Stats

Stat	Description
Tough	Physical toughness, resilience, strength
Sharp	Quick wit, calculating mind
Cool	Calm under pressure
Charm	Persuasiveness, etc
Heart	Emotional intelligence, creativity
Weird	Supernatural power

10 stat points at level 1, max +5. All stats increase by +1 per 2 levels.

Advancement

11 Build Points at level 1. Each one can buy:

• A skill, which grants you a new move (generally non-combat)
• A feat, which is like a skill but more combat-focused
• A power, which is like a skill but supernatural
• An enhancement, which is basically a superpower that isn't a move, and costs more than 1 BP
• Expertise in a skill: choose a sub-specialty (e.g. Astrophysics for Science, or Motorcycles for Mechanic). Take advantage to all rolls applicable to that specialty.

Rolling

All rolls are 1d20 + a stat, and are referred to as "plus (stat name)". Example:

• Roll +Tough means 1d20 + your Tough stat

Some rolls are opposed, meaning more than one person is rolling, and the higher number wins. Simple enough.

All other rolls are judged as follows:

• If the final result (d20 + stat) is less than 10, you fail, but you also gain +1 Experience.
• If the result is 10-19, you succeed, but only partially. This is called "mixed success".
• If the result is 20+, you succeed, without any of the drawbacks of mixed success.

What failure, mixed success, and complete success mean depends on the move you're using. Refer to that move's description for more details.

Special notes:

• Rolls of natural 1 can never be improved by spending Resources.
• Rolls of natural 20 can have an even greater effect than complete success, depending on context.

Moves

Everyone can do these:

• Roll +Cool to act under pressure (or help someone else)
• Roll +Tough to fight in melee (kick some ass)
• Roll +Tough to mitigate damage or endure pain
• Roll +Sharp to fire a ranged weapon accurately
• Roll +Sharp to read a bad situation
• Roll +Charm to manipulate someone
• Roll +Heart to bond with someone

Act Under Pressure

This covers trying to do something under conditions of particular stress or danger. Examples of acting under pressure are: staying on task while a banshee screams at you; barricading a door before the giant rats catch up; resisting the mental domination of a brain-worm; fighting on when you’re badly injured.

• Complete success: you do what you set out to.
• Mixed success: you succeed, but the GM is going to give you a worse outcome, hard choice, or price to pay.
• Failure: you do not accomplish what you set out to do, and the GM takes a hard move against you.

Kick Some Ass

This is used when you are fighting something that’s fighting you back.

Cost: you expose yourself to danger. The enemy harms you (except in certain circumstances).

• Complete success: you inflict harm, and gain one of the following bonuses:
  • You suffer -1 hit in return
  • Grant advantage to your next move in the encounter, or give it to another PC
  • You force the enemy where you want them
  • You inflict +1 hit
• Mixed success: you inflict harm and suffer it in return.
• Failure: you inflict no harm and suffer it in return. Enemy can force you into a disadvantageous position.

Brace For Impact

Whenever you suffer 1 or more hits, you may roll +Tough to reduce the damage.

• Complete success: Reduce damage by 1 hit (minimum 0). You acquire a bruise or cool scar.
• Mixed success: The hit is reduced by 1, but only after describing some minor, lingering injury or resource cost suffered instead.
• Failure: The hit stands.

Take a Shot

Use this move when attacking with a ranged weapon outside of reach of anyone who would fight back. If inside that range, use Kick Some Ass instead.

• Complete success: you inflict harm.
• Mixed success: you inflict harm, but only if you agree to one of the following:
  • Attack inflicts -1 hit
  • You also harm an ally within range (if applicable)
  • Your weapon jams and has to be cleared using Act Under Pressure
  • You run out of ammo and have to either find some, get some from an ally, or spend a Resource
• Failure: you don't inflict harm, and the GM can take a hard move.

Read a Bad Situation

Roll +Sharp to read a bad situation.

• Complete success: gain 3 data points (see below).
• Mixed success: gain 1 data point.
• Failure: you learn nothing useful, and GM can take a hard move such as:
  • You reveal information to your enemies
  • You get a false reading that misleads you

Data Points:

• What’s my best way in?
• What’s my best way out?
• Are there any dangers we haven’t noticed?
• What’s the biggest threat?
• What’s most vulnerable to me?
• What’s the best way to protect the victims?

Note your data points, as you can invoke them in the future. For instance, if you ask "what's the best way in?" and the GM replies "the wall looks easy to climb", then you could invoke that Data Point later to gain advantage to Act Under Pressure to climb said wall. Data Points can only be invoked once.

Manipulate Someone

This move is used when you want someone to do something for you and they don’t want to do it. To get them to do what you’re asking you’ll need a good reason. What counts as a good reason depends on what you are asking for and your relationship with them.

• Complete success: they’ll do it for the reason you gave them. If you asked too much, they’ll tell you the minimum it would take for them to do it (or if there’s no way they’d do it).
• Mixed success: they’ll do it, but only if you do something for them right now to show that you mean it. If you asked too much, they’ll tell you what, if anything, it would take for them to do it.
• Failure: they won't do it, and the GM can take a hard move such as:
  • They take offense, souring future relations
  • They retaliate, suspecting your motives
  • Someone else notices and thinks ill of your actions

Protect Someone

When someone else is about to suffer harm, and you can conceivably intervene, use this move and roll +Tough.

• Complete success: you deflect the attack harmlessly.
• Mixed success: you protect the subject, but you instead suffer the damage.
• Failure: you fail to protect the subject, and the GM can make a hard move.

If you have any supernatural Powers, you can invoke one of them and roll +Weird instead of +Tough, if it makes sense. For example, you could use Frost to create a wall of ice, blocking an attack, but you probably couldn't use Fire to block it (although maybe you could at least cause some harm to the attacker or give them an opportunity to decide not to attack).

Bond With Someone

When you have a moment to truly connect with someone--be it a long conversation on a cloudless night, or an intense firefight forcing you into close quarters, or a shared dreamstate caused by an evil psion--you can roll +Heart to bond with them.

• Complete success: take +2 Bond, and the target's relationship with you permanently improves.
• Partial success: take +1 Bond.
• Failure: you gain nothing.

Use Magic

If you have supernatural Powers, you can roll +Weird to try to do something with them other than the default use, as stated in their description.

Cost: Use Magic always has a Cost, chosen by the GM (see below).

• Complete success: it works just as you wanted (choose an Effect below).
• Mixed success: it works (choose an Effect), but you must also choose a Glitch.
• Failure: you do not achieve the desired effect, and the GM takes a hard move to describe how your magic gets away from you.

Effects

• Inflict harm (1 hit, ignore armor, magic).
• Do one thing that is beyond human limitations.
• Bar a place or portal to a specific person or a type of creature.
• Trap a specific person, minion, or monster.
• Banish a spirit or curse from the person, object, or place it inhabits.
• Summon a monster into the world.
• Communicate with something that you do not share a lan- guage with.
• Observe another place or time.
• Heal 1 hit from an injury, or cure a disease, or neutralize a poison.

Glitches

• The effect is weakened.
• The effect is of short duration.
• You take 1 hit (ignore armor).
• The magic draws immediate, unwelcome attention.
• It has a problematic side effect.

Costs

• It requires a rare or unusual material component.
• It takes a long time to cast, and you must be protected while doing so--any interruption will cause a Glitch.
• You need one or two people to help--you can't cast it alone.
• You need access to knowledge (books, a mentor, something) to cast it successfully.
• You must expend a great deal of magical energy, causing disadvantage to all uses of your power until you rest.

Skills

Skills are areas of capability that enable you take additional moves, but are not themselves supernatural.

Skill	Description
Investigate	You can roll +Sharp to investigate a mystery
Archaeology	You can roll +Sharp to learn something about a physical artifact
Hacking	You can roll +Sharp to intrude into a hostile computer system
High Society	You can roll +Charm to gain information or resources by interacting with wealthy or powerful people, or +Sharp to recall something important about one
Underworld	You can roll +Cool to gain information or resources by interacting with scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells, or +Sharp to recall something important about one
Mercantilism	You can roll +Sharp to locate hard-to-find items for sale, or +Charm to get a great deal
Animals	You can roll +Heart to calm or befriend a biological creature with emotions but sub-human intelligence
Linguistics	You can roll +Sharp to interpret a new language, or to determine if you speak an existing one already (success: conversational, mixed: halting)
Mechanic	You can roll +??? to fix machines, vehicles, etc
Research	You can roll +Sharp to learn something important given access to research materials

Feats

Feat	Description
Parry	As a reaction to a melee attack, you can roll +Tough to deflect it. You succeed if your result beats the attacker's.
Aim	You can roll +Cool to set up a ranged attack to be taken later. On success, gain +2 forward; on mixed, gain +1 forward.
Tumble	You can roll +Cool to move quickly through threatened areas
Block	As a reaction to a melee attack against yourself or a nearby ally, you can roll +Tough to mitigate the damage
Revenge	When you successfully Block, gain +1 or +2 forward to your next attack against the instigator
Shield Cover	Attacks against allies near you suffer -1

more to come

Powers

Like skills, but supernatural.

Power	Description
Emotion	Roll +Weird to cause a specific emotion in target.
Light	Roll +Weird to create light, which can illuminate or even sear
Read Thoughts	Roll +Weird to read the thoughts of an intelligent creature.
Barrier	Roll +Weird to create a barrier of force to protect someone

more to come

Enhancements

Super-powered abilities, but not moves. Also, they might cost more than 1 BP.

Enhancement	Cost	Description
Super Strength	5 BP	You can lift really heavy objects (like a car) with ease. You can wield them (unwieldy, take disadvantage) to do massive harm (either 3 hits, 2 hits+ranged, 2 hits+area, etc). You can bend bars, lift gates, etc.
Super Speed	5 BP	You move real fast.
Flight	5 BP	You can fly! About as fast as a bird. Not as fast as someone with Super Speed on the ground.
Walk on Walls	3 BP	Walk on walls and ceilings like a spider.
Thick Skin	3 BP	You reduce all damage by 1 hit.
Nigh Invulnerable	10 BP	Reduce all damage by 2 hits.
Die Hard	3 BP	You have 2 extra hits, and the disadvantages of having hits is treated as 2 less. Stackable.

Damage, Hit Points, etc

PCs have no Hit Points; instead, keep track of "hits".

• 1 hit: a light wound, distracting but not too debilitating. GM can invoke your wound to cause disadvantage to one roll per encounter.
• 2 hits: serious injuries. Take disadvantage to all rolls. GM can use a hard move to advance you to 3 hits.
• 3 hits: unable to act, save talking, thinking, and perhaps crawling. Unstable.
• 4+ hits: PC will die without immediate medical attention.

Any normal, lethal weapon designed to hurt humans inflicts 1 hit. Less-lethal weapons usually have a chance to cause a hit or not, or simply cause debilitation. Exceptionall heavy weapons might cause more than 1 hit.

Whenever a PC takes damage--be it from an enemy's weapon, or from falling, or being poisoned--they are allowed to roll +Tough to resist the damage.

• Success: They're winded, and maybe scarred, but the hit is reduced by 1, minimum 0.
• Mixed: The hit is reduced by 1, but only after describing some minor, lingering injury or resource cost suffered instead.
• Failure: The hit stands.

Armor and other protective items will grant advantages to these +Tough rolls.

Enemies

Most ordinary enemies will drop after only 1 hit. Rarely is 1 hit instantly lethal, but most combatants are not prepared to fight to the death despite injury. They will typically flee, faint, or falter in some manner.

Certain elite enemies will take the same 3 hits that PCs do. Rarer enemies--usually exceptionally large or supernatural ones--may take even more hits to defeat.

Damage

As a rule of thumb, PCs will not attain weapons or powers inflicting more than 1 hit every time they are used. If these existed, they would automatically be the best choice in the game. Rather, stronger weapons or powers should work as follows:

• To do anything better than a typical lethal weapon (e.g. more damage, longer range, etc) requires a tradeoff.
• One simple tradeoff is that a very heavy weapon (e.g. missile launcher, heavy machine gun, etc) is unwieldy, and causes disadvantage to hit, in addition to being annoying to lug around.
• Another is that the weapon or power is volatile, and has a greater than average risk to harm the wielder or their allies.

Rewards and Acquisitions

In your adventures, you may acquire some useful things, both material and intangible, such as:

• Resources
• Bonds
• Experience

Ordinary Equipment

Resources are particularly powerful or useful things--not ordinary equipment. If you're in a modern game, a handgun is not a resource, it's just a gun. A "resource" version of a gun would be a cool, extra-powerful gun you couldn't normally acquire (maybe it's magical, or uses restricted military tech).

Acquiring ordinary equipment is done through a move called Acquisition, using a special stat called Wealth, which I'm not really going to get into for now since the first game isn't going to offer a lot of shopping opportunities.

Resources

Anything more useful than what you can buy in a store with petty cash. Examples:

• A new vehicle
• A cool weapon (with advantages over a standard one, such as extra range or damage)
• A safehouse
• Access to a restricted facility which can offer repairs, trades, and services not normally available
• An ally, minion, or servant
• A trove of information that could be used to extort someone

Resources have a value measured in Resource Points, which are equivalent to Build Points. In fact, you may spend Build Points to acquire resources at a 1 for 1 rate. You may also be awarded Resources by the GM as a consequence of your actions in the game (for example, after saving the Don's daughter from a ravening monster, he grants you access to his safehouse where you can discreetly trade and repair your illicit goods and equipment).

I'll get into more detail about what this all means. For now, here's probably the first one everyone cares about:

Weapons

Ordinary weapons inflict 1 hit. Ranged weapons are also ranged (duh) and ammo-dependent. That's all.

A cool weapon can have more bonuses, based on its RP value:

Bonus	RP Cost	Description
Heavy	1	Inflicts 2 hits, but is unwieldy both to move and attack with (causing disadvantage)
Piercing	1	Invokes disadvantage on +Tough checks to brace for impact, and can ignore 1 point of damage reduction from various abilities that grant it
Guided	1	You can use Act Under Pressure to lock onto a target. Thereafter, the weapon gains advantage to attacks against that target

more to come...

Armor

quick version:

• ordinary armor grants advantage to Brace For Impact for a specific scenario; that is:
  • combat armor protects against normal weapons encountered in combat
  • space suits protect against jostling, loss of pressure, moderate radiation, etc, that you might encounter in space or starship combat
  • medieval armor protects against medieval weapons (and lesser)
• 1 RP = 1 damage reduction to a specific damage type:
  • kinetic (bullets, fists, swords)
  • thermal (plasma, fire, cold)
  • EM (electricity, radiation)
  • What is damage reduction? Well, when you use Brace for Impact with damage reduction, you can reduce the damage of any attack by the armor's DR, but a failure on Brace For Impact means the armor is damaged and no longer offers DR until repaired.
• 1 RP = 1 extra hit that your armor can tank instead of you

Experience

Whenever you fail at a move, mark +1 experience. This is not used to "level up", as that is determined by the GM based on story beats and is synchronous for all PCs. Rather, Experience is an expendable resource that can improve the results of your actions.

How it works:

• Use any move
• On failure or mixed success, you can spend 1 experience to argue for an improvement of one catgory (failure->mixed, mixed->complete)
• To do so, explain what you experienced in the past and how it gives you insight into this specific situation
• You don't have to catalog the situations that granted you experience...when you gain experience, it becomes abstract.