NyarlathoTech
Rules are mostly going to be from DFRPG, with a few tweaks and a couple of inclusions from Bulldogs!. If something isn't clear, get a hold of those books (or I can lend you my copy)!
Chargen
Power Level: 7 refresh, 25 skill points, skill cap at Great.
Stress: 2, by default (see Endurance, Presence, Conviction)
Aspects: 6
What Is Your Deal?
High Concept: Your first aspect. Sums up what your character is about - what and who he is (Ex-OOI Mage Hunter, Green Fury Acolyte, Undergraduate Summoner, etc.)
Trouble: What complicates the high concept. (Mean Drunk, Tempation of Power, Angered Yog Hadar)
Phase 1: The Backstory
A short summary of your character's early life, from youth to young adulthood (where applicable), plus one aspect related to it.
Phase 2: The Pilot Episode
The time when your high concept started to come to the fore, or some other major event which shaped you. Pick a related aspect again!
Phase 3: Your Last Big Case
Your first real adventure! What happened? What did you do? How did it affect you? What aspect did you get from it?
Phase 4: Retconned In The TV Show
Each character contributes a minor, supporting role in another character's first adventure, adding a short sentence to explain how your paths crossed. Hey guess what, you got an aspect!
Phase 5: Crossover Fanfiction
Repeat Phase 4 with someone else!
Skills
Alertness
Alertness is a measure of your character’s passive awareness—his ability to stay on his toes and react to sudden changes in his environment. In short, it is the perception skill to notice things that you are not looking for. High Alertness characters strike early in a fight, tend to pick up on details of a scene simply by entering it, and are rarely surprised. They include bodyguards, outdoorsmen, and sneaky criminals.
Avoiding Surprise
Whenever the trap is sprung in an ambush, you can make one final Alertness check against the Stealth of your attacker in order to see if you are surprised. If you fail this check, roll all your defenses as if they were Mediocre for the first exchange. If you succeed, you may defend normally at your full skill levels.
Combat Initiative
Alertness determines initiative (order of action) in any physical conflict. To minimize the dierolling, your group can use the listed value for everyone’s Alertness to determine the order of everyone’s actions.
Passive Awareness
You will rarely ask to roll Alertness—if you are actively looking for something, Investigation (page 133) is usually more appropriate. Alertness is reactive perception. That is, Alertness is more appropriate for things that you do not expect or are not looking for—such as the spiked pit trap in the hallway you’re casually walking through. It’s a skill that, typically, the GM calls for you to roll.
Athletics
Athletics measures your general physical capability—except for raw power (which is Might) and stamina (which is Endurance). Athletics covers running, jumping, climbing, and other broadly physical activities you might find in a track and field event. Characters with high Athletics move further and faster than the rest of us, making it difficult to catch or hit them in a fight—think of athletes, soldiers, and outdoorsmen.
Climbing
Athletics is the skill used for climbing. The GM sets the difficulty for how hard it is to climb a given obstacle. At the GM’s option, you may use shifts to speed the process if you succeed.
Dodging
You can use Athletics as a defensive skill to respond to physical attacks. This works very well in conjunction with taking a full defense action (yielding a +2 to the roll). The one important thing to note is that taking a full defense action means that you can’t use Athletics for other things, like sprinting—though as with all skills, you can move one zone as a supplemental action by taking –1 to the roll for your main action.
Falling
When you fall, you may roll Athletics to try to limit the severity of the result.
Jumping
This is not the Olympics—jumping is something you do to leap obstacles or span bottomless chasms, and in those situations the GM sets a fixed difficulty for characters to meet or exceed. Generally, that difficulty is the bare minimum that clears the distance, so beating that by a few shifts is a good idea. Outside of that, jumping is often considered an extension of normal movement.
Sprinting
You can use Athletics to move faster by taking a sprint action. Normally, you can only move one zone as a supplemental action by taking –1 to the roll for your main action. If you spend your entire action moving, you are sprinting; rolling Athletics against a target difficulty of Mediocre, you can cross a number of zones and borders equal to or less than the total shifts of effect. If you get no shifts on your roll, you can still move one zone as long as there are no borders.
Other Physical Actions
Athletics is often the “when in doubt” physical skill, and it can get a lot of use. Sometimes there’s confusion about when to use Athletics and when to use Might. As a rule of thumb, Athletics is used to move yourself, while Might is used to move other things and people. When an action calls for both, they might modify one another. If there is no clear indication which should be primary, default to Athletics as primary and Might as the modifying skill.
Burglary
The ability to overcome security systems, from alarms to locks, falls under the auspices of Burglary. This also includes knowledge of those systems and the ability to assess them. Without a lucky break, a criminal with only Stealth and Deceit will find himself limited to small-time thievery, while one who adds Burglary to his repertoire will soon be pursuing bigger targets. Characters with a high Burglary skill include burglars, private eyes, and even some cops.
Casing
You can use Burglary as a very specialized perception skill, specifically to assess the weaknesses and strengths of a potential target. Here, you try to determine the existence of unobvious or hidden aspects using assessment. Declaration may occur as well if you come up with an entertaining new aspect to place on the target of your future burglary (like Security Camera “Blind Zone”). Thus, either the GM can indicate you’ve discovered some flaw, or you can make a declaration about a flaw in the security that you intend to exploit or defeat. When you make a declaration, Casing follows the same guidelines as the Declaring Minor Details trapping for Scholarship, but is limited to security facts (including potential escape routes).
Infiltration
Given an opportunity to case an intended target (above), you are much more prepared to infiltrate that location. You can invoke known aspects on the scene. In addition, you can use your Burglary skill to complement any skills you use on targets you’ve had a chance to study and prepare for. Thus, Burglary may complement your Stealth and even, in certain circumstances, your social skills such as Contacts or Deceit.
Lockpicking
You have a talent for defeating security systems, from simple locks to complex electronics. Naturally, these offer a sliding scale of difficulty, and the tougher targets are often the focus of the aspects you choose to reveal or declare when you case the place. Further, your Craftsmanship or Scholarship skills might modify Burglary when dealing with particularly intricate mechanical or computerized security targets.
Contacts
The Contacts skill represents who you know and how good you are at finding things out from them. You may know a guy, or know a guy who knows a guy, or maybe you just know the right questions to ask in the right places. Whatever your methods, you can find things out just by asking around. Characters with a high Contacts skill are connected, always with an ear to the ground, their fingers on the pulse of the city. They include reporters, private eyes, and spies.
The Contacts skill doesn’t work in a vacuum—you need to be able to get out and talk to people for it to be useful; when that isn’t possible, neither is the skill. Contacts are also limited by familiarity. Finding yourself in an entirely unfamiliar environment means drastically increased difficulties (+4 or more) on your Contacts rolls. For every week you stay in the area and expand your social networks, the familiarity penalty is reduced by one.
Gathering Information
As with the answers and research trappings from Scholarship, gathering information begins with a question. The difference here is that you’re posing the question to your contacts—you go out and talk to people, trying to learn the answer to a question like, “Who’s trying to kill me?”
Describe where you are going to talk to folks (usually “the street”), and the GM sets the difficulty. Roll normally, and then the GM explains what you discovered. If the roll fails, then you may take extra time to try to succeed. This is much like scholarly research, but instead of needing a library, you need to talk to people. These people must have the right level of access to answer the question (this corresponds to the “quality” of the library). If you are being shut out for one
reason or another, no amount of dogged persistence through time investment is going to help. When that happens, it usually means there’s another problem you need to solve first.
One important warning about authenticity— being the most informed guy and knowing all the latest gossip aren’t necessarily the same thing. The Contacts skill discovers what people know, and people always have their own biases. Information is only as good as its source.
Your use of Contacts rarely tests the truth of the information provided, save by the discovery—through several sources—that contradictory answers are coming in. If you want to determine the truthfulness of the information you’re uncovering, that means more in-depth conversation with individuals… and it may involve using Empathy, Rapport, Deceit, Intimidation, and more.
Finally, consider that it is difficult to use the Contacts skill secretly. Rolling the Contacts skill usually indicates that you are going out and talking to people. If you’re asking some particularly sensitive questions, word is going to get back to the people who have the real, deeper answers—people who might see shutting you up as the best way to keep their secrets.
Getting the Tip-Off
Contacts also keep you apprised of the general state of things, sometimes without you going out and making an active effort. In this way, the Contacts skill acts as a sort of social Alertness, keeping you abreast of things that might be coming your way. It’s far from foolproof and, like Alertness, the GM is usually the one to call for a roll—you can’t go out looking for a tip-off, though you can tell the GM that you’re going out and talking to your contacts just to check on what’s up, which is a good hint that you’d like a tip-off.
Knowing People
If you have a strong Contacts skill, you know a wide variety of people and have at least a cursory connection with virtually any organization in the places you live and work (sometimes even those where you don’t). Deeper connections may come about through concerted effort or the application of stunts. You can roll Contacts as a declaration in any scene to establish that you have a contact at hand, whether in a certain location or in a certain group of people. The more aspects (or other prior established context) that you have relevant to the location or group, the easier the declaration will be.
Rumors
Contacts are also useful for planting rumors, not just for ferreting them out. At its simplest, you can use Contacts to just “get the word out” effectively and quickly, but you can also use it to change some of the public’s perspective about someone or something over time.
Tell the GM what rumor you want to plant, and she assigns bonuses or penalties based on how preposterous or reasonable the rumor is. The GM uses the final roll to determine the result of the rumor.
It’s worth noting: your roll is also the target for someone else’s Contacts roll to find out who has been spreading rumors—so be careful!
The most common effect of a successful Contacts roll to plant a rumor is a “sticky” temporary aspect. This might even be treated as a social attack in some circumstances.
Conviction
Conviction represents your strength of belief. This could represent your quiet confidence in yourself, your family, and your friends, or the certitude of your faith in a higher (or darker) power such as magic, God or Yog-Sothoth. No spellcaster ever gets much power without believing in his ability to do magic, and no holy man gives the forces of darkness much pause without Conviction. Characters with a high Conviction are powerful, grounded individuals, whose beliefs make them able to weather any storm. They include holy people, patriots, and wizards.
Conviction is one of the three cornerstone skills for effective spellcasting, along with Discipline and Lore.
The Mental Fortitude trapping also adds to your mental stress track.
Acts of Faith
Roll Conviction whenever you’re called upon to test the strength of your beliefs. When you are under a specific mental or social attack designed to undermine your faith (whether that’s in God, your magic, your friends, or whatever you might believe), you can use Conviction instead of Discipline to defend.
Mental Fortitude
Whether facing torture or confronting something scary, Conviction is how you draw your strength to survive fear and other psychological distress—combined with strong Discipline, your Conviction strengthens the walls of the fortress of your mind.
Used this way, Conviction is a passive ability, representing your mental “toughness” under such circumstances. As such, a higher-than-default rating in Conviction improves your ability to handle mental stress, giving you more than the default number of stress boxes (2) if you take this skill:
| Conviction | Stress Boxes |
|---|---|
| Mediocre | 2 |
| Average, Fair | 3 |
| Good, Great | 4 |
| Superb+ | 4 |
plus one additional mild mental consequence for each two full levels above Good.
Craftsmanship
Craftsmanship is the understanding of how stuff works, reflecting your practical know-how when it comes to using tools effectively. While Craftsmanship can be complemented by Scholarship, it can just as easily be the result of a lot of hours of getting your hands dirty and having a natural feel for how things work. Characters with high Craftsmanship are handy around the house and under the hood of a car; they are always helpful when a shoggoth eats your GPS. They include inventors, mechanics, and carpenters.
Breaking
Craftsmanship is also the skill for unmaking things (in a mundane, practical sense). Given time and tools, a craftsman can topple virtually any building, structure, or device. In those circumstances, you can use Craftsmanship to attack these things directly and deal stress or consequences to them. In addition, you may use Craftsmanship to set up attacks and maneuvers against another target using the sabotaged building, structure, or device—such as setting up a bridge to collapse when someone’s walking across it.
Building
You can use Craftsmanship to build something— provided you have a decent understanding of how to build it, as well as plenty of needed tools, materials, and time. The less you have of any of these things, the higher the difficulty to get it done. Craftsmanship is primarily used with declarations.
Fixing
Craftsmanship can be used to repair devices— again, if you have the time, materials, and the right tools.
Deceit
Deceit is the ability to lie. Be it through word or deed, it’s the ability to convey falsehoods convincingly. Characters with a high Deceit can easily seem much different than they actually are. They are masters of misdirection and they paint a sheen of seeming truth over the darkest lies. High Deceit characters include grifters, spies, and politicians.
Cat and Mouse
You can use the Deceit skill for more than just dodging attention—use it to riposte a social query with a web of deception. When someone else initiates a social conflict, you may use your Deceit as a social attack skill, representing particularly convincing lies as consequences on your target. For example, if the social conflict is a tense business negotiation, you might inflict Thinks I Have Honest Intentions as a consequence, potentially allowing you to exert influence over your target in the future.
This is a dangerous game. You are opting not to put your False Face Forward (see below), which would keep things on a safer, defensive footing. Instead, you’re going on the attack,making an active, aggressive attempt to turn the tables on your opponent—missteps are quite possible. If your opponent ultimately defeats you in this conflict, the truth will be revealed in some way. However, if you outclass your opponent significantly, this can be a powerful technique.
Disguise
Deceit covers disguises, using your Deceit skill against anyone’s attempts to penetrate your disguise. Such disguises are dependent upon what props are available, and they don’t hold up to intense scrutiny (specifically, an Investigation roll) without the use of stunts (representingyour deep expertise at disguise), but they’re fine for casual inspection (i.e., Alertness rolls). You may use the Performance skill to modify Deceit when attempting to pull off the disguised identity.
Distraction and Misdirection
You may use Deceit to try to hide small objects and activities in plain sight and to oppose any perception check for something that you could try to hide, misplace, or distract attention from. When you use this skill to hide something, your skill roll indicates the difficulty of any Alertness or Investigation rolls to discover it.
This trapping is at the core of stunts that extend the Deceit skill to do things like stage magic or pick-pocketing. Without such stunts, you may attempt those sorts of things but only in the simplest fashion possible and against markedly increased difficulties (typically at least two or more steps harder).
False Face Forward
You may opt to use Deceit instead of Rapport to as a defense in social conflicts—such as when defending against someone using Empathy to get a “read” on you, or facing down an insult— to lull an opponent into underestimating you. This defense roll is modified by the Rapport skill.
If you lose this defense roll, then your opponent may proceed as usual—in attempting to hide yourself, you have blundered and revealed a truth, shown an unintentional reaction, or something similar.
If you win the defense, however, you may make your successful defense look like a failure. When you do this, you can provide false information to the would-be “victor” (such as, “Wow! That insult really struck home!” when it didn’t).
In the case of an Empathy read attempt, you may provide a false aspect to the reader, sending him off with an utterly fabricated notion of you. When he later tries to take advantage of an aspect that he falsely thinks is there, it can end up being a waste of a fate point or worse!
Falsehood & Deception
For simple deceptions, all that’s necessary is a contest between Deceit and an appropriate skill (usually Empathy, Alertness, or Investigation, depending on the circumstance). For deeper deceptions—like convincing someone of a lie or selling someone the Brooklyn Bridge—a social conflict is appropriate, complete with Deceit attacks and dealing social stress. Sometimes, Deceit is the undercurrent rather than the forefront of an action; as such, the skill may modify, restrict, or complement another (usually social) skill’s use.
Discipline
Discipline represents your ability to stay focused on your goals and actions despite distractions, as well as the ability to protect yourself from the psychological fallout of awful or scary events. It’s what makes you able to conquer fear, resist torture, and recite boring math equations with such dedication that a psychic demon can’t bore into your mind. Characters with strong Discipline rarely let fear get the best of them and can perform a wide variety of stressful tasks without breaking their concentration. They include chess grandmasters, air traffic control operators, and wizards.
Discipline is one of the three cornerstone skills for effective spellcasting, along with Conviction and Lore.
Concentration
Many other skills may be used in circumstances where unusual concentration is necessary— such as using Burglary to pick a lock while you’re getting shot at. In such circumstances, the GM may ask that Discipline be used to restrict the skill being used, representing a small penalty if you are not skilled at keeping your focus. Other circumstances may arise where Discipline would be rolled to represent how well you remain focused on a particular task or idea.
Emotional Control
Whenever you are trying to master your own emotions, Discipline is the skill you’ll use to do it. This could be as simple as rolling Discipline as a defense against an Intimidation attack or keeping your terror in check in order to avoid feeding the fear-eating monster next door.
Sometimes this trapping may be impaired by a particular aspect on a character—if you have the Prone to Violent Outbursts aspect, for example, and accept a compel on it, then there’s no need to roll Discipline to control the outburst; assume you already failed any such roll.
Mental Defense
Discipline is the default skill for defense whenever something tries to deal mental stress to you or tries to mentally or psychologically assault you. At minimum, roll Discipline as the defense against certain Intimidation attacks, as well as against invasive mind magic.
This means that Discipline and Conviction partner together to represent your overall “fortress of the mind.” With both rated highly, you are rarely affected by emotional and psychic attacks (thanks to strong defense rolls from Discipline) and, when affected, you can take more psychological distress before you start to break down (thanks to the extra mental stress boxes from Conviction). When your Discipline and Conviction skills are not in line with each another, you may be easily affected by distress but have the kind of faith and confidence necessary to persevere despite that (low Discipline, high Conviction), or you may be very good at “compartmentalizing” your response to things but actually pretty fragile inside (high Discipline, low Conviction).
Driving
Driving is your ability to operate a car (and potentially other vehicles). Day to day, it’s pretty easy and shouldn’t be rolled unless circumstances call for it (such as driving fast through busy streets, or in the rainy dark without headlights). With a high skill, you can pull off stunts you usually only see in the movies. Stunt men, mafia chauffeurs, and cops have a high Driving skill.
Chases
Driving inevitably leads to car chases—one of the major trappings of this skill. In a chase, your Driving skill is used to close the distance between you and the car you’re chasing (or increase the distance if you’re the one being chased). It’s also used to bring quick resolution to the issues brought up by terrain and other obstacles. Car chases are usually handled using one of the extended contest options.
One Hand on the Wheel
Trying to do something in a car? Roll Driving, simple as that. If you are trying to do something fancy, like driving and shooting at the same time, Driving will restrict the skill being used. Note that this trapping generally applies to physical actions that you can conceivably do while driving. Since Driving only restricts your other skill, there’s no way you could become better at doing something while you’re also driving a car—your aim won’t suddenly improve because you happen to be driving while you shoot at your target!
Other Vehicles
If your background reasonably suggests experience operating a vehicle other than a car, then Driving may be used to operate those vehicles as well, making this the skill for piloting boats, aircraft, and other motorized vehicles.
Street Knowledge and Navigation
The modern city can be a confusing maze of streets and alley-ways, and being adept at Driving means you know your way around cities you’re familiar with (both behind the wheel and on foot). Under pressure, Driving is the skill for getting from point A to point B as fast as or faster than you need and for figuring out the best course. If you’re not familiar with a place, Driving is treated as Mediocre for the purpose of navigation. It is possible to know your way around the city through other methods such as Contacts, Investigation or Scholarship.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and guess what other people are thinking and feeling. This can be handy if you are trying to spot a liar or you want to tell someone what that person wants to hear. It’s also useful for keeping up your guard during a social conflict. Characters adept at Empathy are very perceptive about people and their motives and often end up as quiet masters of a social scene. They can include reporters, gamblers, and psychologists.
Reading People
You can use Empathy to figure out what makes another character tick. After at least ten minutes of intense, personal interaction, you may make an Empathy roll against the target’s Rapport roll (see Closing Down under Rapport; the target might also choose to defend with Deceit).
This is an assessment action and, as such, if you gain one or more shifts on your roll, you discover one of the target’s aspects that you weren’t already aware of. It may not reveal the name of the aspect in precise detail, but it should paint a good general picture. For instance, it might not give the name of someone’s brother, but it will reveal that he has a brother. You can repeat this process, taking longer each time, and ultimately reveal a number of aspects equal to your Empathy skill value (minimum of one)—so, a Fair skill (value 2) would allow you to reveal two aspects through at least two different rolls.
A Shoulder to Cry On
Characters with Empathy are familiar with the emotional responses of other people and are able to effectively provide comfort and reassurance to those who are emotionally wounded. With the Empathy skill, you can create an environment for another character to justify recovery from mild social or mental consequences. Stunts are required to bring this trapping to the level that professional therapists have.
Social Defense
Use Empathy as a defense in a social conflict (though it isn’t the only skill that can be used this way). In particular, you must use Empathy to defend against Deceit as you try to sort out truth from fiction in what you’re hearing.
Social Initiative
Use Empathy to determine initiative (order of action) in any social conflict. To minimize on die-rolling, Empathy is usually taken simply at its listed value and used to determine the order of actions you and other characters take.
Endurance
Endurance is the ability to keep performing physical activity despite fatigue or injury. It’s a measure of your body’s resistance to shock and effort. In addition to addressing fatigue, Endurance is rolled as a defense when fending off poisons and disease. High Endurance characters can take more punishment than others and can keep going long after the competition has tuckered out. They include thugs, athletes, and rough-and-tumble private eyes.
The Physical Fortitude trapping also adds to your physical stress track.
Long-Term Action
Endurance is a passive skill. You will very rarely need to ask to roll Endurance; instead, when strenuous activities have gone on for a while, the GM will call for rolls when appropriate. Particularly, Endurance can come into play in long-term actions as a restricting skill, where your ability to keep performing at peak is limited by how well you can overcome fatigue and pain. This is why the Endurance skill of top athletes is on par with (or better than) their Athletics skill. Without a solid Endurance skill, you may be a good sprinter but you will find yourself winded and falling behind in a marathon.
Physical Fortitude
Endurance determines your ability to handle physical stress. Used this way, Endurance is again a passive ability, representing your “toughness.” As such, a higher than default rating in Endurance improves your ability to take physical stress by giving you more than the default number of physical stress boxes (2):
| Endurance | Stress Boxes |
|---|---|
| Mediocre | 2 |
| Average, Fair | 3 |
| Good, Great | 4 |
| Superb+ | 4 |
plus one additional mild physical consequence for each two full levels above Good.
Fists
The Fists skill is your ability to hold your own in a fistfight, with no weapons available but your bare hands (with a few exceptions). With specialized training (represented by taking stunts), this may include the practice of a more disciplined kind of fisticuffs, such as martial arts. Characters with a high Fists skill are a blur of fists and feet in a fight—delivering sudden uppercuts and body-blows—and are pretty adept at not getting hit themselves. They include bouncers, thugs, and martial artists.
Many of the restrictions on the uses of Fists (such as using certain close-combat weapons, or the sorts of things Fists can be used to defend against) can be set aside with the right kind of martial arts training. Invariably, this level of training is reflected with a few martial arts-oriented stunts. Without those stunts, you might still have some basic self-defense style training, but you haven’t yet attained the level of “art.”
Brawling
As a combat skill, Fists is rolled to make attacks and maneuvers when you are using nothing other than your body to get the job done. Brass knuckles and the like allow you to use Fists, but in general, attacks that use a tool—be it a staff, knife, sword, or broken bottle—use the Weapons skill instead.
Bare hands have the advantage that they’re always with you, but the disadvantage that they almost never offer a damage boost on a successful hit.
Close-Combat Defense
Fists may be rolled as a defense against other Fists attacks and against short-reach, closequarters weapons such as knives and short clubs, representing the ability to block or dodge an opponent’s attacks. It can’t be used as a defense when the weapon arguably has a significant reach advantage (swords, staves, and guns), unless you can justify it as an unusual circumstance—e.g., “My skin is bulletproof, so I should be able to block a sword if I do it right” or “I’m right next to the guy, so I’m going to try to push his arm aside as he makes the shot with the gun.” As a rule, Fists can usually be justified as a defense against attacks that come from the same zone as you and rarely against attacks from outside that zone.
Guns
Sometimes you just need to shoot things. Thankfully, there’s a skill for that. With a gun, you can shoot up to two zones away—possibly three or more, if it’s a rifle (borders may or may not count, depending on their nature). Unfortunately, without a gun at hand, the skill isn’t much use. Characters with a high Guns skill are masters of death; as a result, it’s rare to encounter one who doesn’t have a healthy respect for the dangers inherent in bringing out the weapons. Such characters include policemen, soldiers, assassins, and hunters.
If someone is devoted to using Guns as a strong component of his fighting style, it can safely be assumed that he possesses at least one or two guns, regardless of Resources rating (though whether or not he will be allowed to carry such things wherever he goes is another matter entirely), so long as it fits the concept.
Aiming
One popular maneuver among Guns users is aiming. This is done like nearly any other maneuver (page 207), with the idea that you take an action to place a temporary aspect on your target—e.g., In My Sights. On the subsequent exchange, you tag that temporary aspect to get a +2 on the roll, assuming the target hasn’t done something to rid himself of the aspect.
Gun Knowledge
Guns users are also well-versed in a variety of small arms, large arms, and ammunitions, as well as the care and maintenance of firearms. You may use this skill as a limited sort of knowledge and repair skill covering those areas.
Gunplay
Guns is an attack skill, by and large, though a creative player will undoubtedly come up with some maneuvers to attempt when shooting. As far as mundane, mortal weapons are concerned, guns are at the top of the heap in a fight. They’re deadly—getting large stress bonuses on successful hits, forcing consequences, concessions, and taken out results faster than other means of attack. Better yet, they operate at range, forcing unarmed opponents to take cover or close with you in order to be effective.
As an attack, a gun also limits the defensive options available to a target. Targets are generally only able to roll Athletics as a defense, representing their ability to dodge and get out of the way of the gun—or otherwise present a difficult- to-hit target, like taking cover—before the shot’s taken. And guns are often the weapon of choice for an ambush which, when done right, leaves the victim’s defense skills locked down at Mediocre—easy to deliver a devastating shot.
There are two downsides. First, a gun can be taken away from you, rendering this skill useless. Second, you can’t ever use the Guns skill as a defense (except with a stunt, in some circumstances), which means you need a strong Athletics skill to cover you, just in case. As a result, Guns ends up being a bit of a one-note wonder—and while that’s one hell of a note, it can be pretty limiting at times, especially in neighborhoods where you’re likely to get the cops responding to reports of gunfire.
Remember: when a gun is drawn, it’s a statement of intent to kill people. Even some supernatural creatures will take pause at the sight of a gun barrel pointed their way.
Other Projectile Weapons
You can also use Guns to cover non-gun weapons that shoot at a distance, such as bows and other such artifacts, though usually with a penalty (–2) if you aren’t trained in their use. If, at the time you take the Guns skill, you decide your character is focused on using a method of shooting other than a gun, you may rename this skill to something more appropriate (e.g., Bows) and face the familiarity penalty when using actual guns instead. Under such an option, most Guns related stunts are still available with the unusual weapon.
Intimidation
Intimidation is the skill you use for producing a sudden, strong, negative emotion in a target— usually fear. With high Intimidation, you exude menace, choose exactly the right words to chill others to the bone, and get people to lose their cool in an instant. Bodyguards, mob enforcers, and “bad” cops have high Intimidation.
The Brush-Off
If things get to the point of a face-off, there are a lot of other actions an opponent can do other than stand there and be intimidated—such as disengage or pull out a weapon. However, one of the real strengths of Intimidation is that first flash of contact, when people instinctively get out of the way of someone intimidating. Used in this fashion, Intimidation can establish a powerful, menacing first impression. If you are actively doing something intimidating, you may roll a quick contest of Intimidation against the opponent’s Discipline or Presence. If successful, the target is taken aback for a moment, generally long enough for you to brush past them, though the target will usually have plenty of time to call for help if appropriate. This can’t be done in a fight or against any target who is already ready for a fight; but in those “first contact” situations, Intimidation is gold for control.
Interrogation
Intimidation is the “bad cop” skill for interrogation, situations—a special kind of application of the above trappings. It’s not a soft touch; it’s all about getting in the face of the perp and convincing him that you are the harbinger of his personal doom. Other social skills, such as Deceit and Rapport, are necessary to make it an interview rather than an interrogation and belong firmly in the “good cop” camp.
Provocation
When you don’t control the situation well enough to make your target afraid, you can still use Intimidation—just not for the usual “be scary” purpose. Instead, psychological or social attacks may be made to provoke the target— usually by enraging them or otherwise getting them to lose their cool.
Social Attacks
There are more graceful social skills for convincing people to do what you want, but few skills offer the pure efficiency of communicating that failure to comply may well result in some manner of harm. Nothing personal.
You can use Intimidation as an attack to deal social stress, cutting through the usual niceties by making things blunt, ugly, and expedient. This can force someone to get to the point, make him spill the truth, or cause him to flinch and show weakness when surrounded by sharks. The target usually gets his choice of social skill to defend against such an attack—for whatever help that might offer him—so long as it’s appropriate to the attack. He might try Rapport to attempt to laugh it off, Presence to keep a poker face, Discipline to keep his cool.
Threats
At its core, Intimidation is about putting the fear of you into someone. To manage this, you must be in a position to make a reasonable case that you actually can deliver some kind of harm or unpleasant circumstance to your target. You can achieve this with reputation, appearance, weaponry, or even with a good, scary speech. Ultimately, this is about power—defined here as your demonstrable ability to control the situation, rather than the victim’s control over it. Without this context, the victim may be at an advantage (+2) when defending, or may simply be untouchable by this method of psychological attack.
Under certain conditions, Intimidation is one of the few skills able to deal direct mental stress to a target as an attack, and you can use it both in physical and social conflict situations.
Investigation
Investigation is the ability to look for things and, hopefully, find them. This is the skill you use to actively look for something—like searching a crime scene or trying to spot a hidden enemy that you know is somewhere near. Characters with a high Investigation discover the most hidden clues; when they focus their attention on something, they can perceive details more fully and deeply than others. These people include private investigators, reporters, and cops.
Eavesdropping
You can use Investigation to focus attention on a target in order to perceive details that you might normally miss. For example, when trying to hear something that might be difficult to pick up on casually, roll Investigation. This makes a strong Investigation skill paramount for eavesdroppers and gossip hounds. All it requires is the investment of time and attention.
Examination
Deliberately using an assessment action to look for clues, deep patterns, or hidden flaws in something most commonly calls for the Investigation skill. This makes Investigation the flip-side of Alertness: it is mindful, deliberate perception, in contrast to the passive perception of Alertness. An equivalent Investigation effort is nearly always going to yield better, more in-depth information than an Alertness effort would. The downside is that Investigation is far more timeconsuming—“ minutes to hours,” as opposed to “seconds to minutes.”
Also, this is the trapping used to verify the truth of information, whether it’s checking up on a rumor you got via Contacts or spotting a forged document in a pile of paperwork.
Surveillance
Surveillance is the art of using Investigation to keep track of a target over an extended period of time, whether by watching a fixed location or by following the target on foot through busy city streets.
If the investigator is looking to keep an eye on his target without being seen, a second roll is necessary (using Stealth), per the Shadowing (Resources) trapping.
Long-term Surveillance may call for Endurance rolls as you begin to find it difficult to stay awake or keep from running off to a nearby bathroom. Equipment can aid the roll or remove the need for it entirely; a thermos of coffee and an empty bottle are practically “musts” in the professional surveillance business. Havinga second person help out so you can take a break is a plus as well.
Lore
Lore represents your occult knowledge. Looking at the world at large, most people don’t have this skill or even know it exists. But for those who’ve studied the real teachings of the occult, Lore allows them to gain useful insight into the arcane elements of the mortal world. With a high Lore skill, you can pick up on mystical happenings that are nigh invisible to others, know and discover magical particulars when it comes to assembling the materials for spellcraft, and (in some cases) even perform basic rituals— given the right text. Mystics, monsters, and wizards have high Lore skills.
Lore is one of the three cornerstone skills for effective spellcasting, along with Conviction and Discipline.
Arcane Research
Above all, Lore is the skill used to research things related to arcane and occult principles. If you’re looking for the right way to fight a monster, the recipe for a potion, or a new protective incantation, Lore’s the skill to roll. Other than the subject matter, Lore behaves exactly like the Scholarship skill when it comes to the functions and methods of research, allowing most of Scholarship’s trappings to be used, with the focus changed to arcane and occult matters. When a library is needed, it must be rated for providing rare occult texts. These libraries are generally open only to registered mages or those affiliated with the organisation wihch owns it, and other practitioners often must contact an Outsider for the needed information, be it in the form of a bound spirit, a summoning, or some other ritual. Or track down the books and hope the OOI don't come knocking.
Common Ritual
Anyone who can light a match can use it to set off a stick of dynamite—whether or not they can do it safely is another matter entirely. The same is true of the practice of “common” rituals— sometimes all you need is the untrained use of Lore plus a rare, arcane ritual text to contact and interact with mystic and dark powers from beyond.
These spells are relatively rare. The hard part is getting hold of the right text - many of them are blatantly illegal, and many of the others are quite obscure. The OOI distributes fake texts on the arcane underground to deter people, and the Eldritch Society is rumoured to hunt down people who use a certain two of them. Some texts are legal possible to acquire through the right contacts and a bit of money, though.
When given an actual, usable common ritual, Lore is the skill of lighting the wick on the dynamite of that supernatural entity’s power. But unlike a stick of dynamite, that entity is a thinking being, usually with thousands of years of experience in outsmarting humans like you who come knocking and asking for power. Like a stick of dynamite, it can blow up in your face.
Mystic Perception
Exposure to arcane lore leads to a heightened awareness of the supernatural. In certain circumstances, you can substitute Lore for Alertness to pick up on supernatural details about a scene. These details should be extremely vague, limited to statements such as “You’re getting a bad feeling about this” or “Something about this place is just… wrong.” Used this way, Lore is more an indicator that there’s something weird happening rather than a lens through which to see the weird.
Might
Might is a measure of pure physical power, be it raw strength or simply the knowledge of how best to use the strength you have. Might is for lifting, moving, or breaking things. You can use the skill to add a measure of physical power to the efforts of another skill. Characters with a high Might are not supernaturally strong, but they can still bend, break, and lift things that are normally beyond the capabilities of everyday people. They include thugs, furniture movers, and wrestlers.
Breaking Things
Might is the skill of choice for applying brute force to snap something into smaller pieces; it includes breaking boards, knocking down doors, and the like. Using Might, you can damage an item over time or break it with a single dramatic blow.
Exerting Force
You can use Might indirectly to modify, complement, or restrict (page 214) some skill uses. This represents the secondary influence of physical strength on the primary use of another skill. For example, climbing while carrying someone on your back might restrict a normal Athletics roll, whereas getting into a shoving contest with someone might let you roll Fists modified by Might.
Lifting Things
Might controls how much you can lift, shift, or move. The weight of the thing you’re moving determines the difficulty for the roll, though this might be modified by things like leverage and other factors.
Wrestling
In combat, Might can help you with particular applications of Fists and Weapons: if physical force is a very significant element at play, Might will modify the primary skill.
Furthermore, if you successfully engage an opponent in a one-on-one exchange, you can potentially switch from Fists to Might as the primary combat skill by executing a hold or other wrestling move where it’s less about hitting than about overwhelming with physical force.
Performance
Performance represents your overall artistic ability, covering the gamut of endeavors that involve putting creative works before an audience (painting, dance, music, writing, and some elements of acting). This includes knowledge of composition as well as the performance itself. Characters with a high Performance are incredibly creative individuals, able to create poetry extemporaneously, dance well enough to make one’s heart soar, or put on an acting performance that will bring a crowd to standing ovation. They include actors, artists, and some mad scientists.
Art Appreciation
As a knowledge skill, Performance is identical to Scholarship, though the fields it applies to are more limited and more focused. Thanks to this narrowed focus on the fields of art and performance, a few shifts of success on a Performance roll may pay out more information when compared to the same number of shifts from a Scholarship roll.
Composition
As a composition skill, Performance is fairly straightforward—you can make art of virtuallyany type, so long as you are familiar with and practiced in the medium, producing works of a quality equal to your skill. Without stunts, it’s probable that none of them will be masterpieces, but any art that’s Average or better can be displayed without any real embarrassment.
Creative Communication
While Scholarship covers the technical building blocks of communication—language, grammar, and the like—Performance covers the creative expression of ideas and, as such, covers most means of broad communication like writing. These are not “pure” performances, however, and your other skills play a role in their application, so your writing is usually modified by your Scholarship. There are exceptions, such as dry, academic documents (which use pure Scholarship) and poetry (which uses just Performance).
Public speaking is a similar creature, but it is more beholden to the charisma and presence of the speaker. In those cases, Performance modifies whatever skill (Rapport, Intimidation, Presence, or Deceit) you are using, so long as the communication has a creative component.
Playing to an Audience
First and foremost, Performance is the skill of playing to an audience—producing a reaction in a crowd with creative expression, whether that’s acting or another art form. As such, you can use Performance to declare aspects on a scene when those aspects might arise from a moving performance, affecting everyone in a room at once. Usually, aspects declared by this method must be broad, indicating the mood of the crowd, rather than specific and targeted at individuals present.
For example, if DJ Vinyl Scratch is at a nightclub dropping techno beats, she might put the aspect Rocking Beats on the scene, reflecting the general, upbeat mood.
Presence
Presence is a multi-faceted skill, representing attributes of leadership, reputation, and charisma. While Conviction represents your overall mental and psychological toughness, Presence is a measure of social toughness— whether or not you’ll flinch and lose face in front of others, and how your image stands up to scrutiny and/or attack. Characters with a high Presence carry themselves with a quiet confidence no matter the situation, and when they speak, others stop and listen. They include military officers, mob bosses, politicians, and lawyers.
The Social Fortitude trapping also adds to your social stress track.
Charisma
Presence is used passively whenever someone is trying to size you up socially. While the Rapport skill also covers your ability to reach out to others and make an impression, it is a deliberate, active skill in comparison to Presence. Much like the split between Investigation and Alertness, Rapport and Presence represent the active and passive sides of making an impression, respectively. As a rule of thumb, the GM may ask you to roll Presence to gauge impressions when you are not actively focusing your efforts on making one. Further, when you use Rapport to make a deliberate impression, you can call in Presence to complement the skill.
Command
Use Presence to direct troops, workers, or any other group attempting a task. Any time you are in a position to give orders to a group of followers or functionaries, you may apply your Presence skill to help coordinate their efforts. This will allow you to make a Well-Coordinated or similar aspect available to whoever is rolling for the combined task, via a maneuver. You can also use the skill to get a largely undifferentiated mob of people to behave in a particular way, such as convincing a group of people to evacuate a building or to charge a line of police. If your action has a theatrical element to it, you can use Performance to modify the roll.
Reputation
Presence can represent the strength of your reputation, in that it insulates you from the social maneuvers and attacks of others. This is not the same as fame or notoriety; it’s more a measure of how well you’re able to use your reputation to help you achieve social goals. To this end, there may be reputation-specific circumstances where you will roll Presence to defend against social attacks and maneuvers.
Social Fortitude
When facing a direct attack like a smear campaign or simply the latest gossip on the streets, Presence is how well you comport yourself in an outward, social fashion. Combined with a strong showing in other social skills such as Rapport and Deceit, your Presence makes you particularly difficult to assail in a social scene. Used this way, Presence is a passive ability, representing your social “toughness” under such circumstances. A higher-than-default rating in Presence improves the ability to take social stress, giving you more than the default number of stress boxes (2) if you take this skill:
| Presence | Stress Boxes |
|---|---|
| Mediocre | 2 |
| Average, Fair | 3 |
| Good, Great | 4 |
| Superb+ | 4 |
plus one additional mild social consequence for each two full levels above Good.
Rapport
The flipside of Intimidation, Rapport is your ability to talk with people in a friendly fashion, make a good impression, and perhaps convince them to see your side of things. Any time you want to communicate without an implicit threat or attempted deception, this is the skill to use, making it appropriate for interviewing or making friends. Characters with a high Rapport can make strong first impressions and they make easy, friendly conversation in any social scene. They include politicians, reporters, and “good cops.”
Chit-Chat
A character skilled in Rapport is a master of small talk and, through casual, friendly conversation, can get folks to give up information without quite realizing they’ve done it. In a social conflict, you may roll Rapport for maneuversand “attacks” with this goal in mind. You can also use the skill creatively to grab someone’s attention and keep him distracted by conversation while something else is happening in the room.
Closing Down
Rapport controls the face you show to the world—and that includes what you choose not to show. As such, when you try to use Empathy to get a read on someone, your attempt is opposed by Rapport as the default. If you simply wish to reveal nothing, you may use Rapport and take the equivalent of a full defensive action, gaining a +2 on the roll.
This is over and above the default of a Rapport defense because it’s obvious you’re doing it: you’re closing down, wiping all emotions off your face. This means that closing down is a fairly obvious strategy—your opponent will know you’re doing it. It also requires that you be consciously aware that someone’s trying to read you. If you are trying not to look like you’re actively warding off the read, or if you aren’t really aware that you’re being read, then you aren’t taking a full defensive action and you don’t get the +2.
First Impressions
The first time you meet someone, the GM may call for a quick Rapport roll to determine the impression you make (assuming you’re trying to make a good one). This may interact with the Presence skill, depending on the situation. Usually, succeeding at this roll can give you a beneficial temporary aspect such as I Look Good, which you might tag or invoke on socially related rolls in that scene. Be careful, though—failing significantly at such a roll could also change the situation for the worse, putting an I Look Bad aspect on you which could be used by someone else.
Opening Up
Your skill in Rapport includes the ability to control which side of your personality you show to others by seeming to open up while actually guarding deeper secrets. Since you reveal only true things about yourself, this is not an inherently deceptive action involving the use of the Deceit skill.
When you open up, you defend as usual against an Empathy “read” with Rapport. If your opponent succeeds and generates at least one shift, he finds something out, as usual (a failed defense roll is a failed defense roll after all). If you succeed, your opponent still discovers an aspect—but it’s one of your choosing.
Used this way, you can effectively stonewall someone without the obvious (and unfriendly) poker face of Closing Down. In addition, you can always choose to reveal something that the other character already knows.
Social Defense
Control of outward reactions and a general ease at conversation are both within the realm of Rapport, and both are useful in mounting a defense against social maneuvers and attacks. Only the rarest of social conflicts prevents you from using Rapport as your defense skill. Rapport is the go-to skill for rolling to defend in social conflicts, much like Athletics is the go-to skill for physical conflicts.
Resources
Usually Resources is a measure of your available wealth, but the specific form this takes—from a secret family silver mine to a well-invested portfolio—can vary from character to character (and may be indicated and enhanced by your aspects). Characters with high Resources can buy their way into or out of most situations and can easily afford the finest luxuries of life. They include aristocrats, successful criminals, and businessmen.
It’s important to note that Resources represents your personal resources, including your regular forms of income, whether your job is “steady” or not. You may have access to an organization’s resources under certain circumstances; this allows you to roll a different rating than your personal Resources skill. Rolling that way means you’re expending that organization’s resources, not your own.
For example, a consultant for New World Industries might decide to acquire a private jet for corporate use. The consultant’s Resources might only be Fair (+2), but in this case the consultant rolls using NWI’s expense account, rated at Fantastic (+6).
Buying Things
Usually, this skill passively informs the GM what your available resources are, but you may still actively roll Resources for large expenditures or expenses outside of the daily cost of living—like purchases and bribes.
The cost of items is measured on the adjective ladder; you can buy reasonable quantities of anything that’s two steps or more lower than your Resources without worrying about it (i.e., not rolling). With justification, you can probably also get things one step below your Resources. For items greater than or equal to your Resources, roll against the cost of the thing. If successful, you can afford the item; if not, you can’t. You can only make one Resources roll per scene.
Some large-scale conflicts may be all about trying to outspend the other guy. Here, Resources might act as an attack or defense skill.
Equipment
You are generally assumed to have all the tools you normally need to do your job, whether that job is fixing engines or shooting people. Still, sometimes a situation arises where you need to buy something, either because you didn’t anticipate needing it or because the item is unusual, rare, or illegal. When that happens, measure the price in terms of how much Resources it requires to access and purchase the item.
Lifestyle
You are assumed to live in accordance with your means. If you’re rich, you may not even need to go shopping (you have people who do that). Generally speaking, if something costs two steps less than your Resources skill, you probably have one already, assuming it’s something that would make sense for you to have obtained previously.
Money Talks
Wealth puts pressure on social interaction, either subtly or overtly.
On the subtle level, whenever knowledge of your wealth affects a situation, the Resources skill may be used to modify the actual skill being used (usually a social one). If being less wealthy is actually seen as a positive in the situation (perhaps to gain some “street cred” or what-have-you), then the rules for modifying may be turned around, creating a –1 to the roll if Resources is above a particular level.
More overtly, you may use Resources as the primary skill in a social interaction where an offer of money is the primary factor. Bribery is the clearest of such cases here, though negotiations to get a cash-strapped wizard-for-hire to sign on to a case may involve a Resources roll, as well.
Workspaces
Part of the passive measure of Resources is the personal tools and spaces you have access to. Workspaces are environments where you can perform a certain type of work, and owning and maintaining a world-class workshop, library, or arcane laboratory requires a certain amount of Resources.
You use your Resources to set up the tools you need for your job. Your home may have, for free, a single library, lab, workshop, or arcanelibrary or sanctum of a quality equal to two steps lower than your Resources. As described in Scholarship, the quality of a workplace determines the highest possible difficulty of a “question” or project that you can pursue there.
The breakdown of the various types of skills that need workspaces is shown in the following table. See the respective skills for more details.
| Skill | Work | Workspace |
|---|---|---|
| Scholarship | Academic Research | Library |
| Scholarship | Scientific Lab Work | Lab |
| Craftsmanship | Construction & Fabrication | Workshop |
| Lore | Arcane Research | Occult Library |
| Lore | Arcane Spellwork & Rituals | Arcane Sanctum |
If you wish to have a specialized workspace, such as a workshop that can only work on guns, you may have it at a quality equal to one step lower than your Resources instead. Higher quality workspaces may be constructed, but they require a Resources roll with a difficulty equal to the quality+2 (or +1 in the case of a specialized space) and are not immediately available at the time of purchase (though additional shifts may be spent to reduce the timeframe, as usual).
Keep in mind that a library doesn’t have to be an actual, literal library full of books—any kind of archived, searchable information can be considered a library for game purposes. So, if you want to have something like a computer mainframe or set of hard drives that holds scanned documents on various topics, you could also consider that a library.
By default, the Internet is a Mediocre library—extremely detailed information on a specialized topic is usually access-restricted or buried among useless and speculative information. If you want to, however, you can say that your library consists of access to specialized online databases (like Lexis-Nexis for lawyers or YogNet for occult scholars) that would allow a higher quality rating.
Scholarship
Knowledge breaks down into two camps: mundane and supernatural. Lore covers the latter and Scholarship covers the former. Scholarship operates as a catch-all skill for most kinds of regular, everyday, “book” knowledge with a few practical applications out in the field as well. Characters with high Scholarship may be adept at technology and research, well-versed in the sciences and liberal arts, and good at performing first aid (provided they have experience with it). They include star students, professors, and game show contestants.
Answers
The main use of Scholarship is to answer a question. Questions covered by Scholarship include those of history, literature, and the sciences both “soft” and “hard.” You can ask the GM, “What do I know about this subject?” or “What does this mean?” Often, there will be no need to roll, especially if the subject is within your specialty (as indicated by your background and aspects). But if the GM feels the information is something that should be hard to attain (such as a clue), then she may call for a roll against a difficulty she sets. If you succeed, you receive the information. If you fail, you may still attempt
to research the topic (see the trapping by that name, below). In some cases (basically, whenever it might be entertaining), you may stumble onto a false lead that gets you deeper into trouble, or you may discover that the information you seek only uncovers deeper, unanswered questions.
Computer Use
The Scholarship skill includes the ability to use and operate complex computerized or electronic systems. This doesn’t really include any competence at hacking, per se. However, Scholarship does modify Burglary whenever computers are involved.
Declaring Minor Details
You may use your knowledge to declare facts, filling in minor details that the GM has not mentioned. These facts must be within the field of your Scholarship, and the GM has the right to veto them. If all’s well, the GM sets a difficulty for the truth of the assertion, and if you succeed at your Scholarship roll, the assertion is true. If not, you are mistaken.
In most cases, this is treated as a straight-up declaration action. If your assertion is correct (i.e., successful), the aspect is placed; it can be tagged once and then invoked as usual. If your assertion turns out to be wrong, there is no penalty, but there may be complications—at her option, the GM could place a temporary Mistaken! aspect on you, compelling it to represent the fallout (and netting you a fate point).
Exposition and Knowledge Dumping
Sometimes the GM just needs to give the group a lot of information, and the character with a high Scholarship skill tends to be the conduit of that. When the GM needs to knowledge dump, if you have the highest Scholarship skill, the GM may ask you if she can use you as a mouthpiece. Assuming you agree, the GM can share all appropriate background and is encouraged to give you a fate point for having your character temporarily commandeered for the purposes of the story.
Languages
Languages are part of a good classical education. You may speak a number of additional languages based on your Scholarship score (you don’t have to, if it doesn’t suit your concept). Each step of Scholarship above Mediocre gives you knowledge of one additional language (so one additional at Average, two at Fair, and so on). You don’t need to choose the languages when the character is created; you can instead choose languages in the course of play, as is convenient.
Medical Attention
Scholarship covers the scientific and practical knowledge necessary to administer basic First Aid. This allows you to declare that your care is sufficient justification for recovery from mild consequences, because you can create an environment that makes this recovery possible. Stunts are necessary to take this to the level of true doctors and surgeons.
Research and Lab Work
Researching a topic is frequently a timeconsuming and arduous task and exactly the sort of thing worth skimming over with a few quick dice rolls. Treat research as an extension of the knowledge the character has—you know the answers to some questions off the top of your head and can answer other questions because you know what book to look in.
As such, deeper, dedicated research is something that might happen when you fail a Scholarship check. Provided you are willing to spend time researching (and that the answer can be found), the only questions are how long it will take you and how good a workspace you have access to (usually a library for book things, a laboratory for experimental research, etc.) to discover the answer.
One important note: because the GM is not always obligated to reveal the difficulty of a given roll, you may not know how much you failed it by, which means you don’t know how long you’ll need to research. Usually you’ll just research until you find the answer, but sometimes, when time is tight, you might find yourself behind the eight-ball. GMs are encouraged to read “Setting Difficulties” before making any decision about how to deal with a failed roll.
Academic research requires a library, while research through experimentation requires a laboratory. The quality of these workspaces determines the hardest possible question you can answer within them (so a questionof Good difficulty requires a Good library or better). If you attempt to answer a question in a library that’s not equipped to answer it, the GM is encouraged to be up-front about its shortcomings.
Most high schools and private individuals have Mediocre, Average, or Fair libraries. Small colleges often have Good libraries and laboratory facilities; larger institutions may have Great ones. Superb and better libraries are few and far between. Many workspaces also have a specialty or two where they are considered to be one step higher—for example, Georgetown’s library specializes in law, so it has a Great library which is treated as Superb for legal questions. Characters may own libraries, laboratories, and other workspaces of their own; see the Resources skill for more.
Stealth
Stealth is the ability to remain unseen and unheard. Directly opposed by Alertness or Investigation, Stealth covers everything from skulking in the shadows to hiding under the bed. Characters with a high Stealth are like ghosts, passing through the shadows with only the barest whisper of sound. They include burglars, assassins, and sneaky kids.
Ambush
With the Stealth skill, you can set up an ambush by rolling to hide as per the Hiding trapping, below. Given time to prepare, you might even create aspects on the scene to set up the ambush. When you decide to strike, the victim gets one last Alertness roll to see if he notices something at the last moment. You have the option of keeping your hiding roll or rerolling your Stealth in response to this last Alertness roll. If the victim succeeds, he can defend normally (but not take a normal action in the first exchange). If the victim’s roll fails, he can only defend at an effective skill level of Mediocre.
Hiding
When you’re hiding, you’re remaining perfectly still and (hopefully) out of sight. Lighting, obstacles, and other environmental factors can modify your roll, and the result of your Stealth roll is the basis for any contest with a searcher’s Alertness or Investigation.
Shadowing
Something of a variant on Skulking (see below), Shadowing is the art of following someone without them noticing that you’re doing it. When following someone on foot, the full Stealth skill can be used to pull this off; if you’re following a target by car, Stealth remains primary but is modified by your Driving skill. The target usually gets an Alertness check to see if he can pick up on the fact that he’s being followed.
This Stealth check is often made complementarily to an Investigation check required to keep the target in sight, as per the Surveillance trapping for that skill.
Skulking
Skulking is the art of moving while trying to remain unnoticed. It uses many of the same rules as Hiding, above, but it adds in difficulty factors based on how fast you are moving and the terrain. A slow crawl isn’t much harder, but running is tough. Bare concrete isn’t much of an issue, but a scattering of dried leaves and twigs makes it much more difficult to move quietly.
Survival
Survival is the skill of outdoorsmen, covering hunting, trapping, tracking, fire building, and a lot of other wilderness skills. Characters with a high Survival skill are adept at riding horses, can survive nearly indefinitely by living off the land, and can track a man in the wilderness for days. They include hunters, scouts, and soldiers.
Even in an urban landscape like the Chicago-Milwaukee Metroplex, Survival still has its place, either by venturing out into the countryside (say, to visit a crotchety old wizard who lives on a farm), stepping into a particularly large urban park, or making it through the night in the wilds of the Dreamlands.
Animal Handling
Survival covers the breadth of your interaction with animals—natural ones for certain, and even some supernatural types. This interaction ranges from calming them to training them to getting a rough kind of “communication” going. This includes handling beasts of burden and carriage animals as well as common pets. As such, Survival serves as a stand-in for all social skills when dealing with animals and other beasts. Which is not to say that animals are great conversationalists; but when you’re trying to soothe or stare down an animal, Survival is the skill to roll.
Camouflage
Survival can be used to construct “blinds” and other ways to help remain hidden outdoors. On a Mediocre or better roll, you can construct a decent, disguised place to hide, which lets Survival complement your Stealth rolls.
Riding
Riding horses (or camels, elephants, or more exotic creatures) uses Survival, with the skill operating much like Driving does when it comes to chases and most maneuvers. Further, Survival simply covers the basics of riding, from taking care of your mount to getting it to remain calm through a stressful situation.
Scavenging
If you need to scrounge up something from the wilderness—sticks, bones, sharp rocks, vines that can serve as rope, and so on—you can roll Survival to find these things.
Tracking
Tracking is the art of looking for recognizable signs of passage and the ability to draw conclusions that help you stay on the trail of your quarry. As this is partly an application of deliberate perception, the Investigation skill modifies Survival when you use the skill this way.
Once you get close enough to your prey to be seen or heard by it, the Shadowing rules for Stealth come into play.
Systems
Systems gives a character the ability to use the high-tech computer systems that are ubiquitous in the system. These are used to gather or block information, as well as to operate sensors and camera networks; used this way, Systems serves as a perception skill. Characters with high Systems are technicians, engineers, and hackers.
System Testing
You can use Systems to case computer systems and networks, assessing the weaknesses and strengths of a potential target. This works like the Burglary trapping Casing, but applies only to things Systems can cover. When you make a declaration, Casing follows the same guidelines as the Declaring Minor Details trapping for Scholarship, but is limited to security facts (including potential escape routes).
Hacking
If you need to hack into a protected system, decrypt communication lines or just put dicks all over someone's website, roll Systems. Almost all data systems have some sort of basic password or encryption, so unauthorized use always requires a Systems roll. Different systems have different degrees of difficulty, and the tougher targets are often the focus of the aspects you choose to reveal or declare when you test the place. Further, your Burglary or Scholarship skills might modify Systems when dealing with certain security targets. When using an electronic interface to override locks or other physical barriers, use the Burglary skill rather than Systems.
Depending on the system or the situation, Hacking can place maneuvers on a system or a user, such as Communications Jam or Banned From YogNet. These maneuvers are often quite difficult, but can be very useful if they're brought into play.
Given an opportunity to test an intended target (above), you are much more prepared to infiltrate that location. You can invoke known aspects on the scene. In addition, you can use your Systems skill to complement any skills you use on targets you’ve had a chance to study and prepare for. This is particularly useful for social skills such as Deceit.
Sensors and Communications
Systems can be used to intercept and eavesdrop on communications traffic. If the communication is encrypted, the communications operator has to spend time decrypting it, probably requiring another roll.
Sensors
Systems can be used to assess any area that can be scanned by sensors, whether in a fixed location or from nearby systems. This could be anything from ship sensors to security camera systems.
When using Systems as a sensor operator, Systems operates just like a perception skill. Sensors can be used to identify activity, life forms, chemical compositions, atmospheric conditions, or any other information that the GM thinks can logically be gleaned from the sensor systems.
Weapons
Weapons is the skill of fighting with tools: swords, knives, axes, clubs, whips, etc. (except guns—that’s a whole section of its own). The exact weapon is more a choice of style than anything else, as this covers everything from fencing to a brawl using broken bottles and chair legs. Characters with a high Weapons skill are familiar with a variety of “old school” weapons and wield them with deadly accuracy. They include swordsmen, circus performers, and Special Forces soldiers.
Distance Weaponry
The Weapons skill also covers the ability to use weapons with an unusually long reach (like a whip or long spear) to attack targets in adjacent zones or to throw small handheld weapons up to one zone away. Use this skill to be good at throwing knives as well as fighting with them. If you are Weapons-focused, you have a leg up on folks who fight with their Fists; on the other hand, a Weapons user needs to have a weapon in order to make use of the skill.
Melee Combat
Weapons is a combat skill that is used to make attacks and maneuvers that incorporate the use of a physical weapon—such as knives, swords, clubs, and so on—but not bare hands (which uses the Fists skill) and not guns (which uses the Guns skill). When used to attack, melee weapons always deal physical stress.
Weapons allow the character to maintain some reach and attack advantage over a barehanded opponent. On a successful attack, a handheld weapon often causes more physical stress than would a bare-fisted attack at the same level, making this a more wounding and lethal method of combat. The downside, of course, is that someone can take your weapon away from you, rendering this skill entirely unavailable.
Melee Defense
As a combat skill, Weapons inherently carries the ability to defend yourself in a fight against other Weapons and Fists attacks, so long as you have a weapon in hand. (You still need Athletics to make yourself a difficult target against ranged fire from Guns.)
Weapon Knowledge
You are well-versed in a variety of fighting styles and weapons and you may use this skill as a knowledge skill covering those areas, such as “This sword is from Solingen; I can tell from the hallmark.”
Stunts
Stunts from DFRPG and Bulldogs! can be used, if you don't make your own. I'll insert some here later if people bug me
Templates and Such
Requirements: Must take a high concept indicating Tager, Endurance (+2)
Musts: Beast Change [-1]
Echoes of the Beast [-1]
Human Form[+1]
Inhuman Toughness [-2]
Inhuman Recovery [-2]
The Catch (Elder Sign weapons) [+3]
One Tager Type template
Tager Types
Phantom Total: [-7]
Claws (Blades) [-1]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Supernatural Toughness [-4]
Shadow Total: [-9]
Stealth Field [-1]
Claws (Thorns) [-1]
Venomous [-2]
Inhuman Strength [-2]
Supernatural Sense [-1]
Whisper Total: [-10]
Inhuman Speed [-2]
Supernatural Sense [-1]
Broad Senses [-2]
Spider Walk [-1]
Wings [-1]
Stealth Field: The Shadow can become effectively invisible to normal vision, granting you a +4 bonus to Stealth checks—if the GM even rules that you need to make them—and causing enemies to suffer a –2 penalty to any attack rolls against you. This effect cannot be used in combat, and rapid, erratic movement or touching any living creature larger than a dog causes the field to drop. Once the field drops for any reason, it requires a scene to recharge.
Other
Other Tagers (perhaps ones that cost less refresh) are doable!
I might change the Tager rules, though. Dudes are powerful!
Optional: Pack Instincts [-1]
Item: Powered Armour
Armour: 3
Improvements: Hardened (x2), Powered, Aspect
Cost: Superb (+5)
Hardened adds +1 to the Armour per rank (for a total of +3), Powered makes it big and bulky and adds a +2 bonus to Might rolls. These suits are considered to be for running about punching people unless stated otherwise, since high-powered PA guns might not be sensible. Some NPC sets of powered armour, like police mecha and Green Fury war mecha, might though.
Aspect gives the powered armour one aspect based on the suit's purpose, model, etc. It is possible to remove Aspect to reduce the cost to Great (+4); these mecha are lesser models, with fewer features. Some common models are:
C-M Police Mecha
The powered armour of the Chicago-Milwaukee Police Force is designed for urban police work - catching criminals and bringing down rogue suits especially.
Invoke: Aid in anything where a cop mecha would be an advantage (car chases, drug busts, fighting jacked mecha, intimidating criminals)
Compel: Cause the mecha to break down or malfunction, there are places you can't take it, some people will react poorly, if it's stolen the police will go after you
D9 Construction Mecha
This PA is designed for construction work and is at home in construction sites and when performing manual labor.
Invoke: Building things, moving through construction sites and half-finished buildings, jumping over barrels, hitting monkeys with hammers
Compel: Cause the mecha to break down or malfunction, there are places you can't take it, might break things you don't want to, could be trouble if it's stolen
Eldritch Society Mecha-Tager
Used by some members of the Eldritch Society when required, this armour is sleek, efficient, and deadly. If the Society has to be subtle, they use modified D9s.
Invoke: Fighting minions of the Old Ones, intimidating cultists
Compel: The usual, and anyone who fears or hates the Eldritch Society wants a piece of you
Green Fury Jacked Mecha
A stolen PA! Looks like its base mecha, but covered in patches of metal, splashes of green paint, and intimidating arcane sigils.
Invoke: Whatever the original mecha was designed for, intimidating enemies of the Green Fury
Compel: The usual, and also you are probably wanted by every government in the system
Green Fury "Thousand Young" Mecha
A custom Green Fury model designed for squad-based mecha combat and industry-busting. Usually has weapons too.
Invoke: Assisting other PA units, smashing buildings, industrial zone combat
Compel: Same as a jacked mecha
Built using the rules in Bulldogs!.
Making the Agency
Based off Bulldogs! ship rules.
You start with your own agency! It's not your dream office, but it'll do. As a group you should collectively determine its specifics, represented as aspects.
Concept: The first aspect describes the agency generally. Is it a little hole-in-the-wall? An out-of-the-way place above a bookstore? On a well-travelled street corner? An abandoned fire station? Choose an aspect that gives a good general description of the place.
Problem: Next, decide what’s wrong with this agency. NyarlathoTech is GRIM and DARK and therefore your location should have SOME VAGUELY IRRITATING PROBLEM. Does the power cut out at inconvenient times? Is it cluttered and easy to lose things in? Do you share space with some other jerk? Choose an aspect related to the biggest problem the agency has.
Strength: Finally, it at least has a redeeming feature. What’s the agency’s secret strength? Does it have a surprisingly good occult library? A hidden vault? Bob the Skull? Is it near a police station? Are there hard-to-find nooks and crannies where you can stow contraband? Is it tricked out with cutting-edge computer hardware? Choose an aspect that describes the agency’s hidden strength.
