03The GUMSHOE Rules System
This section describes the basic GUMSHOE rules system and is addressed to players and GM alike. But first bear with us for a little explanatory theory.
Why This Game Exists
GUMSHOE speeds and streamlines the time-honored form of the investigative roleplaying game. The central question a traditional RPG asks is:
Will the heroes get the information they need?
Assuming that they look in the right place and apply appropriate abilities to the task, GUMSHOE ensures that the heroes get the basic clues they need to move through the story. The question it asks is:
What will the heroes do with the information once they’ve got it?
If you think about it, this is how the source materials we base our mystery scenarios on handle clues. You don’t see the forensic techies on CSI failing to successfully use their lab equipment, or Sherlock Holmes stymied and unable to move forward because he blew his Zoology roll.
You don’t see this because, in a story failure to gain information is rarely more interesting than getting it. New information opens up new narrative possibilities, new choices and actions for the characters. Failure to get information is a null result that takes you nowhere.
In a fictional procedural, whether it’s a mystery novel or an episode of a cop show, the emphasis isn’t on finding the clues in the first place. When it really matters, you may get a paragraph telling you how difficult the search was, or a montage of a CSI team tossing an apartment. But the action really starts after the clues are gathered.
Investigative scenarios are not about finding clues, they’re about interpreting the clues you do find.
GUMSHOE, therefore, makes the finding of clues all but automatic, as long as you get to the right place in the story and have the right ability. That’s when the fun part begins, when the players try to put the components of the puzzle together.
That’s hard enough for a group of armchair detectives, without withholding half the pieces from them. Every investigative scenario begins with a crime or conspiracy committed by a group of antagonists. The bad guys do something bad. The player characters must figure out who did it and put a stop to their activities.
When you do see information withheld from characters, it’s seldom portrayed as a failure on the part of the competent, fact-gathering heroes. Instead the writers show an external force preventing them from applying their abilities. In a space opera show, you might get the proverbial ion storm that prevents the crew from scanning the planet before they go down. Information is only withheld when it makes the story more interesting—usually by placing the heroes at a handicap while they move forward in the storyline. In GUMSHOE terms, they’re not trying to get an available clue and failing; they’re using an ability for which no clue is available.
Historically, story-based roleplaying, of which investigative games were an early if not the earliest example, evolved from dungeon-bashing campaigns. They treat clues the same way that dungeon games treat treasure. You have to search for the clue that takes you on to the next scene. If you roll well, you get the clue. If not, you don’t—and the story grinds to a halt.
However, treasure gathering isn’t the main event in a dungeon game. There, the central activity is killing the monsters and enemies who live in the dungeon. The treasure-finding phase comes afterwards, as a mere reward. If you don’t get all the treasure in a room, you lose out a bit, but the story keeps going, as you tromp down the hallway to the next monster-filled chamber.
Imagine a dungeon game where you always had to roll well to find another room to plunder, or sit around feeling frustrated and bored.
Many of our favorite roleplaying games use the traditional roll-to-get-a-clue model. You may have been lucky enough to play in them without ever seeing your game ground to a halt after a failed information roll. Perhaps your GM, or the scenario designer, has carefully crafted the adventure so that you never have to get any specific clue to advance the story.
More likely, your GM adjusts on the fly to your failed rolls, creating elaborate workarounds that get you the same information by different means. When you think about it, these runarounds moments are essentially time killers. They bring about a predetermined, necessary result while giving you the illusion of randomness and chance. GUMSHOE cuts out these filler moments in favor of scenes that actually advance the story. With the time saved, you can construct more detailed, compelling mysteries for the players to sort out. That’s where the streamlining comes in.
If you’ve never had a game stop dead on a missed clue, you may naturally figure that it never happens to anyone. Having run GMing seminars at conventions for years, I can assure you that this is not the case. People come up to me all the time to share their horror stories of games that literally go nowhere on a blown spot test. This should not be surprising. GMs are doing what the rules tell them to do, and failing to see the unwritten rule that they should then spend five to twenty minutes of game time introducing a workaround.
GUMSHOE gives you the rules you should actually use as written, and skips the workaround.
But even if you’ve never noticed this problem, play it because it focuses and streamlines play, eliminating the elaborate workarounds your GM has to use to make the missed information rolls invisible to you. It replaces these moments of circular plotting with more interesting scenes that move the story forward.
Mystery Structure
[Alter as needed for your genre.]
Every investigative scenario begins with a crime, conspiracy, or other act of disorder committed by a group of antagonists. The bad guys do something bad. The player characters must figure out who did it and put a stop to their activities.
Your GM designs each scenario by creating an investigation trigger, a sinister conspiracy, and a trail of clues.
The investigation trigger. This is the event, that attracts the attention of investigators.
- The discovery of a murder victim, obviously slain during a ritualistic killing.
- The discovery of a corpse slain by supernatural means, perhaps by a creature.
- Sightings of supernatural creatures or phenomena.
The sinister conspiracy. This sets out who the bad guys are, what they’ve done so far, what they’re trying to do, and how the investigation trigger fits into the overall scheme. The GM also determines what has to happen to prevent the plot from going forward. This, unknown to the players, is their victory condition — what they have to do to thwart the bad guys and bring the story to a positive conclusion.
Once the GM has the logic of the story worked out from the villain’s point of view, she then thinks in reverse, designing a trail of clues leading from the investigation trigger to an understanding of the sinister plot and its players, sufficient to get to work destroying it.
Optionally, the GM may also plan a series of antagonist reactions. These lay out what the bad guys do when they find out that they’re being investigated. The GM determines what conditions trigger them, and what the antagonists attempt to do. These may include further crimes, giving the team more to investigate. They may try to destroy evidence, hinder the investigation by planting false leads, or to intimidate or dispose of potential witnesses, including accomplices they no longer trust. They may attack the investigators. Foolish, overconfident or risk-taking antagonists may take them on directly. Clever antagonists will strike from a distance, taking great pains to cover their tracks.
Ordinary crime dramas may call for a simpler structure. The bad guys could still be furthering a sinister plot, or they may be doing nothing after committing the triggering crime other than hoping that the investigators don’t catch up with them. In this case there is no ongoing conspiracy to disrupt. To achieve victory and bring the scenario to a successful conclusion, the investigators need merely prove their case against the criminals. The climactic scene might involve wringing a confession from the wrongdoer, or provoking him into revealing the crucial bit of evidence which will ensure his conviction.
From Structure To Story
The GM’s structure notes are not a story. The story occurs as you, the team of players, brings the structure to life through the actions of your characters. The story proceeds from scene to scene, where you determine the pace, discovering clues and putting them together. Your characters interact with locations, gathering physical evidence, and supporting characters run by the GM, gathering expert and eyewitness testimony.
The first scene presents the mystery you have to solve. You then perform legwork, collecting information that tells you more about the case. Each scene contains information pointing to a new scene. Certain scenes may put a new twist on the investigation, as the initial mystery turns out to be just one aspect of a much bigger story. As clues accumulate, a picture of the case emerges, until your characters arrive at a climactic scene, where all is revealed and the bad guys confronted. A wrap-up scene accounts for loose ends and shows the consequences of your success—or, in rare instances, failure. (Why is failure possible at all? Its possibility creates urgency and suspense.)
To move from scene to scene, and to solve the overall mystery, you must gather clues. They fuel your forward momentum.
[[[BEGIN SIDEBAR]]]
Tip For Players: Containing Speculation
Investigative scenarios often bog down into speculative debate between players about what could be happening. Many things can be happening, but only one thing is. If more than one possible explanation ties together the clues you have so far, you need more clues.
Whenever you get stuck, get out and gather more information.
[[[END SIDEBAR]]]
Gathering Clues
Gathering clues is simple. All you have to do is: 1) get yourself into a scene where relevant information can be gathered and 2) have the right ability to discover the clue and 3) tell the GM that you’re using it. As long as you do these three things, you will never fail to gain a piece of necessary information. It is never dependent on a die roll. If you ask for it, you will get it.
You can specify exactly what you intend to achieve: “I use Textual Analysis to determine if the memo was really written by Danziger.”
Or you can engage in a more general informational fishing expedition: “I use Evidence Collection to search the crime scene.”
If your suggested action corresponds to a clue in the scenario notes, the GM provides you the information arising from the clue.
Some clues would be obvious to a trained investigator immediately upon entering a scene. These passive clues are provided by the GM without prompting. Scenarios suggest which clues are passive and which are active, but your GM will adjust these in play depending on how much guidance you seem to need. On a night when you’re cooking with gas, the GM will sit back and let you prompt her for passive clues. When you’re bogging down, she may volunteer what would normally be active clues.
Core Clues
For each scene, the GM designates a core clue. This is the clue you absolutely need to move to the next scene, and thus to complete the entire investigation. GMs will avoid making core clues available only with the use of obscure investigative abilities. (For that matter, the character creation system is set up so that the group as a whole will have access to all, or nearly all, of these abilities.) The ability the GM designates is just one possibility, not a straight jacket – if players come up with another plausible method, the GM should give out the information.
Some clues would be obvious to a trained investigator immediately upon entering a scene. These passive clues are provided by the GM without prompting. Scenarios suggest which clues are passive and which are active, but your GM will adjust these in play depending on how much guidance you seem to need. On a night when you’re cooking with gas, the GM will sit back and let you prompt her for passive clues. When you’re bogging down, she may volunteer what would normally be active clues.
Special Benefits
Certain clues allow you to gain special benefits by spending points from the relevant investigative ability pool. During your first few scenarios, your GM will offer you the opportunity to spend additional points as you uncover these clues. After that it’s also up to you to ask if it there’s anything to be gained by spending extra time or effort on a given clue. You can even propose specific ways to improve your already good result; if your suggestion is persuasive or entertaining, the GM may award you a special benefit not mentioned in her scenario notes.
Each benefit costs either 1 or 2 points from the relevant pool, depending on the difficulty of the additional action and the scope of the reward. When asking you if you want to purchase the benefit, the GM always tells you how much it will cost. Additional information gained provides flavor, but is never required to solve the case or move on to a new scene. Often it makes the character seem clever, powerful, or heroic. It may grant you benefits useful later in the scenario, frequently by making a favorable impression on supporting characters. It may allow you to leap forward into the story by gaining a clue that would otherwise only become apparent in a later scene. On occasion, the additional information adds an emotional dimension to the story or ties into the character’s past history or civilian life. If you think of your GUMSHOE game as a TV series, an extra benefit gives the actor playing your character a juicy spotlight scene.
The act of spending points for benefits is called a spend. The GM’s scenario notes may specify that you get Benefit X for a 1-point spend, or Benefit Y for a 2-point spend. Sometimes minor non-core information is available at no cost.
GMs of great mental agility who feel comfortable granting their players influence over the details of the narrative may allow them to specify the details of a special benefit.
If you wish to make a spend in a situation where the GM has no special benefit to offer you, and cannot think of one that pertains at all to the investigation, you do not lose the points you wish to spend.
Inconspicuous Clues
Sometimes the characters instinctively notice something without actively looking for it. Often this situation occurs in places they’re moving through casually and don’t regard as scenes in need of intensive searching. The team might pass by a concealed door, spot a droplet of blood on the marble of an immaculate hotel lobby, or approach a vehicle with a bomb planted beneath it. Interpersonal abilities can also be used to find inconspicuous clues. The classic example is of a character whose demeanor or behavioral tics establish them as suspicious.
It’s unreasonable to expect players to ask to use their various abilities in what appears to be an innocuous transitional scene. Otherwise they’d have to spend minutes of game time with every change of scene, running down their abilities in obsessive checklist fashion. That way madness lies.
Instead the GM asks which character has the highest current pool in the ability in question. (When in doubt for what ability to use for a basic search, the GM defaults to Evidence Collection.)
If two or more pools are equal, it goes to the one with the highest rating. If ratings are also equal, their characters find the clue at the same time.
Simple Searches
Many clues can be found without any ability whatsoever. If an ordinary person could credibly find a clue simply by looking in a specified place, the clue discovery occurs automatically. You, the reader, wouldn’t need to be a trained investigator to find a bloody footprint on the carpet in your living room, or notice a manila envelope taped to the underside of a table at the local pub. By that same logic, the Investigators don’t require specific abilities to find them, either. When players specify that they’re searching an area for clues, they’re performing what we call a simple search.
Vary the way you run simple searches according to pacing needs and the preferences of your group. Some players like to feel that their characters are interacting with the imaginary environment. To suit them, use a call-and-response format, describing the scene in a way that suggests places to look. The player prompts back by zeroing in on a detail, at which point you reveal the clue:
You: Beside the window stands a roll-top desk.
Player: I look inside!
You: You find an album full of old photographs.
At other times, or for players less interested in these small moments of discovery, you might cut straight to the chase:
You: You find an album full of old photographs in the roll-top desk.
In the first case, the player who first voices interest in the detail finds the clue. In the second, it goes to, at your discretion:
- the character to whom the clue seems most thematically suited (for example, if you’ve established as a running motif that Agent Jenkins always stumbles on the disgusting clues, and this clue is disgusting, tell his player that he’s once again stepped in it)
- a player who hasn’t had a win or spotlight time for a while
- the character with the highest Evidence Collection rating
Die Rolls
All die rolls in GUMSHOE use a single ordinary (six-sided) die.
Tests
A test occurs when the outcome of an ability use is in doubt. Tests apply to general skills only. Unlike information gathering attempts, tests carry a fairly high chance of failure. They may portend dire consequences if you lose, provide advantages if you win, or both.
Even in the case of general skills, the GM should call for tests only at dramatically important points in the story, and for tasks of exceptional difficulty. Most general ability uses should allow automatic successes, with possible bonuses on point spends, just like investigative abilities.
There are two types of test: simple tests and contests.
Simple Tests
A simple test occurs when the character attempts an action without active resistance from another person or entity. Examples include driving a treacherous road, jumping a gorge, sneaking into an unguarded building, binding a wound, shooting a target, disconnecting a security system, or remaining sane in the face of creeping supernatural horror.
In the game world, expenditure of pool points in this way represents special effort and concentration by the character, the kind you can muster only so many times during the course of an investigation.
The GM does not reveal Difficulty Numbers beforehand. This rule is meant to force players to decide how much they want to commit to the situation, with the gnawing emotional dissonance that comes from the possibility of making the wrong move.
Difficulty Numbers and Story Pacing
Just as the GUMSHOE system keeps the story moving by making all crucial clues accessible to the characters, GMs must ensure that tests and contests essential to forward narrative momentum can be easily overcome. Assign relatively low Difficulty Numbers of 4 or less to these crucial plot points. Reserve especially hard Difficulty Numbers for obstacles which provide interesting but nonessential benefits.
For example, if the characters have to sneak into the cannibal campground in order to stage the final confrontation, assign the relatively low Difficulty Number of 4 to the task. If it seems to the characters that they ought to have a tougher time of it, insert a detail justifying their ease of success. The cannibal assigned to patrol duty might be found passed out at his post, say.
Where it is essential to overcome a General obstacle in order to reach a core scene, allow success whatever the result, but give a negative consequence other than failure for the test. For example, the PC climbs a fence, but receives an injury. This rule never protects characters from Health or Stability loss.
The test represents the character’s best chance to succeed. Once you fail, you’ve shot your wad and cannot retry unless you take some other supporting action that would credibly increase your odds of success. If allowed to do this, you must spend more pool points than you did on the previous attempt. If you can’t afford it, you can’t retry.
Piggybacking
When a group of characters act in concert to perform a task together, they designate one to take the lead. That character makes a simple test, spending any number of his own pool points toward the task, as usual. All other characters pay 1 point from their relevant pools in order to gain the benefits of the leader’s action. These points are not added to the leader’s die result. For every character who is unable to pay this piggybacking cost, either because he lacks pool points or does not have the ability at all, the Difficulty Number of the attempt increases by 2.
In most instances a group cannot logically act in concert. Only one character can drive a car at one time. Two characters with Preparedness check their individual kits in sequence, rather than checking a single kit at the same time.
Cooperation
When two characters cooperate toward a single goal, they agree which of them is undertaking the task directly, and which is assisting. The leader may spend any number of points from her pool, adding them to the die roll. The assistant may pay any number of points from his pool. All but one of these is applied to the die roll.
Continuing Challenges
For tasks where drama, verisimilitude or suspense call for a feeling of repeated effort, assign the obstacle a pool representing the base Difficulty of doing it all at once unaided: this will generally be 8 or higher, often much higher. The tests per se use the standard Difficulty of 4.
The players may take turns, cooperate on each action, or use any other means at their disposal in a series of tests: Athletics to batter down a door, or Digital Intrusion to penetrate a firewall, for example. The points they roll and spend accumulate; when they have enough points to overcome the initial Difficulty, the task is done. No points or rolls spent on a failed test add to the total.
Characters can’t render an impossible task possible just by applying the continuing challenge rules.
Zero Sum Contests
A zero sum contest occurs when something bad or good is definitely going to happen to one of the PCs, and you need to find out which one takes the hit. Each player makes a test of a general ability. A zero sum contest can be positive or negative. In a positive contest, the character with the highest result gets a benefit. In a negative contest, the one with the lowest result suffers an ill consequence. When embarking on a contest with an open Difficulty, inform the players that this is an open Difficulty, and whether this is a positive or negative test. They then decide in advance how many points to spend to modify their rolls, keeping this number secret from other players by writing it down on a piece of paper. They then roll the dice, reveal their expenditures, and announce their final results. You can cap the maximum spend.
Be cautious when treating events with negative outcomes as zero sum contests. Because they guarantee that something bad will definitely happen to one of the PCs, make sure that the negative consequence is distressing but does no permanent harm to the character.
Worse results of zero sum contests are acceptable if the characters have had some other fair chance to avoid exposure to the bad situation.
If players are tied for best result (in the case of a positive test) or worst (in a negative test), the tied players may subsequently spend any number of additional points from the pool in question, in hopes of breaking the tie in their favor. Should results remain tied after additional expenditures, the GM chooses the winner based on story considerations.
General Spends
Occasionally you’ll want to create a task at which there is no reasonable chance of failure, but which should cost the characters a degree of effort. To do this, simply charge the character(s) a number of points from relevant general ability pools. Where tasks can be performed by cooperative effort, multiple characters may contribute points to them. 1 or 2 points per character is a reasonable general spend.
Making General Tests Without Abilities
[Decide whether you want your game to be unforgiving (grim settings, horror atmosphere) or heroic (upbeat settings featuring omni-competent protagonists), then choose your options from the two choices below.]
[Forgiving]:
You can always make a test of any general ability, even when you have no points in its pool, or even if you have a rating of 0.
[Unforgiving]:
You can always make a test of any general ability if your rating is 1 or more, whether or not you currently have points in its pool. You can never test a general ability when your rating is 0.
Lucky Shots
[Forgiving settings only.]
In a desperate situation, you may be called on to use an general ability you don't have. Once per episode, a character with a rating of 0 in a given ability may attempt a lucky shot. The other players must grant unanimous permission for the character to try a lucky shot. They have a vested interest because the once-per-episode rule applies to the entire cast. If they let you use the lucky shot, none of them will be able to try it later on.
If allowed to go forward, you spend up to 4 points from your highest current general ability pool, and add it to your roll.
Should you succeed, you get the result you wanted, but are required to describe the outcome as somehow fluky or embarrassing. Thus you preserve the sense that the players who invested real points in the ability are the real masters, and you succeeded through sheer happenstance. Alternately, you can succeed with a straight face, but then explain how the victory really belongs to the PC with the highest rating in the ability. Maybe she taught you a few tricks between episodes. Or perhaps you remember something bad-ass she did earlier, and are simply aping it now.
Toll Tests
[First seen in Ashen Stars, you might find this rule worth including in settings where the investigators regularly build things, or encounter other situations more about cost-benefit than pass-fail.]
In a toll test, your success is assured, if you want it enough, but the cost of your effort is not. The GM informs you of the Difficulty; you roll the die without announcing an expenditure. Once you see the die result, you then decide whether to spend the points needed to bridge the gap between die roll and Difficulty, or to allow yourself to fail. The base Difficulty of a toll test is 6, which may be modified upwards as circumstances warrant.
Travel Tests
[Used in TimeWatch, travel tests are used instead of fuel to limit the frequency of time travel.]
Every instance of time travel requires a Travel test, a simple Difficulty 4 / Loss 2 Paradox test. Effectively, roll a d6; roll 1–3, and lose 2 points of Chronal Stability. Paying a Stitch per trip bypasses the need for a Travel test.
Contests
Contests occur when two characters, often a player character and a supporting character controlled by the GM, actively attempt to thwart one another. Although contests can resolve various physical match-ups, in a horror game the most common contest is the chase, in which the investigators run away from slavering entities intent on ripping them limb from limb.
In a contest, each character acts in turn. The first to fail a roll of the contested ability loses. The GM decides who acts first. In a chase, the character who bolts from the scene acts first. Where the characters seem to be acting at the same time, the one with the lowest rating in the relevant ability acts first. In the event of a tie, supporting characters act before player characters. In the event of a tie between player characters, the player who arrived last for the current session goes first in the contest.
The first character to act makes a test of the ability in question. If he fails, he loses the contest. If he succeeds, the second character then makes a test. This continues until one character loses, at which point the other one wins.
Typically each character attempts to beat a Difficulty Number of 4.
Where the odds of success are skewed in favor of one contestant, the GM may assign different Difficulties to each. A character with a significant advantage gets a lower Difficulty Number. A character facing a major handicap faces a higher Difficulty Number. When in doubt, the GM assigns the lower number to the advantaged participant.
Throughout the contest, GM and players should collaborate to add flavor to each result, explaining what the characters did to remain in the contest. That way, instead of dropping out of the narration to engage in an arithmetical recitation, you keep the fictional world verbally alive .
Fighting
Fights are slightly more complicated contests involving any of the following abilities:
- Scuffling vs. Scuffling: the characters are fighting in close quarters.
- Shooting vs. Shooting: the characters are apart from one another and trying to hit each other with guns or other missile weapons
Initiative: Determine whether the character who attempts to strike the first blow seizes the initiative and therefore gets the first opportunity to strike his opponent, or if his intended target anticipates his attack and beats him to the punch—or shot, as the case may be.
As GUMSHOE is player-facing, how this works depends on whether the PC in the situation is the aggressor or the defender.
In a Scuffling contest, the PC gets to go first if his Scuffling rating equals or exceeds that of his target.
In a Shooting contest, he gets to go first if his Shooting rating exceeds that of his target.
Otherwise, the opponent goes first.
In the rare instance where two PCs fight one another (when one of them is possessed, say), the PC with the higher applicable rating (Scuffling or Shooting) goes first. If their ratings tie but their pools do not, the one with the higher pool goes first. If both are tied, roll a die, with one player going first on an odd result and the other on even.
A contest proceeds between the two abilities. When combatants using the Scuffling or Shooting abilities roll well, they get the opportunity to deal damage to their opponents.
Alternate Initiative: The time it takes to go through the ranking order once, with each character taking an action, is called a round. When one round ends, another begins. Each character and antagonist (or group of antagonists, if several bad guys act at the same time for simplicity’s sake) gets to take a turn during each round.
The GM determines which character or antagonist goes first in the first round. That character announces who goes next after them, and then acts in combat. When an antagonist takes a turn, the GM announces which character goes next. The last character to act in the round decides who goes first in the following round.
[This Initiative system is used in TimeWatch.]
Hit Thresholds: Each character has a Hit Threshold of either 3 (the standard value) or 4 (if the character’s Athletics rating is 8 or more.) The Hit Threshold is the Difficulty Number the character’s opponent must match or beat in order to harm him. Less competent supporting characters may have lower Hit Thresholds. Creatures may have Hit Thresholds of 4 or higher, regardless of their Athletics ratings.
Dealing Damage: When you roll on or over your opponent’s Hit Threshold, you may deal damage to him. To do so, you make a damage roll, rolling a die which is then modified according to the relative lethality of your weapon, as per the following table:
| Weapon Type | Damage Modifier |
| Fist, kick | –2 |
| Small improvised weapon, police baton, knife | –1 |
| Machete, heavy club, light firearm | 0 |
| Sword, heavy firearm | +1 |
For firearms, add an additional +2 when fired at point blank range.
Supernatural creatures often exhibit alarmingly high damage modifiers.
Characters may never spend points from their combat pools to increase their damage rolls.
The final damage result is then subtracted from your opponent’s Health pool. When a combatant’s Health pool drops to 0 or less, that combatant begins to suffer ill effects, ranging from slight impairment to helplessness to death; see sidebar.
Unlike other contests, participants do not lose when they fail their test rolls. Instead, they’re forced out of the fight when they lose consciousness or become seriously wounded.
[Some systems such as TimeWatch adjust weapon damage upwards, varying between a Damage Modifier of +0 and +2 or more. Adjust this based on your game’s lethality.]
Resisting Stunning
Tasers, stun guns, tranquilizer darts, and futuristic weapons work by knocking you unconscious without causing extensive Health damage. Resisting stunning works much like resisting unconsciousness. The Difficulty Number, however, is set by the Stun value of the weapon used against you instead of by your current Health.
When hit with a stunning weapon, you must make a Stun test. Roll a die with the Stun rating of the weapon as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself to remain conscious, voluntarily reducing your Health pool by an amount of your choice. For each point you reduce it, add 1 to your die result. If you strain your Health below 0 or (if you’re already below 0) below −5, you will also have to make a Consciousness roll after the Stunning attack is resolved. If you are attacked by more than one stunning weapon in a single round, you make a separate Stun test for each attack.
If you succeed in a Stun test, you remain conscious but are briefly Impaired; you suffer a noncumulative 1-point increase to the Difficulty of any actions (including other Stun tests) you attempt until the end of your next turn. If you fail a Stun test, you are knocked unconscious for a period that varies by weapon, but which is usually 10–60 minutes or until awakened by someone successfully making a Difficulty 4 Medic test on you (which does not otherwise restore Health).
Creatures with a Health rating of 3 or less immediately fall unconscious when successfully hit by a neural disruptor, no Stun test allowed. (In other words, GMs who want an enemy to go down in one shot should give them 3 or fewer Health.)
[Stun Tests were introduced in TimeWatch.]
Exhaustion, Injury and Death
Unlike most abilities, your Health pool can drop below 0.
When it does this, you must make a Consciousness Roll. Roll a die with the absolute value[2] of your current Health pool as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself to remain conscious, voluntarily reducing your Health pool by an amount of your choice. For each point you reduce it, add 1 to your die result. The Difficulty of the Consciousness roll is based on your Health pool before you make this reduction.
If your pool is anywhere from 0 to –5, you are hurt, but have suffered no permanent injury, beyond a few superficial cuts and bruises. However the pain of your injuries makes it impossible to spend points on Investigative abilities, and increases the Difficulty Numbers of all tests and contests, including opponents’ Hit Thresholds, by 1.
A character with the Medic ability can improve your condition by spending Medic points. For every Medic point spent, you regain 2 Health points—unless you are the Medic, in which case you gain only 1 Health point for every Medic point spent. The Medic can only refill your pool to where you were before the incident in which you received this latest injury. He must be in a position to devote all of his attention to directly tending to your wounds.
If your pool is between –6 and –11, you have been seriously wounded. You must make a Consciousness roll.
Whether or not you maintain consciousness, you are no longer able to fight. Until you receive first aid, you will lose an additional Health point every half hour. A character with the Medic ability can stabilize your condition by spending 2 Medic points. However, he can’t restore your Health points.
Even after you receive first aid, you must convalesce in a hospital or similar setting for a period of days. Your period of forced inactivity is a number of days equal to the positive value of your lowest Health pool score. (So if you were reduced to –8 Health, you are hospitalized for 8 days.) On the day of your discharge, your Health pool increases to half its maximum value. On the next day, it refreshes fully.
When your pool dips to –12 or below, you are dead. Time to create a replacement character.
Bigger Fights
Combat becomes more chaotic when two groups of combatants fight, or a group gangs up against a single opponent.
If one group of combatants is surprised by the other (see sidebar), the surprising side goes before the surprised side.
Otherwise, determine initiative as follows.
Close-up fight: if any PC has a Scuffling rating equal to or greater than than any combatant on the other side, the PCs act first.
Shoot-out: if any PC has a Shooting rating equal to or greater than than any combatant on the other side, the PCs act first.
Shoot-outs may devolve into scuffles; this does not alter the already-established initiative order.
The time it takes to go through the ranking order once, with each character taking an action, is called a round. When one round ends, another begins.
In the course of each round, either the PCs or their enemies go first, as already established by the initiative order. Then the other side responds. The order in which the two sides act remains unchanged from round to round.
During the portion of the round devoted to the PCs, each participating PC makes an attack in sequence, according to the players’ seating order, from left to right. Sequence becomes irrelevant, obviously, when only one PC is participating (or still standing) in the fight.
In their portion of the round, opponent(s) respond with their own wave of attack attempts, ordered by the characters they’re targeting, again using a left to right player seating order. Where multiple opponents attack a single PC, the GM determines their order of action in whatever manner she finds convenient—usually the order in which she’s tracking them in her rough notes.
The order of action can therefore change slightly from round to round for the PCs’ opponents, but not for the PCs.
Some beings may strike more than once per round. They make each attack in succession, and may divide them up between opponents within range, or concentrate all of them on a single enemy. GMs order these attacks in whatever order they find convenient, so long as they fall within portion of the round devoted to enemy attacks. Usually it’s easiest to have them act against multiple PCs at once, starting when they reach the first target in the seating order
When called upon to act, each character may strike at any opponent within range of his weapons.
Creatures may choose to use their actions to deal additional damage to downed or helpless opponents rather than engage active opponents. They automatically deal once instance of damage per action. Only the most crazed and bestial human enemies engage in this behavior.
Characters who join a combat in progress come last in order of precedence. If more than two characters join during the same round, the GM determines their relative precedence using the rules above.
The fight continues until one side capitulates or flees, or all of its members are unconscious or otherwise unable to continue.
Surprise
Player characters are surprised when they find themselves suddenly in a dangerous situation. Avoid being surprised with a successful Surveillance test. The basic Difficulty is 4, adjusted by the opponent’s Stealth Modifier.
Player characters surprise supporting characters by sneaking up on them with a successful Infiltration or Surveillance test. The basic Difficulty is 4, adjusted by the opponent’s Stealth modifier.
Surprised characters suffer a +2 increase to all general ability Difficulties for any immediately subsequent action. In a fight, the penalty pertains to the first round of combat.
Armor
Armor may reduce the damage from certain weapon types. If you’re wearing a form of armor effective against the weapon being used against you, you subtract a number of points from each instance of damage dealt to you before applying it to your Health pool. Light body armor, as worn by police officers, reduces each instance of damage from bullets by 2 points and from cutting and stabbing weapons (knives, swords, machetes) by 1 point. Military-grade body armor reduces bullet damage by 3 points.
Light body armor is heavy, hot, and marks you out as someone looking for trouble. All of these drawbacks apply doubly to military-grade body armor. Investigators can’t expect to walk around openly wearing armor without attracting the attention of the local SWAT team. Armor and heavy weapons may prove useful in discrete missions conducted away from prying eyes.
In choosing to make contemporary body armor highly effective against firearms, we’re drawing on the portrayal of Kevlar vests in cop shows and movies. We make no claims for any resemblance between these rules and real life. The rules also favor close-up physical confrontations, which are more in keeping with the horror genre than firefights. GMs using the GUMSHOE rules in more realistic, horror-free investigative settings may wish to reduce the effectiveness of body armor against gunfire.
Creatures often have high armor ratings. They may possess hard, bony hides or monstrous anatomies that can take greater punishment than ordinary organisms. Most supernatural creatures are more resistant to bullets and other missile weapons than they are to blunt force trauma, slashes, and stab wounds.
[Delete or modify references to supernatural creatures as needed for your genre.]
Cover
In a typical gunfight, combatants seek cover, hiding behind walls, furniture or other barriers, exposing themselves only for the few seconds it takes them to pop up and fire a round at their targets. The GUMSHOE rules recognize three cover conditions:
Exposed: No barrier stands between you and the combatant firing at you. Your Hit Threshold decreases by 1.
Partial Cover: About half of your body is exposed to fire. Your Hit Threshold remains unchanged.
Full Cover: Except when you pop up to fire a round, the barrier completely protects you from incoming fire. Your Hit Threshold increases by 1.
One Gun, Two Combatants
If your opponent has a gun well in hand and ready to fire, and you charge him from more than five feet away, he can empty his entire clip or chamber at you before you get to him, badly injuring you. You are automatically hit. He rolls one instance of damage, which is then tripled. Yes, we said tripled. And, yes, the tripling occurs after weapon modifiers are taken into account. This is why few people charge when their opponents have the drop on them.
If your opponent has a pistol but it is not well in hand and ready to fire, you may attempt to jump him and wrestle it from his grip. If he has a pistol well in hand but is unaware of your presence, you may also be able to jump him, at the GM’s discretion. The characters engage in a Scuffling contest to see which of them gets control of the gun and fires it. The winner makes a damage roll against the loser, using the pistol’s Damage Modifier, including the +2 for point blank range.
If you jump an opponent with an unready rifle, a Scuffling combat breaks out, with the opponent using the rifle as a heavy club.
Ammo Capacity
The Esoterrorists sets aside the loving attention to firearm intricacies characteristic of most contemporary-era RPG systems. For example, characters need reload only when dramatically appropriate. Otherwise, they’re assumed to be able to refill the cylinders of their revolvers or jam clips into their automatic weapons between shots.
When reloading is an issue, GMs may request a Shooting test (Difficulty 3) to quickly reload. Characters who fail may not use their Shooting ability to attack during the current round.
Range
The effect of range on firearms combat is likewise simplified nearly out of existence. Handguns and shotguns can only be accurately fired at targets within fifty meters. The range limit for rifles is one hundred meters.
Non-Lethal Weapons
In GUMSHOE, non-lethal attacks never take an opponent out faster than standard combat. Otherwise players will have their characters simply knock their enemies out and kill them in cold blood, which is unsympathetic and out of genre. Thus tasers and stun guns work less effectively in the game than in real life.
Fighting Without Abilities
A character with a Shooting rating of 0 is not allergic to guns. Anyone can pick up a revolver and empty it in the general direction of the foe. Likewise, a character with no Scuffling ability is not going to just ignore the fire axe sitting on the wall when a blood bursts through a partition wall.
However, such characters will use their weapons ineffectively and hesitantly. Using a weapon (including fists or feet) without ability has the following drawbacks:
- You automatically do an additional -2 damage
- You must declare your action at the beginning of each round and cannot change it if the tactical situation alters.
- You automatically go last in each round.
- If you are using a firearm, a roll of 1 means you have accidentally shot yourself or one of your allies, as selected (or rolled randomly) by the GM. Do damage as normal (including your automatic -2 penalty).
Called Shots
[Use only for especially combat-oriented GUMSHOE games.]
In certain situations simply hitting an enemy isn’t enough: you need to get him in a particular spot. When taking a called shot, specify the desired location of the strike and any additional intended effect other than injury to the opponent. The GM decides whether this is a likely outcome of such a hit. If it is clearly not a likely outcome, and your character would logically know this, she warns you in advance, so you can do something else instead.
The GM then adds 1 to 4 points to the target’s Hit Threshold, depending on the additional difficulty entailed. Use the following table as a guideline. Body locations assume a human of ordinary size. Hit Threshold modifiers for ordinary body parts of extraordinary creatures are left as an exercise for the GM. Vehicle locations are in italics.
Desired Location |
|
| Large carried object (rocket launcher, laptop computer, backpack) | +1 |
| Torso, windshield | +1 |
| Chest (if attacker is facing target) | +2 |
| Gut, specific window, tail rotor | +2 |
| Head or limb | +2 |
| Hand or foot, joint, tire | +3 |
| Heart, throat, mouth, or face | +3 |
| Weapon or other hand-held object | +3 |
| Eye, headlight | +4 |
| Chest (if target faces away from attacker) | +4 |
With the new Hit Threshold determined, you then make a combat ability test, as per the standard rules. If you succeed, your specified effect occurs as desired.
If you struck an ordinary person in the head, throat, or chest with a weapon, add +2 to the damage; hitting the heart adds +3 to the damage. Neither can be combined with a point-blank gunshot, which is already assumed to hit a vital location.
If you struck an ordinary person in a joint (wrist, knee, etc.) or throat with an aimed hand-to-hand blow, lock, or kick, add +2 to the damage; hitting an eye adds +3 to the damage.
This assumes a trained, targeted strike intended to disable or cripple. You may narrate some other crippling strike to suit your own specific martial arts idiom, but the modifiers remain the same if you want to do the extra damage.
If, after this damage is dealt, the victim is already Hurt but not Seriously Wounded, you may then pay an additional 6 points from the fighting ability you are using to reduce the target to -6 Health. If the target is already Seriously Wounded you may then pay an additional 6 Shooting, Weapons, or Hand-to-Hand points (whichever applies) to kill the target outright.
Combat Options
[Games featuring extensive fight sequences may benefit from the addition of combat options. Examples include Night’s Black Agents and the Special Suppression Forces series frame for The Esoterrorists.
Combat options provide extra benefits during a fight. They require:
- that the character meet a prerequisite rating in one or more fighting-related General abilities
and/or
- the expenditure of points from one or more fighting-related General abilities.
Example Combat Option: Mook Shield
Prereq: Hand-to-Hand 8+
If you have a Hand-to-Hand rating of 8 or more, you can drag a convenient mook, henchman, or minion into the path of incoming gunfire. Spend 3 Hand-to-Hand points and then make a Hand-to-Hand attack against any mook in Point-Blank range, or 3 Hand-to-Hand and 2 Athletics and then make a Hand-to-Hand attack against any mook in Close range. (Those points do not add to your attack.) If no mook is closer than Near range, you cannot use Mook Shield.
If you succeed, all ranged attacks that miss you hit the mook instead until your next turn; the mook can do nothing. Additionally, the mook provides -4 Armor against incoming fire, losing 4 points of Health for each bullet that hits you. Holding a mook up in front of you gives you full cover, and increases your normal Hit Threshold by 1. On your next turn, you may fire a weapon, but must either drop the mook (or, more likely, his corpse) or spend 3 additional Shooting points to fire from under his arm.
[From Night’s Black Agents]
[Many combat options and cherries allow an immediate ability pool refresh. For example:]
Example Combat Option: Martial Arts
Characters with a Scuffling rating of 8 can specify that they are trained in one or more martial arts. Once per fight, their players may gain a 4-point Scuffling refresh by uttering a brief, evocative narrative description of his or her elegantly bone-crunching moves:
-
“With a flowing Kata Gurama, I try to sweep him up onto my shoulder and down to the pavement.”
-
“Using my krav maga training, I target the back of his knee with a pivoting, angled kick.”
-
“Remembering the sweat and humidity of that sweltering Bangkok gym so long ago, I summon up all my strength to tag him with a ferocious cross jab.”
At the GM’s discretion, especially poetic or believably obscure descriptions may fetch a 5-point refresh.
These utterances needn’t be improvised; players can prepare key phrases in advance, then adapt them to the situation at hand.
[From The Esoterror Fact Book.]
Running Away
Fleeing from an ongoing fight requires an Athletics test. The Difficulty is 3 plus the number of foes you're fleeing from: to flee one enemy is Difficulty 4, fleeing two enemies is Difficulty 5, fleeing four enemies is Difficulty 7. On a success, melee ends and you flee; if they intend to chase you, your foes must roll first in the ensuing full contest of Athletics. If you fail, the opponent with the highest damage value automatically deals one instance of damage to you. Melee still ends, but you must roll first in the ensuing chase.
In situations where it seems appropriate to make flight more difficult, on a failure, any directly engaged opponent might spend 3 Athletics to block you from fleeing—interposing himself between you and the exit, tackling you, slamming the garage doors, or whatever the narrative description warrants. In this case, your enemies forgo the damage they would otherwise deal.
Stability Tests
[Not all genres require a system for psychological resistance. In horror games, Stability marks the downward spiral of your diminishing faculties. In Mutant City Blues, it’s just a resistance to mental attacks. Ashen Stars doesn’t use it at all. Adjust as needed for your setting.]
Mental stresses can take you out of commission, temporarily or permanently, as easily as physical injury.
When an incident challenges your fragile sanity, make a Stability test against a Difficulty Number of 4.
If you fail, you lose a number of Stability points. The severity of the loss depends on the situation. As with any other test of a general ability, you are always permitted to spend Stability points to provide a bonus to your roll. However, it’s never a good bet to spend more points than you stand to lose if you fail.
Your Stability loss from failed tests is capped at the worst incident in that scene. Points spent on providing bonuses are still lost.
| Incident | Stability Loss |
| A human opponent attacks you with evident intent to do serious harm | 2 |
| You are in a car or other vehicle accident serious enough to pose a risk of injury | 2 |
| A human opponent attacks you with evident intent to kill | 3 |
| You see a supernatural creature from a distance | 3 |
| You see a supernatural creature up close | 4 |
| You see a particularly grisly murder or accident scene | 4 |
| You learn that a friend or loved one has been violently killed | 4 |
| You discover the corpse of a friend or loved one | 6 |
| You are attacked by a supernatural creature | 7 |
| You see a friend or loved one killed | 7 |
| You see a friend or loved one killed in a particularly gruesome manner | 8 |
GMs should feel free to assess Stability Losses for other incidents, using the examples provided as a benchmark. Some especially overwhelming creatures may impose higher than normal Stability losses when seen from a distance, seen up close, or ripping your lungs out.
Characters make a single roll per incident, based on its highest potential Stability loss.
Groups craving an additional point of complexity can occasionally alter Difficulty Numbers for Stability tests depending on the character’s attitude toward the destabilizing event. Characters who would logically be inured to a given event face a Difficulty of 3, while those especially susceptible face a 5. A character whose daytime identity is that of a surgeon or coroner might, for example, face a lowered Difficulty when encountering gruesomely mutilated bodies. A stock car racer would get a better chance against car accidents. No character type gets a break when encountering supernatural creatures.
Losing It
Like Health, your Stability pool can drop below 0.
If your Stability ranges from 0 to –5, you are shaken.
Difficulty Numbers for all general abilities increase by 1, and it becomes more difficult to use investigative abilities.
If you want to make an Investigative spend, make a test with the absolute value[3] of your current Stability pool as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself, voluntarily reducing your Stability pool by an amount of your choice. For each point you reduce it, add 1 to your die result. The Difficulty of the Stability test is based on your Stability pool before you make this reduction. If you fail, you still make the spend, but you should roleplay this failure.
If your Stability ranges from –6 to –11, you acquire a mental illness.
This stays with you even after your Stability pool is restored to normal. See below for more. You also continue to suffer the ill effects of being shaken. Furthermore, you permanently lose 1 point from your Stability rating. The only way to get it back it to purchase it again with build points.
When your Stability reaches –12 or less, you are incurably insane. You may commit one last crazy act, which must either be self-destructively heroic or self-destructively destructive. Or you may choose merely to gibber and drool. Assuming you survive your permanent journey to the shores of madness, your character is quietly shipped off to a secure Ordo Veritatis psych facility, never to be seen again. Time to create a new character.
Paradox and Chronal Stability
[These rules are used in TimeWatch.]
Being a time traveler feels like standing in an ocean’s shallows, fighting a riptide that tries to carry you out to sea. As a time traveler you need to make a conscious effort of will to resist the universe’s attempt to eradicate you from time periods where you don’t belong. In TimeWatch, the degree to which you’re anchored to reality is represented by your Chronal Stability. Think of it like your Health points, but instead of measuring how far you are from dying, it measures how far you are from the universe unraveling your existence.
The threat of chronal instability is one of the major challenges facing a TimeWatch agent. You can potentially lose Chronal Stability when time traveling (which requires you to make a simple Travel test), when encountering or causing paradox, and from rare aliens or technological devices. When this is a risk, the GM will ask you to make a Paradox test. In some campaign frames where mental stability is tied to Chronal Stability, severe emotional and mental shocks from horrific occurrences can also degrade your Chronal Stability.
Lost Chronal Stability points can only be restored with the Reality Anchor ability, as your allies keep you centered and remind you who you truly are. Lost Chronal Stability cannot be restored directly by cashing in Stitches. If your Chronal Stability drops to 0 or below, you are at risk of fading away, being erased from the universe, or suffering from lingering insanity after accidentally being subsumed by someone else’s life.
Any time you first experience a paradox, you make a Paradox test. A paradox occurs when an already established event is contradicted.
How Paradox Tests Work
Paradox tests work like a Stun test, but with Chronal Stability instead of Health: choose whether or not to spend any Chronal Stability points, roll a d6, and hope to hit a target Difficulty Number (usually 4). For each point you spend, add 1 to your die result. If you meet or exceed the Difficulty, you lose no additional Chronal Stability other than the points you spent to add to your die roll. If you fail, you either suffer some negative result (if a weapon or attack is being used against you) or lose a number of points from your Chronal Stability pool, in addition to any points spent on the test itself. A test with a Difficulty of 4 and a potential Loss of 4 points is called a D4/L4 test.
You’re always permitted to spend Chronal Stability points to provide a bonus to your roll. You cannot voluntarily reduce your Chronal Stability pool below −11. If you strain your Chronal Stability below 0 or below −5, you will also suffer consequences for having become Fading or Subsumed. Unless the GM says otherwise, if you suffer more than one threat to Chronal Stability in a single round, you make a separate Paradox test for each threat.
The severity of a failure depends on the situation; see below. Paradox tests are usually made at a Difficulty of 4, but the Difficulty of such tests varies widely.
Paradox tests are one of the few instances in TimeWatch when the GM will usually tell you the exact Difficulty Number you need, although she may not tell you the exact chronal Loss you would suffer on a failure.
When Do You Risk Losing Chronal Stability?
A little Chronal Stability is usually lost through the normal act of time traveling. Experiencing any paradoxes, whether large or small, also triggers Paradox tests. You may make a Paradox test when something you learn or experience contradicts a known fact, when you change something consequential to history, when you time travel into a scene where you already exist, when you experience something horrific (only in certain campaign frames where emotional stability is tied to Chronal Stability), or when you’re struck with a chronal destabilizer weapon during combat.
Characters have slightly more trouble maintaining Chronal Stability on timelines that are not originally their own. If you’re in a parallel timeline from the one you were born in, any Paradox test other than Travel tests usually has both the Difficulty and Loss raised by 1 point.
Creatures that spend a great deal of time in a parallel universe eventually acclimate to it, losing this penalty. Conveniently enough, in TimeWatch the acclimatization happens at just about the point when both GM and player keep forgetting that the character is originally from an alternate universe, so they seldom remember to apply the penalty. In other words, if the penalty becomes too finicky to easily remember, the character has acclimated and the penalty can be legitimately discarded.
Scenes
We measure the risk of time travel within scenes, where a scene is considered a single encounter. Different incarnations of you can exist dozens or more times in a given time period with no chronal distress at all, as you’re not entangling yourself with the same events, but when you appear more than once within a single scene you risk churning up the temporal waters.
What’s a scene? An evening-long masquerade ball in Marie Antoinette’s court would be considered a scene, as would a 30-second-long quick and vicious fight in a back alley of ancient Athens. A quickly summarized but months-long trek across the Alps might be a scene, as might a 10-minute-long infiltration into an enemy’s stronghold. If your game was a movie and the director would say “end scene,” that’s probably where a scene ends, but the GM always has final say.
Regaining Chronal Stability
Other than finishing a mission, the only way to restore Chronal Stability points is with the Reality Anchor General ability. Reality Anchor restores your stability and stops time from sweeping you away. You can use Reality Anchor on yourself, but it’s not as efficient, only restoring one Chronal Stability point for every Reality Anchor point you spend. If a friend and fellow Agent uses Reality Anchor on you, you regain 2 points of lost Chronal Stability for every point of Reality Anchor they spend. Like any other ability, you can never increase your Chronal Stability pool higher than your rating in the ability.
Triggers for Paradox Tests
A number of things can trigger Paradox tests. Here are some common examples, along with their Difficulty, their Loss, and whether the action needs the expenditure of a Paradox Prevention point to even occur.
Paradox tests can be abbreviated for clarity and brevity. A Travel test would be abbreviated D4/L2, denoting Difficulty 4, Loss 2. If spending a Paradox Prevention point is required to succeed at the test, that’s also noted, such as D4/L4 – P when your future self wants to leave you a note.
| TRIGGER | DIFFICULTY/LOSS | PARADOX PREVENTION SPEND REQUIRED? |
|---|---|---|
No Paradox:
|
None (no test required) | No |
|
D4/L2 | No |
Lesser Paradox:
|
D4/L4 | No |
Paradox:
|
D4/L4 – P | Yes (if you choose not to spend a Paradox Prevention point, you can’t aid yourself in this way) |
Greater Paradox:
|
D4/L6 – P | Yes (if you choose not to spend a Paradox Prevention point, you can’t aid yourself in this way) |
Severe Paradox:
|
D6/L6 or higher | No |
Excessive Paradox
The GM may decide that some time tricks are impossible even when the player wants to make a Paradox test and/or spend a Paradox Prevention point, usually because the time trick doesn’t make sense or because it makes the game less fun for everyone. She’ll generally be consistent about this, and it shouldn’t happen often. When this happens, she’ll say “no” and possibly say why, and you’ll need to find another solution. Excessive paradox generally applies to both player characters and adversaries.
Examples of excessive paradox include:
- trying to use Preparedness to leave yourself an item in a location where you already know no item exists, when there’s no logical way to have the item just appear
- trying to make an Investigative spend to create an effect when you already know that effect is impossible, such as trying to spend Architecture to create a window in a room you already know has none
- trying to add or subtract combatants from past rounds of a combat, or change what occurred earlier in the fight, in a way that would make everyone need to replay all or part of that fight
- losing a battle and going back in time to replay the exact same fight, this time with the odds tipped in your favor so that the end result is different
The Effects of Instability
Like your Health, your Chronal Stability pool can drop below 0.
If your Chronal Stability ranges from 0 to −5, you are Fading, clinging onto reality through pure force of will. Difficulty target numbers for all General abilities increase by 1, and it becomes more difficult to use Investigative abilities.
If you want to make an Investigative spend, make a roll with the absolute value[4] of your current Chronal Stability pool as your Difficulty. You may deliberately strain yourself, voluntarily reducing your Chronal Stability pool by an amount of your choice. For each point you reduce it, add 1 to your die result. The Difficulty of the roll is based on your Chronal Stability pool before you make this reduction. If you succeed, you can make the Investigative spend.
If your Chronal Stability ranges from −6 to −11, you are Subsumed. The universe tries to rid itself of an unnatural irritant by turning you into a local citizen from the current timeline, including a full history and memories that you receive when the universe rewrites itself to include you. Your appearance, personality, and memories change to those decided upon by the GM, or perhaps by both the GM and the player. This new individual has no knowledge of TimeWatch, and any objects on the Agent’s body vanish when Subsumed.
Once your allies locate you (which may range from an easy task to an adventure in itself, as decided by your GM), they will have to spend Reality Anchor to restore you. Upon restoration you permanently lose 1 point from your Chronal Stability rating. The only way to get it back is to purchase it again with build points. The memories of being Subsumed stay with you, as explained below.
When your Chronal Stability reaches −12 or less, you are erased from the universe. We’re not kidding, here; not only don’t you exist, you never existed, and even your closest friends in TimeWatch have faint, fuzzy, and fading memories of you. TimeWatch agents hate it when your Agent is erased, because every mission you accomplished will have to be redone by other TimeWatch agents. Time to create a new character.
Coming Back From the Edge
As long as you’re in audio contact with the recipient, you can spend points from the Reality Anchor ability to help another character regain lost Chronal Stability points. For every Reality Anchor point you spend, the recipient gains 2 Stability points. Reality Anchor points can also be spent to re-anchor yourself to the timeline; for every Reality Anchor point you spend on yourself, you regain 1 Chronal Stability point.
If a character is Subsumed due to chronal instability, you can make a Difficulty 4 Reality Anchor test to snap him into a state of temporary self-awareness. Any points spent on this test do not otherwise restore Chronal Stability. The false reality will reluctantly relinquish its grasp on the character once his Chronal Stability is restored above 0, at which point he will revert to his true appearance and memories. Any held items that vanished when the character was Subsumed will return. Additional Reality Anchor points will restore lost Chronal Stability, but not the point permanently lost when Subsumed.
Characters who have lost a Chronal Stability point due to being Subsumed, even briefly, usually gain new memories and personality traits from the temporary persona. This is a suggested roleplaying quirk that allows players, if they so desire, to model the new memories by rearranging up to 5 points of their character’s Investigative abilities.
These phantom personalities and memories typically disappear if the lost Chronal Stability point is repurchased with build points.
Chimeras
TimeWatch agents who have been subsumed multiple times are referred to in TimeWatch as chimeras, and may become an insane, erratic conglomeration of competing personalities and unique chronal powers. It’s not uncommon for such agents to be retired from active service before they steal an autochron and rebel against TimeWatch. As chimeras tend to be both paranoid and sly, however, they may successfully escape and turn into Adversaries more often than TimeWatch would like to admit.
Mental Illness
[Alter as needed for the flavor of your setting.]
If the incident that drove you to mental illness was mundane in nature, you suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD.) You are haunted by dreams of the incident, and spend your days in a constant state of anxiety and alert, as if prepared for it to repeat itself at any moment. Whenever your senses register any input reminding you of the incident, you must make a Stability test (Difficulty 4) or freeze up. If you freeze up, you are unable to take any action for fifteen minutes and remain shaken (see above) for twenty-four hours after that. Tests to see if you show symptoms of PTSD do not in and of themselves lower your Stability pool.
If driven to mental illness by a supernatural occurrence, you face a range of possible mental disorders. The GM rolls on the following chart or chooses a disorder based on the triggering circumstance. The player is then sent out of the room, while the GM and other players collaborate on a way to heighten his sense of dislocation and disorientation.
- Delusion. The other players and GM decide on a mundane detail of the world which is no longer true and has never been true. For example, there might be no such thing as a squirrel, a Volkswagen, or orange juice. Maybe John Lennon was never assassinated, or never existed in the first place. PCs and supporting characters deny knowledge of the chosen item, person, or event.
- Homicidal Mania. The GM takes the player aside, tells him that he knows one of the other players is a supernatural creature, and tells him just how to kill the monster.
- Megalomania. When the character fails at a dramatic moment, the GM describes the outcome of his ability attempt as successful, then asks the player to leave the room. Then the GM describes the real results to the other players, and invites the megalomaniac player back into the room.
- Multiple Personality Disorder. At moments of stress, another player is assigned control of the character, speaking and acting as if he’s an entirely different person.
- Paranoia. The other players are instructed to act as if they’re trying to keep straight faces when the affected player returns. Occasionally they exchange notes, make hand signals to the GM, or use meaningless code words, as if communicating something important the player is unaware of.
- Selective Amnesia. The group decides on an event that did happen in the world that the player has now forgotten all about. He’s married, or killed someone, or pseudonymously written a best-selling book. Everyone he meets refers to this new, verifiable fact that he has no knowledge of.
Psychological Triage
A character with the Shrink ability can spend points from that pool to help another character regain spent Stability points. For every Shrink point spent, the recipient gains 2 Stability points.
If a character is acting in an erratic manner due to mental illness, a another character can spend 2 points of Shrink to snap him into a state of temporary lucidity. He will then act rationally for the remainder of the current scene.
Head Games
Mental illness can be cured through prolonged treatment using the Shrink ability. At the beginning of each scenario, in a prologue scene preceding the main action, the character administering the treatment makes a Shrink test (Difficulty 4.) After three consecutive successful tests, and three consecutive scenarios in which the patient remains above 0 Stability at all times, the mental illness goes away.
However, if the character ever again acquires a mental illness, he regains the condition he was previously cured of. Permanent cure then becomes impossible.
A successful Shrink test undertaken during the course of a scenario suppresses its symptoms until the patient next suffers a Stability loss.
Regaining Pool Points
Spent points from various pools are restored at different rates, depending on their narrative purpose.
Investigative ability pools are restored only at the end of each case, without regard to the amount of time that passes in the game world. Players seeking to marshal their resources may ask you how long cases typically run, in real time. Most groups finish scenarios over 2-3 sessions. Players may revise their sense of how carefully to manage point spending as they see how quickly their group typically disposes of its cases.
(GMs running extremely long, multi-part investigations may designate certain story events as breakpoints where all investigative pools are refreshed. For example, a globe-hopping investigation where the team meets a separate team of Esoterrorists enemies in five different locales might allow refreshment of investigative pools after each group of enemies is neutralized.)
Use of the Shrink ability permits limited recovery of Stability points in the course of an episode. Full refreshment occurs between cases. It is possible only when the character is able to spend calm, undisturbed quality time with friends and loved ones uninvolved in the shadowy world of the Ordo Veritatis. In campaigns where the teammates’ personal lives are a matter of background detail only, refreshment automatically occurs between episodes.
GMs who wish to add a soap opera element to their campaigns, in which the characters must balance the everyday pressures of ordinary life against their activities as covert battlers of the supernatural, can complicate this process. In this campaign type, the characters must work to keep their support networks intact. If they fail, they regain no Stability between episodes. As part of the character creation process, players must detail their network of friends and loved ones in a paragraph or two of background text, which is then submitted to the GM for approval.
The Health pool refreshes over time, at a rate of 2 points per day of restful activity. (Wounded characters heal at a different rate, over a period of hospitalization.) Use of the Medic ability can restore a limited number of Health points in the course of a session.
Pools for the physical abilities of Athletics, Driving, Scuffling, and Shooting are fully restored whenever twenty-four hours of game-world time elapses since the last expenditure. The remaining general abilities refresh at the end of each case, like investigative abilities.
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What Do Pool Points Represent?
Pool points are a literary abstraction, representing the way that each character gets his or her own time in the spotlight in the course of an ensemble drama. When you do something remarkable, you expend a little bit of your spotlight time. More active players will spend their points sooner than less demonstrative ones, unless they carefully pick and choose their moments to shine.
Remember, all characters are remarkably competent. Pool points measure your opportunities to exercise this ultra-competence during any given scenario. Even when pools are empty, you still have a reasonable chance to succeed at a test, and you’ll always get the information you need to move forward in the case.
Pool points do not represent a resource, tangible or otherwise, in the game world. Players are aware of them, but characters are not. The team members’ ignorance of them is analogous to TV characters’ obliviousness to commercial breaks, the unwritten rules of scene construction, and the tendency of events to heat up during sweeps.
We represent this most purely in the case of investigative skills, which are the core of the game. Their refreshment is tied to a purely fictional construct, the length of the episode.
However, where a pool could be seen to correspond to a resource perceptible to the characters, we handle refreshment in a somewhat more realistic, if also abstract, manner. Characters’ ebbing Health scores are perceptible to the characters in the form of welts, cuts, pain, and general fatigue[5]. Stability is less tangible but can be subjectively measured in the characters’ moods and reactions. Physical abilities, also tied to fatigue and sharpness of reflexes, are also handled with a nod to the demands of realism.
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Stitches: TimeWatch’s Action Points
It’s been said that in GUMSHOE games your entire character sheet is made out of action points: spend your pools, get better results on your dice. TimeWatch is no exception, so TimeWatch’s actual action points (called Stitches, as in “a stitch in time saves nine”) are a little different. They allow you to hang on longer in an action scene, or to raise or lower combat damage.
Distribution
The GM puts a bowl out on the table with 3 markers in it (such as poker chips or glass beads) for every player at the table, excluding the GM. (For instance, 5 players = 15 chips.) The GM doesn’t refill this when it empties out, but spent Stitches are returned to the center bowl. In a virtual game held online, the GM simply puts the markers next to her computer and removes them from or puts them back into the pile when they’re handed out or used.
Players automatically start the game with 1 Stitch each.
When someone makes the table laugh, follows their Drive, roleplays superbly, solves a clever clue, keeps a team moving through an investigation, or makes the game better for other players, they should get a Stitch from the bowl in the middle of the table. As a player you can’t give one to yourself, but you’re encouraged (and pretty much required) to hand out Stitches from the central bowl to other players, thus ensuring that a distracted GM isn’t the only person granting them. Giving another player a Stitch is a way of saying “that was cool!” or “you were awesome.” Pay attention to the other players at the table; you’ll always have one player who is quieter than the rest, and make sure they’re rewarded for interacting as well.
Your GM may also hand out Stitches if she makes a narrative decision that disadvantages a PC for the good of the plot. If she decides that an explosion knocks the group out and that you wake up captured, because the game is more fun to start a scene that way, she’ll hand out one or more Stitches to anyone affected. This should be used sparingly by GMs, but is a good balance for rewarding players if their characters are disadvantaged for the good of the game.
It’s up to the GM how many Stitches a player can have at one time; this is called the hoarding limit. In most games, the hoarding limit is usually 3 at once. If you’re at your hoarding limit, you must spend one or more Stitches before you can earn any more. If someone tries to hand you a Stitch when you’re already at the hoarding limit, you can immediately spend one or more of your existing Stitches to refresh pool points, and then accept the newly proffered one.
What Stitches Do
Stitches can be used for five things: slightly refreshing a pool, aiding another character through teamwork, simplifying time travel, boosting your weapon damage, or reducing weapon damage inflicted on you. The Teamwork benefit aside, you can never normally spend Stitches on behalf of someone else.
Pool Refreshes: At any time, spend one or more Stitches to refresh one or more General ability pools by 2 points per Stitch.
This is the primary way that you refresh your General pools. You can never exceed your ability’s rating; for instance, if your Scuffling rating is 5 and you’re down to 0, spending 3 Stitches on refreshes will bring it back up to 5 and no higher. This is specifically a refresh, not a bonus to a roll.
Stitches can never restore points to any Investigative pool, to Health (which is restored with the Medic ability), or to Chronal Stability (which is restored with the Reality Anchor ability).
Teamwork: Teamwork is a fast, easy way to give an ally +1 on a roll. As long as you can explain to the GM how you’re helping, you can spend 2 Stitches to slightly aid another player in a General ability test. Spend 2 Stitches before or after the other player rolls his die, and you give him a +1 bonus on the die roll. This is the only method in the game for giving a bonus after the die is already rolled, and the bonus cannot be greater than +1. The GM can disallow this if she feels your description of how you’re helping wouldn’t work.
At the GM’s discretion, and if it makes sense, multiple players can use teamwork to help the same character before they roll their die. This is different from the Cooperation rules in that it doesn’t require an action, can be done on someone else’s turn, and provides a maximum bonus of +1 per assisting character.
Simplify Time Travel: Normally, every instance of time travel requires characters to make a Travel test to avoid losing 2 points of Chronal Stability. Spending a Stitch when time traveling negates the need to make a Travel test. You can’t spend a Stitch to negate other Paradox tests, though.
Boost Combat Damage: You can spend Stitches after rolling the damage die to increase damage inflicted on a 1-for-1 basis. Successfully punch someone for 1d6 − 1, spend 3 Stitches, and your damage is instead 1d6 + 2. This has no effect on PaciFist Stun tests or other non-damage effects.
Reduce Combat Damage: After you’ve been told how much Health damage your character has just taken, you can spend Stitches on a 1-for-1 basis to reduce damage that’s inflicted on you. Spend 3 Stitches, for instance, and take 3 points less damage. This has no effect on Stun tests or other non-damage effects.
Improving Your Character
At the end of each investigation, each player gets 2 build points for each session they participated in. (This assumes a small number of 3-4 hour sessions; if you play in shorter bursts, modify accordingly.) Players who had characters die in the course of the investigation only get points for each session involving their current character.
These build points can be spent to increase either investigative or general abilities. You may acquire new abilities or bolster existing ones. If necessary to preserve credibility, rationalize new abilities as areas of expertise you’ve had all along, but are only revealing later in the series.
Opponent Statistics
You usually only need game statistics for characters, including ODEs, that the investigators in some way have to overcome through general abilities. Most witnesses, suspects and non-combatants require only a text description, indicating for example which interpersonal abilities they’re most likely to respond to.
Opponents use the same Hit Threshold and Weapon Damage rules as player characters.
When choosing Health ratings for dramatically unimportant foes, don’t worry about simulating their relative robustness in comparison to the general population. Focus on how many hits they ought to be able to take before dropping, according to dramatic logic. If you want a thug who falls to a single burst of automatic fire, give him a Health of 1 or 2.
An Attack Pattern is an optional game statistic suggesting how the opponent might spend its Scuffling and/or Shooting points from round to round of a fight. GMs should always consult story logic and dramatic needs first and resort to the attack pattern second. You might want a vast lumbering creature to smash doors and walls around the PCs, and a small vicious ODE to attack with unerring precision. These numbers are a fallback if you can’t decide how the opponent would spend, or are uncomfortable choosing to spend enough to guarantee a hit each time. Don’t use them just because they’re there, even if you find the pull of numbers—oh, sweet, beautiful numbers—generally irresistible.
When you do use the Attack Pattern, increase the spends after each miss until the opponent either starts to hit, or runs out of points. Once engaged, opponents figure out how hard the PCs are to hit, and adjust their efforts accordingly.
Instead of a combat pool, some opponents may have a static value to attack. If so, apply this modifier to each attack.
Armor is subtracted from each instance of damage the opponent takes. Where a weapon or weapons is listed in brackets after the number, the Armor reduces damage only from those weapons. Some Armor may protect against all Scuffling attacks but not Shooting attacks, or vice versa.
An opponent’s Alertness Modifier represents its ability to sense your activities, whether through standard senses like sight and hearing, or exotic ones like echolocation, pheromone recognition, or energy signature reading. When you try to sneak past it, the Alertness Modifier is applied to your base Infiltration Difficulty, which is usually 4. It also applies to Surveillance tests when you’re trying to observe the opponent without being observed in turn. The Alertness Modifier reflects all of the individual’s sensing capabilities, both natural and technological. A second number appearing after a slash represents the opponent’s Alertness if its gear is somehow neutralized or taken away.
An opponent with a Stealth Modifier is either significantly harder or easier to spot with Surveillance. It alters the difficulty number for that or similar tests.
Monster Special Abilities
[Opponents in some games, such as TimeWatch, have a range of special abilities that have a cost in ability points, usually from a catch-all General ability such as Tempus. Customize opponents by selecting special abilities from this list.]
Tempus
Tempus (as in tempus fugit) is the ability behind unique antagonist powers. Tempus is a catchall category that represents the antagonist’s mastery over time and space. This ability rating determines the base Hit Threshold of the antagonist, just like Athletics for a TimeWatch Agent; a Tempus rating of 8+ means a Hit Threshold of 4, unless the antagonist is particularly easy to hit (as a few antagonists are). It functions as Preparedness when acquiring objects, as Chronal Stability, including when making Paradox tests, and as Medic when trying to heal oneself, and antagonists draw on it to power their time machines, alien powers, and temporal attacks. Antagonists who are not time travelers or aliens may not have Tempus and use the traditional abilities instead.
Antagonists with strong willpower and a strong sense of self may have more Tempus than is listed here. Weak-willed antagonists may have less.
An antagonist makes Paradox tests using their Tempus points. They do not, however, typically have access to the Reality Anchor ability to restore these points once spent. This means that failed Paradox tests reduce an antagonist’s ability to activate their special powers.
Mooks and Opponents run out of Tempus at 0, just like Health; this may make them fade out of existence if they’re time travelers. Adversaries run out of Tempus at −12, just like Chronal Stability for player characters. An Adversary who runs out of Tempus is erased from the universe, or disembodied and flung to another time. The Adversary can spend herself into a hole if she wants to, but suffers the normal risks of chronal instability for doing so.
Antagonists refresh their Tempus pools fully after an 8-hour rest, so chasing down a fleeing enemy through time can be essential if you don’t want her to clock back in fully rested 15 seconds after she departed. At the GM’s discretion, several hours of downtime will restore half an antagonist’s depleted Tempus.
List of Special Abilities
This list is far from comprehensive. If you think of a new, balanced, fun ability while designing an antagonist, just assign a Tempus cost and scribble it down, and you’re ready to go. Several abilities (such as Cybernetics, Mutation, and Technology) are a catchall for any number of other effects.
| Ability | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Armor | 0 or 3 | Reduces damage |
| Awareness | 0 | Raises the Difficulty of player character Unobtrusiveness tests to hide |
| Blink | 2 + 1/round | Flash in and out of combat |
| Branching Point | 4 | Pick one of two possible paths for yourself or another |
| Chronal Drain | 2 | Drain Reality Anchor points on a hit |
| Clock Out | 2 | Time travel |
| Cybernetics | 2 | Trigger a robotic effect |
| Destabilize | 2 or 4 | Trigger D4/L4 Paradox test |
| Disguise | 1 | Look like a different person |
| Distortion | 2 or 3 | Increase Hit Threshold |
| Electronic Interference | 2 | Render electronics useless |
| Embrace Instability | 0 | Gain Tempus every time Agents make Paradox tests |
| Exile | 2 | Fling target through time |
| Extra Action | 2 | Gain a 2nd action in a combat round |
| Flashback | 5 | Have a preprepared plan, as per the Preparedness Booster |
| Flight | 0 or 2 | Levitate or fly |
| Fluid | 0 or 3 | Effectively immune to most physical attacks |
| Help Yourself | 5 | An older, healthy version arrives to help in combat |
| Hivemind | 0 or 2 | Link brains to share information and lower a foe’s Hit Threshold |
| Immaterial | 0 or 2 | Out of phase with reality |
| Impersonation | 2 | Perfectly impersonate another creature |
| Infection | 0 | Spread disease |
| Interdiction | 0 or 2 | Briefly restrict time travel |
| Invisibility | 3 | Increases Hit Threshold and Stealth Modifier |
| Lightning Speed | 2 | Move quickly |
| Mastermind | 0 | Genius planner and tactician |
| Mental Attack | Variable | Chronal Stability test to avoid mind control or possession |
| Mutation | 2 | Trigger a mutation-related effect |
| Oracle | 1 | Predict upcoming future events |
| Psychic | 2 | Trigger a psychic effect |
| Regenerate | 0 or 2 | Regenerate Health damage |
| Resist Stun | 0 | Stun test Difficulties are lowered by 2 |
| Restabilize | Variable | Refreshes another creature’s Tempus |
| Seize Initiative | 2 | Jump into combat initiative at any point |
| Shape-Shift | 2 | Reshape body into a nonhumanoid form |
| Spider Climb | 0 or 1 | Walk on walls and ceilings |
| Stealth | 0 | Raises the Difficulty of player character Unobtrusiveness tests to notice you hiding |
| Stony | 0 | Made of stone and resistant to many attacks |
| Strength | 0 or more | Incredibly strong |
| Stun | 0 | Attacks can stun, usually at Stun 5 |
| Summoning | 3 | Summon Mooks as backup |
| Technology | 2 | Use super-science to produce technology |
| Teleport | 2 | Move instantly from one location to another |
| Unfeeling | 0 | Never become Hurt, and make all Consciousness rolls and Stun tests |
| Universal Attack | 1 or 2 per target | Instantly attack everyone you wish to within range |
| Venom | 2 | Attack also delivers poison |
Sample Creature Stat Block: Lipovore
Abilities: Athletics 6, Health 18, Scuffling 12, Shooting 8, plus one shipboard ability at 8 and another at 4.
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: punch +2
Shooting Weapons/Damage: disruption pistol +1
Hit Threshold: 3
Typical Tech: Disguiser, Personal Bluffer, Tether
Alertness Modifier: +2
Stealth Modifier: +2
Savvy Modifier: +2
Special: At -12 hit points a lipovore falls into a deep coma that may be mistaken for death.
[From Ashen Stars]
Sample Creature Stat Blocks: Various Animals
Aggressive Herbivore, Cattle-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +2
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: -2
Stealth Modifier: -2
Aggressive Herbivore, Rhino-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 12, Scuffling 12
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +4
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 2
Alertness Modifier: -3
Stealth Modifier: -3
Aggressive Herbivore, Triceratops-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 24, Scuffling 16
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: gore/trample +6
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 3
Alertness Modifier: -3
Stealth Modifier: -3
Aggressive Herbivore, Sauropod-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 24, Health 36, Scuffling 24
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: trample +8
Hit Threshold: 1
Armor: 1
Alertness Modifier: -4
Stealth Modifier: -4
Apex Predator, Lion-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 12, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite +1
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1
Apex Predator, Megafauna-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 16, Health 8, Scuffling 8
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite, swipe or claw +4
Hit Threshold: 3
Armor: 1
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: -3
Apex Predator, Monster-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 16, Health 18, Scuffling 18
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite, swipe or claw +6
Hit Threshold: 2
Armor: 2
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: -3
Pack Predator, Dog-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 3, Scuffling 4
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite -1
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier: +1
Pack Predator, Wolf-Sized
Abilities: Athletics 8, Health 3, Scuffling 4
Scuffling Weapons/Damage: bite +0
Hit Threshold: 4
Armor: 0
Alertness Modifier: +1
Stealth Modifier*: +1*
Tests and Supporting Characters
Game statistics in GUMSHOE are, whenever possible, player-facing. When you as GM have the choice between making a determination based on a player test, or on a test made by you on behalf of a supporting character, always choose the player. For example, you may want to specify that there’s a chance a harried relative of a kidnapping victim might eventually lose her patience with the investigators and participate in a damaging press conference. Rather than having her make a Stability test to see when and if this happens, set it up so that a player makes a Reassurance spend to forestall her.
Likewise, if you want to have a supporting character steal something in a situation where the PCs are in no position to affect the outcome, simply decree that it happens. Don’t bother testing the character’s Filch ability. To do otherwise is to engage in false branching: you are creating unpredictability for yourself in a way that remains invisible to the players. They don’t get a chance to alter the outcome, and thus gain no benefit from the uncertainty you’ve introduced.
Hazards
In or out of combat, the characters’ survival may be threatened by assorted hazards, from electrical shock to poisoning.
Electricity and Other Shocks
Damage from exposure to electricity varies according to voltage. You can suffer:
Mild shock, equivalent to briefly touching an ungrounded wire or damaged electrical appliance. You lose 1 Health and are blown backwards for a couple of meters.
Moderate shock, equivalent to a jolt from a cattle prod. You lose 2 Health and (if in combat time) your next four actions. You always lose at least one action, but may buy off the loss of other actions by paying 3 Athletics points per action.
Extreme shock, equivalent to a lightning strike. You suffer one die of damage, with a +4 modifier.
The GM should always give you some opportunity to avoid being shocked, whether it be an Athletics test to avoid unexpected contact, or a Surveillance test to spot the danger.
If you are reduced to –6 or fewer Health, the current is assumed to have traveled through your heart or brain, causing cardiac arrest or brain damage, respectively. The GM describes appropriate symptoms and futuristic treatments during your sick bay convalescence.
Many other hazards can be emulated using the mild/moderate/extreme breakdown above. Simply change the narrative description and side effects, keeping the Health pool losses.
Example Hazard Description: Alien Fungal Infection
Mild: For the next two intervals, you lose 2 Health every time you make an Athletics test.
Moderate: Make a Health test against a Difficulty of 4. If you fail, you suffer an extreme shock at the beginning of the next interval.
Example Hazard Description: Ion Storm
Mild: For the next interval, you lose all benefits from your cybernetic enhancements.
Moderate: Your cybernetic enhancements all go offline, returning after three intervals. You may activate any or all of them before this time by spending 2 Health per enhancement.
Example Hazard Description:Temporal Shock
Mild: For the remainder of the interval, you lose 1 Health each time you use an Academic or Technical ability.
Moderate: For the remainder of the interval, the Difficulty of any general ability rolls increases by 2.
[Hazard descriptions from Ashen Stars.]
Fire
Damage from exposure to fire varies according to the surface area of your body exposed to the flame, and repeats for each round (or, outside of combat, every few seconds) you remain exposed to it.
Minor exposure, most often to an extremity like a hand or foot, carries a damage modifier of –2.
Partial exposure, to up to half of your surface area, carries a damage modifier of +0.
Extensive exposure, to half or more of your surface area, imposes a damage modifier of +2.
The GM should always give you a chance to avoid being set on fire. The difficulty of extinguishing a flame is usually 4, but might be higher for anomalous flame-like manifestations, or when you are coated with a futuristic accelerant.
Suffocation
When deprived of air, you get two minutes before the nastiness kicks in. After that point, you lose 1 Athletics every ten seconds, as you struggle to hold your breath. Once that pool depletes, you start losing Health, at a rate of 1 point every five seconds.
Toxins
Toxins are either inhaled, ingested or injected directly into the bloodstream. They vary widely in lethality. A dose of a low-tech cleaning substance may impose a damage modifier of –2, where a viro-active nerve gas might range from +6 to +16. Inhaled toxins tend to take effect right away. Injected and ingested toxins take delayed effect, anywhere from minutes to hours after exposure. Their damage might be parceled out in increments, and may prevent you from refreshing Health points until somehow neutralized. As with any hazard, the GM should always give you a chance to avoid exposure to them.