Chapter 2: Guides of Modos
New section: General Rules
Dice
To assist with some of the decision making in the game, you and the players will use the standard types of polyhedral dice: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. Each die type usually represents a level of competence, for everything from causing damage with a spoon to insurance underwriting. These competence levels are like the level titles in chapter 3. For example, a d4 represents amateur efforts, while a d12 represents the efforts of a master.
Sometimes you'll see a bonus after the die notation, like d4+1 or d12+3. In these cases, you'll add the bonus to the result of the die roll, or after taking half. Furthermore, these bonuses do not increase the minimum progress, which is always 1.
One feature of the game is the opportunity to increase your die rolling results by using a higher die type. This usually represents a greater level of a character's competence. For example, a player might use a d8 when rolling progress for sneak contests. If that PC takes the specialize (sneak) perk, his progress die improves by one type. The player then rolls d10 for sneak contests, instead of d8. If a player already uses a d12 for progress, there is no d14 for him to use if his progress die type increases. To increase your die type beyond d12, just increase the die roll bonus by 1 for each increase. So a d12 with two die type increases would become d12+2.
Mid-Game, Counters
The Counters section is removed, in favor of the new Initiative section in chapter 8.
Mid-Game, Adjudication
Player Agency (formerly Player Delegation)
Players feel more involved and invested in the game and have more fun when they have agency: the ability to make an impact in the game. Player agency is what occurs when you take a break from the rules and let the players do some adjudicating. Here are some examples of times to grant player agency:
Character sheet elements, and the character itself, are typically flexible enough to allow interpretation by the player. For example, a low physical score isn't something you should use to decide that a PC is weak. Instead, it's up to the player to decide what that low score means. Or if an NPC waits for a PC to reveal a specific detail about heraldry, you can ask your player, "would your character know the answer to this? What character element do you have to support it?"
Whenever you're not revealing a critical storyline scene or running Pcs through something completely out of their control, players control the game through their characters. Accordingly, if the players aren't telling you what they're doing, the game isn't progressing. If a PC isn't telling you what he's up to at the time, you should be asking the player(s), "what do you do?"
Just as important as the previous question is this question, "what happens?" Allowing Pcs to describe what happens gives them ownership of the game world, strengthening their bond to it. When a player makes an attack in combat, it's not just a vanilla baseball-bat swing. Ask the player what happens – why is that attack interesting – and describe the NPC's reaction accordingly. Or if your players are in the ancient dwarf home of one of the Pcs and they set off an ancient trap, ask the PC to describe what the trap would do.
Mid-Game
Hero Point Awards
The game features an element that ties roleplaying and roll-playing together, in a way designed to strengthen the bond between player and character: the hero point (see chapter 3). For you, hero points are a way to reward players and guide their behavior in the direction you want it to go. For example, you want to run a serious scene. You could award a hero point to the player who stays in-character when other players are joking around. You can also award hero points to reinforce your
campaign theme. For example, your campaign theme describes the game as a movie about musical cartoon heroes. To reinforce this, you could award a hero point to players when they spontaneously break into song.
These uses of hero points should augment those listed in chapter 3. Remember, you have an unlimited supply to give, but Pcs have a limited number that they can keep, so give them freely. If you find that you've given few or no hero points in a previous session, it wouldn't hurt to start your next session by awarding a hero point to everyone.
Light Levels
The type and amount of lighting in any given scene is determined by the GM and Pcs. However, because lighting is usually very important to characters and their activities, the rules provide four levels of lighting that can affect the contests of characters who have difficulty seeing. These are:
Bright – Daylight or any other lighting bright enough to create shadows and illuminate up to Long range or beyond.
Dim – Full indoor lighting, twilight, or ambient bright light coming from the outdoors. Dim light casts shadows and a dim light source illuminates generally up to short range.
Dark – Moonlight, indirect lighting, or weak light sources like candles. In darkness, there's just enough light to be able to guess at what's nearby, at close range. Those who can't see in the dark suffer challenging difficulty (-4) on vision-based contests.
Black – Blackness is the complete lack of visible light, like the conditions found in caves or on some moonless nights. A lucky character can barely see something in blackness right before he bumps into it. Most vision-based contests take a difficult (-8) penalty or worse in blackness.
Post-Game
Player-Character Advancement
To reward PCs for accomplishing tasks, reaching landmarks, or just showing up to play, you can give them level-ups: the chance to increase character level by one. When you do so, the character gains another attribute point, skill point, and perk. Also, as the character level increases by one, so does that character's maximum number of hero points and skill points per skill.
The rate of leveling up depends on your campaign theme. Some campaigns feature characters who only change their relationships over the course of the game. This type of campaign wouldn't offer level-ups. Other campaigns have characters who improve their superpowers enough to destroy a galactic villain. These campaigns might award level-ups after each session. Still others reward characters on an incremental level as they learn things or do well. These could award portions of levels in the form of skill points or perks. Advance characters at a rate appropriate for your campaign, and reasonable for the players.
Chapter 3: Player-Characters
2) Assign Level
General character power is measured in character levels. A level is simply a set of character elements granted to a character – an attribute point, a skill point, and a perk. Your level is also the number of hero points you can store, and the highest number of points you can assign to a single skill. Because levels measure improvement, you can refer to specific levels with common terms for power, experience, or achievement, like those in table 3-1. Before character creation begins, the GM will tell you what level your character is. Later, you'll use that number to assign points to attributes, skills, and perks. For example, to create a 4th level character, you'll add 4 points to one or more attribute scores, 4 points to skills, and you'll pick 4 perks to add to your character.
3) Determine Attribute Scores
An attribute is a metagame, abstract measurement of a character. They are like a character's inherent power, or sometimes called stats. Each character has three attributes: physical, mental, and metaphysical:
Physical (abbreviated P) is the measurement of a character's body. It can represent well-being, strength, stamina, speed, and any other corporeal characteristics.
Mental (abbreviated M) is the measurement of a character's mind. This relates to anything like reasoning, sensing, memory, and focus.
Metaphysical (abbreviated MP) is the measurement of a character's spirit. This covers a character's charisma, soul, aura, supernatural sensitivity, and fate.
Each attribute is measured by a score. Players describe how their attributes define their characters in-game, but the attribute scores define characters in terms of rules. As a score gets higher, a character gains higher contest bonuses, more ability to take damage, and bonus actions.
Your GM will tell you how to determine attribute scores. Here are two common methods:
Average: take 8, 10, and 12 and apply them to whichever attribute you like. This method gives you a weak score and a strong score, while guaranteeing that no scores are critically low. This is the recommended method for NPC and monster creation.
Roll 3d6: to determine each score, use the result of 3d6. This method places most of your scores from 8-13. It gives you a good chance to start with scores higher than the Average method, but also gives a chance of very low scores.
Each attribute score determines a bonus that applies to all contests made with that attribute. Negative bonuses are called penalties. To find the attribute bonus for an even score, subtract 10 from the score and divide that by 2. To find the bonus for an odd score, subtract 11 and divide that by 2. For example, a mental score of 15 has a bonus of +2, or a physical score of 8 has a penalty of -1.
What the attributes mean is up to you. A character with a Physical score of 15 can be slow or fast, strong or weak, short or tall. A character with 5 Metaphysical could speak with ghosts, but as you'll see in the magic rules, become Catatonic every time he uses magic. For the most part, attribute scores are metagame rules. Collaborate with your GM, using the campaign theme, to solidify your character's attributes.
6) Prepare Damage Pools
When characters risk their well-being, they take damage. Damage accumulates in a damage pool, and when that pool fills past its limit, the character becomes disabled. Here's how it works:
Damage. A means of counting how close a character is to being disabled. Damage can be Physical, Mental, or Metaphysical, but what it means to your character is usually up to you. For example, you could play your character as increasingly crazy as he takes metaphysical damage, or your physical damage could be debilitating wounds, or simply sweat accumulation. Damage can also be labeled in other ways, like Lightning, but it always has an attribute type.
Damage Pools. To record damage, your character sheet should have a section for tallying Physical, Mental, and Metaphysical damage. You should list your defense bonus and protection near their respective damage pools as a reminder. These are discussed in chapters 4 and 8, respectively.
Max Damage. Each damage pool can hold a maximum amount of damage equal to the character's current attribute score. When a character's damage exceeds max damage, the character becomes disabled.
Disabled. A disabled character cannot significantly contribute to the story. The type of disability depends on the damage taken. Exceeding max Physical damage makes a character Mostly Dead. Such characters are severely limited physically, whether having grievous wounds, severe dehydration, or other physical problems. Too much Mental damage makes a character Unconscious, a mental disability like sheer confusion, being too stunned to do anything, or actual unconsciousness. After Metaphysical max damage, a character becomes Catatonic: his body and mind still work, but his spirit is completely broken. Catatonic characters could be crippled with sadness, void of all motivation, or simply just staring off into space.
Recovery. Recovering from Disabled can happen any number of ways, and is usually a product of GM and player agreement, and the situation. The simplest way is to assume that a character is no longer disabled when he loses some of the damage that pushed him over max damage in the corresponding damage pool. For example, Number 2259 fell unconscious when a lunar Cereclops mind-lashed him, causing him 5 Mental damage, which was 3 more than his max. If Number 2259's exo-suit activates its neuro-nano-bots, healing 2 points of Mental damage, he'll have 2 less than max damage, and no longer be Unconscious. By default, characters lose (or "heal") damage naturally at the following rates: Physical and Mental damage at 1 per day, and Metaphysical damage at 1 per hour. Note that the term "health" can be used to measure how much damage a character hasn't taken; if a character with 15 max Physical damage has 10 Physical damage in the pool, you can say that he has 5 Physical health.
Chapter 4: Skills
Skills – Common Skills -
Knowledge (type) - M
Knowledge (lore) is a new knowledge type, while Knowledge (scholarship) has been revised.
Knowledge (lore)
You have paid attention to tales, rumors, and legends. Knowing lore means knowing helpful information that people don't write down, like people's relationships, what part of the countryside is dangerous, and what's the best festival for lifting some purses.
Knowledge (scholarship)
You have spent time studying books, being tutored, or listening to lectures. Use this skill to produce information that is most likely found in an old book, or to write a book. This includes, but is not limited to, any topics not covered by the four profession skills (artist, craftsman, healer, scientist) like history, heraldry, and law.
Magic (spell name) - SK – MP
Many special abilities (spellcasting, hi-tech, psionics, superpowers, etc.) use this skill. A different magic skill must be learned for each spell that a character wants to know. Using this skill while wearing no armor and no shield grants a +2 bonus to your contest. When you use the Magic skill you lose Metaphysical health, taking 1d8 + (spell level) Metaphysical damage when the spell occurs. See the Magic chapter for more information on spellcasting. Opposing this skill depends on the effect of the spell, but is usually a defend skill or another Magic contest.
Chapter 5: Perks
Perks – Gaining Perks
Perk Tree – REMOVED. If a perk can be taken multiple times or has prerequisites, its entry will say so.
Attribute Point (attribute)
This perk increases one attribute score by one point. This perk may be taken again and applied to any attribute.
Backstabber
Your damage rolls gain +2 when you use tiny or small weapons and your opponent does not react to your attack, i.e. use an action to avoid your damage.
Dual Wielder
If you wield a second weapon, you can use it as a shield that grants +1 to your Defend (Parry) contests.
Karma (renamed Ki Strike)
When you roll to cause Physical or Mental damage, you may choose to deal one point of Metaphysical damage instead.
Lucky Day
If you take damage and become Disabled in any attribute, you may immediately spend a hero point to undo that condition. Taking subsequent damage will Disable you as normal.
Mana
You gain +4 to your Metaphysical max damage. You may take this perk again to continue increasing MP max damage.
Martial Artist
When unarmed and unarmored, your unarmed attacks deal d6 damage and your Physical protection is d4.
Owl's Eye
In Black light level, you see instead at Dark light level, at Close range. Taking this perk again extends Dark vision to the next range increment.
Set to Stun
When you roll Physical damage, you inflict one point of Mental damage as well.
Skill Point (skill)
This perk adds one skill point to a skill of your choice. It may be taken again and applied to any skill.
Specialize (Skill)
You have great potential with a particular skill. With this skill, your max number of skill points are not limited by your character level, you may treat the skill as though you have Specific Knowledge of it, and your progress die is one type greater than normal. For example, if Merloon gains Specialize (Magic [Ice]), he can cast the spell without having a skill point in it, his damage die would be a d10, and he could add future skill points to the spell even if they would exceed his level. Taking this perk again applies it to a different skill.
Stubborn
You gain +4 to your Mental max damage. You may take this perk again to continue increasing M max damage.
Toughness
You gain +4 to your Physical max damage. You may take this perk again to continue increasing P max damage.
Weapon Training (Weapon Focus renamed)
