3. Character Creation
This game holds itself to be a game of discovery about the characters, so we define (and thus know) only a little bit about them before the game starts. We know their Name, their Reputation (a phrase describing the character). We know their two abilities, Fighting and Non-Fighting (they add up to 10, and each must be at least 2). We know that they have Strengths and Weaknesses (“Flashbacks”), but not what they are (p.24 tells us more, the book says). We know they have a Rank (highest NFA is the Sergeant, highest FA is the Corporal, everyone else is a Trooper. Two NFAs tied for top, randomly one is the Sergeant, the other the Corporal, and the highest FA has to suck up being a grunt). And lastly, we know they have kit (depends on their rank, and there’s a choice to be made between weapons). And then they’re ready to have at it.
Seems like this game would suit one-shots pretty well: would take all of about 5 minutes to create a new character. On the other hand, the idea of character discovery probably leads it to be a campaign game more than one-shots, but we’ll see later what things look like.
Oh, and everyone has orders. I’m not sure what the ranking is, but Troopers have Order 1: Kill things. Corporals have Order 2: Maximize kill ratio (bugs : troopers). Sergeants have Orders 3 and 4: Follow directives issued by Officers, and Protect your squad (and you can use E-Vac, which is in bold and referencing p.89).
There’s nice fun stuff in the gear: troopers have an unread field manual. Corporals have a tatty field manual. And the Sarge’s is well-used. (Oh, and Corporals have the Really Big Gun, that’s only usable at Near range, it seems)
Oh, right. Injuries. A peak at the character sheet available here shows “Messed Up”, “Crippled”, and “Dead”. Presumably if you’re none of those, you’re fine. Messed Up and Crippled have boxes. Dead has a tombstone. That doesn’t sound like you want it.
… and one more thing (I feel like Columbo). PCs get FAd10 kills to start their career as PCs.
4. How to Play
| “So, how do we play it?” I asked. “Simple,” said the Sarge, and then he trailed off. that was it. “Simple.” |
The meat of the game. Lasts from page 14 to page 23 (24 being the start of the Flashbacks chapter referenced earlier). There’s a couple sidebars of Roleplaying tips, for newcomers, but one of them is good for those new to Conflict style RPGs: “Don’t try to be too clever”. The first couple pages are an overview of the game session, and roleplaying in general. Players don’t really need any prep (characters are created at the start of the session if need be), but the GMs need to create the planet – the setting for the evening’s carnage.
Sessions start off with the mission briefing, and then launch into roleplaying. The game says that the goal of roleplaying is to create “a vibrant verbal space”, a turn of phrase that I rather enjoy. Being an indie game, it has the concept of everyone adding to the shared imagination space. Anyone can suggest anything, and if everyone accepts it, it becomes part of the scenery (or narrative). The text talks about veto power. Players have veto power over their PCs’ actions and words, and the GM has veto power over the aliens and NPCs. Interestingly, planet/scenery veto seems to be group wide, as it’s not addressed.
The GM frames the first scene (book references page 44 – probably more discussion on scenes and framing and such). This is the scenery, locale, and everything we need to make a scene. Then the GM introduces a “tilt” – a thing that makes the scene go. And off we go. The book says that it’s perfectly fine to actually rotate the scene framing (making an ersatz GM-less system, if you wish).
The basic test resolution of 3:16 is talked about next. It seems to be a bit of a Price Is Right mechanic: roll d10, aim to get below your stat, but successes are rated high to low, so you want high.
Encounters start off with a Dominance test: figure out who sees whom. Each player who wants to be watching for aliens rolls an NFA test, and the GM rolls one for the Aliens. There’s a chart determining who gets Ambushed, or who gets to choose initial range. I’m not going to copy that here, because that wouldn’t be right. Plus, it’s annoying to copy a table.
Ambushes work simply. If the PCs are ambushed, the GM sets the range and each PC takes a “kill” (goes down 1 on the condition monitor). If the PCs ambush, from high to low on a roll of a d10, remove a threat token and add that die result’s kills to their kill total.
As for Range, there’s 3 “range bands”, all measured from the point of the Aliens. Close (close combat / hand-to-hand), Near (… near. Most ranged weapons are good here), Far (… far). Setting the range involves putting the PCs to the appropriate range band. There’s a “pseudo” range band of “Exited” after Far. If for whatever reason a PC goes further than Far, they’re not in the encounter anymore.
Encounters have everyone take turns in a round until the encounter ends. Pretty simple. There’s a 7 step process. Quickly: 1) Declare actions (figure out where people are and what they’re doing). 2) Roll 1d10. 3) Compare to appropriate stat (AA, FA, NFA) and find out if you succeeded (equal or less than) or failed (greater than). 4) Successes take their turns, going from high roll to low roll. (FA success removes a Threat Token and causes Kills. NFA succeeds in the task. AA causes a Kill to PCs who failed or rolled less than or equal to you. You can cancel your own success so everyone below you fails). You get narrative rights over how you succeed. You may be able to maneuver range bands. 5) Failures get to go from high to low, narrating their failure. You get to add “colour” to the scene. 6) Continue until everyone dies, a PC uses a Strength, or everyone alive is beyond Far Range, or a stalemate (no kills for 3 rounds), or something ends the sequence, or there’s no Threat Tokens left. 7) Surviving Threat Tokens get to go back to the threat pool.
Of special note: if you succeed in Fighting, you kill things. You roll your gun’s rating at your range band, and that’s how many things you kill. Genius.
Marines get two “once per planet” items: armour (absorbs a kill) and combat drugs (reroll a FA test, but if you get a 10, you take a kill).
As hinted at earlier, the GM’s in control of the alien forces, represented by Threat Tokens. The GM has 5 times the number of players in total Threat Pool. They not only represent things, but can also be spent to power abilities. Presumably only the tokens in this encounter can activate the special abilities. If a PC uses a Strength, all remaining Threat Tokens are “killed” (and gets best roll of Kills). If a PC uses a Weakness, then the PC is removed, as well as 1 Threat Token.
To make life easier for the Marines, they heal one box of damage between encounters. (so someone who’s Crippled becomes only A Mess). There’s no penalties for being hurt, other than being almost dead. In addition, there’s a second track (sorta) along the same lines: emotional / psychological damage. Represented by Es on the box. I’m unclear as to whether this is the next health box or a fully separate track. I’m not sure it matters. All E wounds heal between encounters.
After missions comes some fun parts. First, all alive heroes are healed to full. Second, the GM hands out medals of honour, valour, and all that fun stuff. Third, there’s some advances. The PC that scored the most kills gains one Level. Each other player dices off, 1d10, and the highest roll(s) also gain one Level. Each Level allows you to add one to either FA or NFA (max of 10), and gain one available Flashback (from either Strengths or Weaknesses, whichever has fewest). Each soldier then gets better at killing things: their best gun gets a 1 step upgrade in one range band. In addition, a successful NFA test will allow them to gain more equipment or train better elsewhere.
This chapter ends with an example encounter. It’s pretty well-written to highlight the mechanics of the game.
The next chapter, which I will leave for the next post, is on Flashbacks, what appears to be the key of the game.
Laz