First and foremost, I would like to say how amazed I am that no one has ever used this title for a PbP before. Lucky me.
Secondly, let's go over a few things.
1. How I expect this to work: You declare an action that requires a roll, I tell you the rating of the associated skill and attribute. In so doing, you slowly discover what you are capable of. Within the first couple posts, I expect a lot of discovery will happen, and you'll probably all figure out your Attribute Scores fairly rapidly at the very least. After awhile you should have most of your sheet figured out, so from there on you just declare actions and roll as you would in any other PbP.
2. Knowledge Skills: You all only have 1 pre-determined knowledge skill that suits the character and their skills. Beyond that, I leave it up to you to define what the character knows. I will tell you how many Knowledge Skill points you have left to spend, and you can spend them however you like. You can choose to do so before the game starts, or as it goes along and you discover more about who you are. So as you realize what your role is and figure out how you want to play the character, you can decide something you think the character should have knowledge in at that point.
3. Character Sheets: You should all post your character sheets now, so that the first few posts have the sheets on them for easy reference. "But Ryo, I don't have a character sheet." You may be saying. You're quite right, but that won't always be the case. Right now your character sheet will just be a description of the character (decided by you based on what's been provided), and a shit ton of question marks. As you discover what you're capable of, you will edit the sheet to add more to it, until its nice and filled out.
1: The Troll. Played by: Poindexter
Knowledge Points: 11
2: The Elf. Played by: martinchaen
Knowledge Points: 15 R.I.P. Cause of Death:
Killed In Action from Full Auto fire.3:
The Human. Played by:
Ren rednblack
Knowledge Points: 10
4:
The Dwarf. Played by:
GrimWulf purvue
Knowledge Points: 10
5: The Ork. Played by: Novocrane
Knowledge Points: 12
6: The Masked Woman. Played by: Tecumseh
Knowledge Points: 18
7: The Crumpled Man. Played by: Ravensoracle
Knowledge Points: 16
Who you were is a mystery, and one you hope to solve, but who you are now is another matter. The slate has been wiped clean. It's up to you to define these characters and their personalities. Make them your own.
Rules and RegulationsI will be editing this post to include any rules for posting, clarifications of existing rules, or house rules that I will be implementing. I will include things in this list that may not actually be relevant to you, but is worth noting in case you encounter any NPCs for whom it is relevant.
How to roll: Declare actions in OoC. If you know your stats already, you can roll yourself as well, using Orokos, Invisiblecastle, or whatever diceroller you prefer, as long as it keeps a log of all your rolls. If you do not know your stats yet, I will reply to tell you the relevant stats, and make the first roll for you. The outcome of your rolls will be posted in the IC.
Hidden Discoveries: There may be some situations where I will PM you things about your character that you have realized about yourself that no one else has noticed yet. Whether or not you share these things with the group is up to you, depending on how secretive you feel your character should be.
Rulebooks in PlayAll 5th edition rulebooks, including PDF only books, should be consider valid. 4th edition content not yet available for 5th can also be consider valid on a case by case basis. For example, the amnesia quality itself is a negative quality from 4th edition that you all have.
The optional rules from Bullets & Bandages may be used.
Optional Rule RG6 from Run & Gun is in use:
RG6: DAMAGE FOR NO DEFENSE
If an attack decreases a target’s Defense Test pool below 0 dice, additional penalties are added to the DV of the attack at a rate of 1 DV per two lost dice. This makes Full Auto or Burst Fire attacks against unaware or restrained foes truly deadly.
HouserulesMagicSpells that create a barrier, such as Physical Barrier or [Element] Wall, create a barrier with a Structure equal to the Force of the spell, and an Armor equal to Force+hits. This is to prevent hilariously flimsy barriers and make these spells actually useful. A magical Barrier is still a Barrier, and is subject to the Penetration Weapons rule; only barriers of sufficiently high Armor will actually stop bullets.
Instead of Alchemy being opposed by Force of the preparation, it is opposed by Force - Alchemist's Skill. Therefore, an Alchemist with an Alchemy skill of 6 casting at Force 6 or lower would roll Magic + Alchemy [Force] unopposed, but if he were to overcast to Force 12, he would be opposed by 6 dice. This makes it easier to create preparations with decent Potency.
A preparation taking a single box of Physical damage will not make it lose its magic. This would render Disjoining obsolete, as you could disarm preparations without risking Drain just by smacking them. Instead, a sufficiently damaged preparation is immediately triggered.
Damage to a Preparation does not release the magic unless it is completely destroyed/ruined/scraped off the object. Alchemists shouldn't be at a constant risk of self destructing simply from putting their preparations in the same pocket as their car keys.
Flesh Form merges from Inhabitation have half their Force added to the Physical Attributes of the host.
When possessing a living vessel, the enhancement to Physical Attributes is limited by Augmented Maximum. This limitation does not apply to Inhabitation spirits.
Fake magical items made through Artificing stand up to Assensing in addition to Perception tests, using the same thresholds.
Quicksilver Cameras do not have a fixed limit, only increasing the threshold of the Assensing by 2, or by 3 for a copy.
VehiclesIn Handling Environments, Catch Up/Break Away is a threshold test based on the complexity of the obstacles as normal. In Speed Environments, Catch Up/Break Away is instead an opposed Vehicle Test, pitting the speed of both drivers against each other.
When crashing, a vehicle is treated as if it rammed itself, resisting with Body+Armor as normal. Half of the unresisted damage is applied to the passengers of the vehicle, resisted with Body+Armor -6 AP. If a passenger is not properly secured (wearing a safety belt/harness), then they must resist the full initial damage of the crash instead, and may be hurled from the vehicle (gamemaster discretion). This may result in further damage from impact with the terrain or other vehicles.
Drones that have their Condition track filled can still be repaired. The cost is 1% of the base cost per box of damage sustained.
So long as a Vehicle is moving, the driver defends against attacks with Reaction + Intuition. They can choose to use Full Defense, adding their Willpower for the remainder of the Combat Turn, and losing 10 initiative. They can also choose to use Evasive Driving, the equivalent of Gymnastics Dodge, and add their Pilot skill to the defense test. Doing this adds the Handling of the vehicle as a limit to the test.
A vehicle that is not moving does not get to defend against attacks.
SensorsThe signature table is nonsense. The signature of a given target is dependent on the type of sensor attempting to perceive it; Cameras are subject to vision penalties, Thermographic sensors lock on with heat, MAD sensors lock onto ferrous metal, Radio Signal Sensors lock on to Matrix Icons, etc. etc.
The Sensor Housings table should instead read Sensor Array Housings table. Single Sensors do not have their Ratings limited by the size of the Housing.
Area of Effect attacksGrenades and area spells can either be aimed at an area (Simple (3) test) or aimed at a specific target (attack roll vs. defense roll.) If you aim at the area, all the targets in the blast radius can (and probably will) use the Run for Your Life interrupt action to escape the blast. If you aim at a specific target, they cannot use this interrupt action; they get their defense roll instead.
TechnomancersAll technomancers have an innate ability to establish a Direct Connection to any device they touch. Technomancers can also form PANs.
Resonance abilities do not render properly in the Matrix and can often go undetected. If something does not qualify as an Attack or Sleaze action, the victim would have to make a Matrix Perception check to notice they were the target of something. This includes Resonance Spike. A persona forced to perform an action with Puppeteer is obviously aware it performed an action, but a Device that is Puppeteer'd does not notify its owner.