two movements.
ATTACKING- When attacking, make
a skill check against the enemy’s
difficulty or a VS check, if successful,
do damage equal to the power of the
weapon. Damage is calculated by
adding the number of successes and
any additional effects on the weapon.
damage, they must roll down the die
that represents their health equal to
the damage - sheilds.
Cover: If the character is partially
obscured by an object, the skill check
required to hit them is higher
depending on how much of them is
viewable by the attacking player.
(Doesn’t count if the attacking
character is touching the cover.)
>50%- (partial cover) +1 added to the
difficulty to hit or character’s defense.
>80%- +2 (full cover) added to the
difficulty to hit or character’s defense.
100%- Unable to hit., blocked LOS.
Knocked Out: When a character’s
health die can no longer roll below 1,
the character is knocked out.
Death: Each turn after being knocked
out, a player must roll their health die,
if they roll a 2 or a 1, they are dead.
Glossary
Melee- Can attack any enemy that's
touching the base of the character.
Short- Can attack any enemy in the
same zone as long as they are in Line
Of Sight.
Medium- Can attack any enemy in the
same or adjacent zone as long as they
are in Line Of Sight
Long- Can attack an enemy in a zone
at least 1 to 2 zones away, but not the
same zone, as long as its within Line
of Sight.
Line Of Sight (LOS)- Line of sight is
obtained when an unobstructed line
can be drawn between the attacking
character and the enemy.
Stun- Anyone stunned for that round
will only have one action available to
them.
Drone- An object that can be
controlled by its owner by using its
owner’s actions as if it were its own.
Piercing- Ignores armor and cover
Spread- effects all enemies within the
weapon’s distance between a V made
by the player’s pointer and middle
finger from their character.
Vehicle- An item that a character can
enter and use their own actions to
control.
Advantage- on skill checks, add a D8
to ther roll
Disadvantage- on skill checks,
increase the challenge number, or give
the opponent one D8 to their roll.
Strong- When attacking, successes
count double.
Weak- When attacking, requires 2
successes to do 1 damage
Lucky- Always attacks with an
advantage.
Unlucky- Always attacks with
Disadvantage
Faulty- Only does WEAK attacks.
Reliable- Only does STRONG attacks.
Single Action- Requires 1 action to
reload before firing.
Compact- Doesn’t take up any
inventory space.
Concealable- Is unnoticed during
routine searches.
Single Handed- Requires one hand to
operate and use.
Dual Handed- Requires two hands to
operate.
AOE- (Area Of Effect), this means that
this attack or effect hits everything
within the specified area, usually the
entirety of a single zone, and doesn't
require Line Of Sight within the zone.
Dwindle Dice- A die that decreases in
size whenever a 1 is rolled.
DM GUIDE
Required Equipment:Rule Book, A
Privacy Screen, a deck of cards,
Notecards, pencil, tokens, and
totems/minis.
Optional Equipment: D10s, separate
deck of cards in a different color, fancy
terrain.
SET UP: When setting up, create
three custom decks, the Challenge
deck, and the Fate Deck. The
Challenge deck only contains the 4’s,
5’s, 6’s, 7’s, 8’s, 9’s and both Jokers.
The Fate Deck uses the remaining
cards from the Easy Deck, specifically
all the Aces, 2’s, and face cards.
Challenge Decks: These are
specifically used with monsters in
combat scenarios, for completing skill
checks.
Fate Deck: a special randomizer deck
to add bonuses or hindrances to
various skill checks. Face cards are 0,
while Red suits provide bonuses, black
suits are negatives
SKILL CHECK AVERAGES
Rates of success based on beating the
challenge number with entirely
unmodified stats. For a proper true
average, add 1 to each challenge to
compensate for a player character’s
bonuses.
>8 = 61% - formality
>9 = 46% - weak challenge
>10 = 32% - average challenge
>11 = 18% - proper challenge
>12 - Serious Challenge
MONSTERS
Monsters have 5 main features. Suit,
Difficulty, Health, Attacks, and Special.
Suit: if the card the monster plays is of
the same suit, it gains +1 proficiency.
Health: Represented by hearts, each
heart is 10 health points. ((D10s can
be used to help track damage))
Attacks: a list of attacks or abilities the
creature has. Unless otherwise
specified, any damage = to the
number of one card drawn from the
monster’s difficulty deck.
Special: Any ability or special rule that
applies to that particular monster.
It’s important to remember that, in any
combat scenario, the max HP of a
starting character is 41, but in the
middle of a session is much less than
that. So unless the player has shields,
a normal player character can take 3
to 5 direct attacks.
SETTING THE STAGE
The game uses zone style movement.
Basically a freeform method for tactical
fighting, or even tower defense like
encounters. A good rule of thumb is
that a zone is around the size of
someone’s open hand or an enclosed
room in more confined areas. Another
great environment that can be used is
called “The Stage”, a round
segmented board meant to abstract an
environment. In order to create a
Stage, make a terrain piece with 3
rings, one 8”, one 12”, and one 14”.
This sets up replicates that of a stage,
and should be treated like that, with
the main focus of the encounter in the
Spotlight. While the stage contains
auxiliary terrain, smaller enemies, or
represent things like hallways or small
side rooms. The Offwing is the very
outer recesses of the encounter.
Combat will rarely happen in the
Offwing, but friends and foe can be
drawn onto the stage from the Offwing.
Things like scatter terrain can help
split the stage into separate zones for
a more segmented environment. The
stage can also be split in half to create
two pre-made environments to switch
between.
Non-Combat Encounters- Various
encounters will not require combat,
some will be trying to wiggle a lock
open, another will be dancing at a ball,
and one might be sneaking into a
building. For these, a player will make
a skill check Vs 10 plus anything
provided by the Fate Deck.
Characters can attempt multiple times,
but each attempt will slowly bring the
character closer to full failure. This is
an average, and potentially can be
improved by other party members
helping.
In some cases, a Non-Combat
Encounter has stakes, even if its more
emotional or social. So in those
cases, when a player fails particular
checks, have them directly take 3
damage.
SOCIAL ENCOUNTERS- Are like non
combat encounters but are more
dependant on the role play going in.
NPCs can have 3 dispositions towards
each character, Friendly, Indifferent,
and Hostile. This can be changed via
role play, but can only be shifted up or
down one step. So it's impossible for
an NPC to go from Hostile to Friendly
in one encounter. Afterwards, the
character must complete a Skill Check
Friend Neutral Foe
F May Help Wont Hinder
Help
1 Will Help May Help Wont Help
0
1 Very Will Help May Help
4 Help
WEAPONS
Weapons are things that will determine
a character’s play style the most
GENERAL WEAPON STATS
-Hands, melee- 1 Power
-Improvised, melee, Weak- 2 power
-Compact Pistol, short range,
compact, concealable- 1 power
-Knife, melee- 2 power
-Pistol, medium range- 2 power
-Rifle, long range- 2 power
-Shotgun, medium range, spread,
distributed- 3 power
-Magnum, medium range-