Action!/System

= Value versus Range and Time =

= Actions =

Action Value
An Action Value is generated when an Action is important, using a [ Skill ] or [ Attribute-2 ] rolling a positive and a negative d10 and adding the results.

Outcome
The Action Value is compared to a Defense (or Difficulty when no opposing force is present). Any margin is called Outcome. Action Value - Defense = Outcome

Every point of Outcome adds 1 point to the Effect Value of an Action.

Defense
The value compared to the Action Value. The GM decides which Defense is applicable at which time.

Passive Defense
The normal Defense, without any modification to either Defense or Shot Count. Normally, the same Skill as the one used to create the Action Value may be used to perform a Passive Defense (See: Dodge and Willpower).

Active Defense
When you really, really want to get out of the way. Lower your Shot Count by 1 and use any applicable Skill Value+5 as your Defense until your next Action. Applicable Skills include any Skill you can get the GM to accept.

Effect Value
When the degree of success of an Action is in question, an Effect Value is created, by adding an Attacking Value to and subtracting a Defending Value from the Outcome.

Attack Value+Outcome-Defense Value = Effect Value.

The normal syntax for this is Attack:Skill+Attribute/Defense:Skill+Attribute.

Result
There are seven degrees of success:
 * Fumble. This occurs if the AV of an Action drops below 0, or a double-0 is rolled, followed by a Failure.
 * Total Failure. AV is Defense-5 or lower. The Action now counts as Hazardous.
 * Failure. This occurs if an Action's AV is strictly lower than the Defense, but higher than Defense-5. The Action fails, but does not cause any problems, and becomes One-Shot.
 * Minor Success. Less than 5 EV. No effect, but allows the player to continue without penalties.
 * Success. 5-9 EV. One short-term gain (Player is Inspired on her next Action as standard).
 * Negotiated Victory. 10-19 EV. The player and the GM negotiate a result.
 * Victory. 20+ EV, or double-0 followed by any degree of success.

Hazardous
This Action causes a Fumble on a Failure.

Experimental
This Action causes a Critical effect on all doubles.

Routine
This Action uses Static Skill Value as AV.

One-Shot
This Action may not be retried.

Stymied
This Action causes d10's to be closed. The first extra positive die is ignored, and all d10's are opened.

Inspired
This Action is rolled with an extra positive die.

Hindered
If this Action is successful, it gains -5 EV. This is not doubled by Promising.

Boosted
If this Action is successful, it gains +5 EV. This is not doubled by Promising.

Promising
If this Action is successful, it gains double Outcome.

Examples of Actions
= Kiaii! = When the going gets tough, time stands still.

Sequences
During combat, time is measured in Sequences (of Shots). Each Sequence is about 1 second per Shot. All persons act in order of their Shot Count. Each time your Shot comes up, you may make an Action (which may be a Move), and a Move. You may act at any point during your Move.

Shot Count
Your Shot Count regulates the acting order during combat, and is also a Shot pool of points usable to take out-of-sequence Actions in several different ways. At the beginning of each sequence, your Initiative is set to the number of Shots in your pool, and eventual modifiers. Your Shot Count (and Shots pool) always starts at your [ Agility+Wits+Luck ] divided by 3, rounded down. By using Actions to do non-combat activities like reloading or interacting that don't require a roll during a Seqwuence, you may raise your Shot pool by 1, up to your Shot Count.

1 Shot allows you to... 3 Shots allows you to...
 * Make an Active Defense at any time
 * Raise your Initiative for the current Sequence by 3
 * Take an extra action after your normal Initiative, with a penalty equal to the number of actions this Sequence
 * Take an Action out of Sequence after your normal Initiative.

This means that you may decide to act at anytime, using 3 Shots, then buy extra Actions at that time for 1 Shot a piece, occurring the shots past the one where you performed your out-of-Sequence Action. If two persons want to interrupt eachother, they may spend more Shots to act quicker (in essence they are raising their own Initiative).

Snapshots
You may split your Action into two or three Actions of the same type, if they require a roll. You receive a penalty for doing this. If you split your Action into 2 Actions you get -3 on both Actions. If you split your Action into 3 Actions you get -5 on all 3 Actions. This is called taking snapshots. In Heroic campaigns, this is expanded in the following way:

The reason 1 is included in this table is that this table is also used, reversed, as multi-action penalties versus unnamed characters.

Damage
''The bullets inside are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?''. When you get hit you take Damage equal to the Base Damage of the attack plus any Outcome above 0. Damage minus Toughness equals Shock Points. If at any time you receive Shock Points equal to your Health, you fall down, unable to act. Shock Points equal to your Wound Threshold also cause a Wound, and if you have Wounds equal to your Toughness, you're dying.

Normal Wound Threshold is 5.

If you do nothing but rest during a turn, you regain 1 Shock point.

Unconscious characters may roll to wake up (Focus-2 or Willpower+Focus Difficulty 15) every time someone else rolls an Action, or they wake up in 10 minutes, whichever comes first.

Normal optional rules are Wound Penalty and Shock, and Unnamed Characters.

Falling
A character takes twice the falling distance in meters in Damage. This may be lowered by a Stunt+Agility/0. Every 5 EV lowers the distance by 1.

Knockdown and Knockback
Knockdown causes you to fall down, requiring a Move to get up. Knockback is caused when you take more Damage than your Mass Value. For every 5 points of Damage more than your Mass Value, you are flung 1 meter backwards. You receive a Knockdown when you land. Knockback into a solid object causes Damage equal to the distance left to both you and the object.

Wound Penalty
For each untreated Wound received, you get 1 point of impairment, a Wound penalty.

Shock
If you are hurt and take a Wound, roll for Shock: Focus or Interaction/Willpower+Focus with a Difficulty equal to 10+5 times Wounds inflicted in this Attack. If you fail this roll, you fall down unconscious. The negative margin indicates Sequences until you wake up and the Difficulty of any Physician+Wits roll to wake you prematurely.

Stun
For every Wound you lose in a single attack beside the first, you lose 1 Shot.

Cinematic Wounds
Whenever the character takes one or more Wounds, roll Luck to see if the character gets a Cinematic Wound. The Difficulty is 5 per Wound rolled for in this instance. Eg if the character takes 3 Wounds she rolls Luck with a Difficulty of 5, 10 and 15, to see if she gets a Cinematic Wound. She may voluntarily fail this roll. Normally, you cannot receive more than one Cinematic Wound per attack.

Cinematic Wounds don't have a mechanism per se, but hamper the character in cinematic ways. Typical examples include burnt hands, broken arms and legs, blood in the eyes and twitching from electrocution. Also included are flashbacks, temporary insanity or amnesia. All cinematic wounds heal at the end of session, or when appropriate (Optional: Cinematic Wounds provide 10xp to the party when healed).

Sand In Your Teeth
Every hit causes at least 1 Wound, +1 Wound per Wound Threshold Shockpoints.

Wound Seriousness
1 Wound (Light wound) causes -1, 2 simultaneous Wounds (Moderate wound)cause -2, 3 simultaneous Wounds (Serious Wound) cause -4, 4 Wounds (Deadly Wound) -8. Only the worst wound causes Impairment. More than 4 wounds in one attack makes the character fall down, dead.

Dark Times
After every hit, roll Toughness against the inflicted Shock points in this attack. If you fail this roll, you fall down dying. Dying characters must be stabilized with a Medicine/Physician Diff 25-Health+Wounds taken within 1 hour, or die from their wounds. Use the dying table below. These rules make combat grittier, more film noir.

Unnamed Characters
There are several ways of handling Unnamed charcters, commonly known as Mooks.

Glass Jaw Mooks
Characters that have no name go down on a single Wound. They are always stunned 1 Action by a hit. If they perform an Active Dodge they also lose their next Action.

Speed Bump Mooks
Characters that have no name are handled by Static EV. Compare the Skill+Damage of a player character with a group of Mooks Skill+Soak. For every [Mook Wound Threshold] EV a Mook goes down. No roll, except for extra positive dice [I prefer this. /Oscar]. Every Action taken where the Mooks are ignored, allow the Mooks to make an Attack against the player character. Mooks also take an Action, last in the Sequence.

Alternate Combat System
All characters are ordered in Initiative order. Use initiative Cards. When a character acts, she is placed at the rear of the stack. Damage equal to Health/5 moves a card backwards in the initiative order, and if the character is moved one place backwards from last place, she is out of action( and possibly receives a Wound). An active Defense is only available if the character is not in last place and she is then moved one spot backwards from her original position. (Possibly she also counts as if she was in first place for damage purposes against the defended attack). Snapshots move you a number of cards upwards equal to penalty/3 taken on roll. Maybe there should be some padding cards that provide added Knockdowns, random effects (the cards have text printed or just 1, 2 and 3), and good old-fashioned Setbacks and extra d10s. Standard should probably be d10, Setback and Random Event (in that order). Padding cards are removed when they are reached, which makes a scene more and more dangerous. Padding could also be dramatic turn of events, dramatic bonuses and bad things for the villain. Cool.

Other types of conflicts and contests
Common examples include the ones below: Other types of Effects There many ways to solve conflicts besides physical combat. An enemy who isn't out to kill you may use other methods to stop you, and Actions may be designed to hinder the opponents in many ways. Here are some common examples: Confusing or tiring your opponent Instead of producing Wounds and Cinematic Wounds, your opponent loses 1 point of Shot Count for each 5 points of Effect Value. Your opponent also receives Shock points at a rate of 1:1, but if your Effect Value is negative, you receive Shockpoints and lose Shot Count. This type of Effect is most often produced by Action or Deceit. Social Contest The object is to reduce someone's Presence to 0. Skills used are Interaction skills or Deceit skills. Attack Values include Charisma, Manipulation and Wits, while Defense Values include Empathy and Intelligence. For every 5 points of Effect Value you lower his Presence by one, and get a temporary point of Luck that can only be used against that opponent by you or someone you give it to. This Luck expires at the end of the Session. This Effect can also be used to model Persuasion. Gambling For every point of Effect Value, you gain a Resource point, if your Resources are equal to or higher than those of your opponent he loses one instead. If anyone reaches 0, that person is broke, and current winner gains one point of Resources if the loser has lost Resources equal to those of the winner's. For every 5 points of Effect Value you gain a Fortune point or your opponent loses one. Chase The object is to reduce the opposing Vehicle's or personal Shot Count to 0. Skills used are some kind of Pursuit, Survival or Security Skill. Attack Value Perception, Intelligence, Wits, or Agility, Defense Value Perception, Intelligence, Wits, or Agility. For every 5 points of Effect per Action opponent loses 1 Shot, and for every 5 points beyond that, acting party gains 1 temporary Fortune only usable in this chase. =The Action! Deck= All Action! Cards have two things on each:
 * The Plot
 * The Action

The Plot
These plots are for the players to use, or the GM before each scenario (or session). The following plots exist right now.

Alertness
Someone notices something relevant to the current situation.

Breakthrough!
A current task or dilemma is suddenly resolved.

Campaign
Another subplot becomes semi-permanent.

Claim
You may claim participation in someone else's subplot.

Common Ground
You and the opposition find temporary common ground.

Connection
You know someone in the area that might help.

Double Cross!
You become double crossed or double cross the party. This card refills all your Point pools.

Idea!
You think of something that helps you along. Allows for permanent new things with Campaign.

Leadership
You take control of the situation. Refill one person's pool. Resolve one dilemma or cause a setback.

Martyr
You are out of the fight, but resolve the current dilemma. With Campaign: resolves the scenario, but kills you.

Mistaken Identity
You or someone else is mistaken for someone else.

Nemesis
You or someone else have a personal grudge against you or someone else.

Personal Stake
Now it's personal!

Rally
Everyone except you refills all their Point pools. You get Inspired this scene.

Romance
You or someone else find you or someone else romantically attractive.

The Shit Hits The Fan!
The situation deteriorates in a catastrophic manner. Situation also becomes Dramatic: all Actions become Hazardous and Promising.

Suspicion
You or someone else is the subject of suspicion.

The Third Man
A third party with its own agenda shows up.

The Unknown
A weird, sometimes alien, third party shows up.

Wild!
The situation becomes totally crazy. All Actions count as Experimental and Ínspired.

The Action
At the beginning of an encounter, fight or session (or whenever) the GM can draw a card to see what kind of situation this is and what Actions are approved. A player can change the card with a successful Action of the approved type.

Attack!
All Attack Actions are Inspired.

Deceit!
All Deceit Actions are Inspired.

Defend!
All Active Defenses are Inspired.

Drama!
All Actions are Hazardous and Promising.

Fatigue!
All Actions cause Fatigue.

Inspiration!
All Actions are Inspired.

Interaction!
All Interaction Actions are Inspired.

Rejuvenation!
All Actions return a Shockpoint.

Stymie!
All Actions are Stymied.

Support!
Actions that only cause impairment are Inspired.