ABOUT THE RULES
ABOUT THE RULES
Here are the very basics of playing the game.
Rolling Dice: Use two ten-sided dice to play the game.
Usually these are read as percentiles from 01-00 (100), with
one die as the tens digit and one die as the ones digit. A
0 in the tens digit counts as a leading zero (0 and 8 is 08
). A 0 in the ones digit counts as a trailing zero (8 and
0). Sometimes they are added together, in which case
the 0 counts as ten (8 + 0 = 18). Sometimes a single die
is rolled by itself, in which case the 0 also counts as ten
=10).
Character Stats and Skills: Humans have stats (Body,
Speed, Mind, Soul) and skills (Horseback Riding, Greek
History, Safecracking), all of which can range between
%-99%. Each skill is tied to a single appropriate stat.
To take an action during the game, you use the skill and
roll the dice. If you do not have the appropriate skill, the
game master may allow you to roll against the relevant stat
instead—but you will not be able to succeed nearly as well
as you would with the right skill, or it may take you much
longer, or the game master may impose some other penalry.
Minor Skill Checks: In relaxed situations where you have
plenty of time and are not at risk, you automatically succeed
in any skill that you have at 15% or higher. The game
master may ask you to roll anyway just to see how long it
takes you or how good a job you do, or to see if you get
any matches, crits, or fumbles (see below). If you do not
have a suitable skill, you may attempt a minor skill check
by rolling against the appropriate stat instead, to just barely
squeak by the task (a weak success); for this roll, your stat
is reduced by 30.
Significant Skill Checks: In situations where there is
uncertainty but little actual risk, you succeed strongly if
you roll equal to or under your skill level and you succeed
weakly if you roll above your skill level but equal to or
under your related stat level. If you do not have a suitable
skill, you may attempt a significant skill check by rolling
against the appropriate stat instead for a weak success; for
this roll, your stat is reduced by 30.
Major Skill Checks: In tense situations where time is
important and/or you are at risk, such as in combat, you
only succeed if you roll equal to or under your skill level. If
you do not have a suitable skill, you may attempt a major
skill check by rolling against the appropriate stat instead
and hoping for a Hail Mary: only matched successes and
criticals (see below) succeed; your stat is not reduced for a
Hail Mary roll.
When to Roll: The GM always decides what rank of skill
check to request and how to interpret it. He or she may be
aware of factors you do not know about.
What to Roll: Besides rolling equal to or under your skill
or stat level to achieve success, the number you roll has
other effects. Your goal is to roll as high as you can without
going over your skill. The closer your roll is to your skill
level, the better you do. If you have a skill at 46%, a roll of
43 s better than a roll of 04,
Minimum Rolls: The game master may require you to
roll a certain number or higher, as well as below your skill
or stat. To shoot someone in the leg, you might have to
roll under your skill level with a minimum roll of 30. If
your skill is lower than the difficulty, you cannot perform
the action.
Matched Rolls: A match is when both dice come up with
the same number, such as 11, 66, or 44. This makes the
action you are attempting more dramatic, but whether that
added effect is good or bad depends on whether the roll was
a success or a failure. A matched successful roll is unusually
good, but a matched failed roll is unusually bad. Most
of the time, the game master interprets what additional
effects this triggers. However, some actions in the game
have specific effects keyed to matched rolls—these are called
Cherries and are used with obsessed martial arts skills and
with the Magick skill.
Fumble Rolls: A fumble is when you roll double zeroes
(00) and it means the worst possible outcome occurs—short
of death. Even if you somehow have a skill or trait at
100%, rolling a 00 is still a fumble.
Crit Rolls: A crit is when you roll a zero-one (01) and it
means the best possible outcome occurs. It does not mean
you can succeed at an impossible task, such as picking up
a skyscraper and throwing it across town. A crit supercedes
even a difficult roll.
Flip-Flop Rolls: In some situations or with some skills,
you may be allowed to flip-flop a roll. This means you have
the option of switching the dice. If you rolled a 91 and you
can flip-flop that roll, you could make it a 19 instead if it’s
better for you.
Shifted Rolls: A shift is a modifier applied to your skill
number before you make the roll. If you had a Greek His-
tory skill of 56% and for some reason a ~30% shift was
applied, your skill would be 26% instead
temporary, and might be applied because of wounds, dif-
ficult environments, or magickal effects.
Hunch Rolls: A hunch is a percentile roll you get to
make and then set aside to use for the next time you need
a skill check. In other words, you know what your next
roll is going to be and can act accordingly, using it up
on something unimportant if its bad or trying to save it
for something important if it’s good. Hunches are awarded
by the game master in some situations for magickal or
mundane reasons. Note that you cannot always control
when you make a roll, so don’t try to hang on to a good
hunch too long or you may lose it on a meaningless action.
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
With your stats in place, you pick skills: natural, learned,
or unnatural abilities like Driving, Shooting Guns, Lying,
or Secing Auras. Each skill is assigned to a single stat.
You use your stat levels as points to set your skills, and a
given skill can’t be higher than the stat that governs it. The
more points you put into a stat, the more points you have
available for the skills linked to that stat. It’s a co-dependent
relationship.
YOUR STATS
You can read more about the four stats below. Divvy up
your points when you’re ready.
But you're more than just numbers. Once you've chosen
your stats, add a descriptor to cach one. This is a word
or short phrase that characterizes the nature of your stat.
A Soul stat of 65 might be “shoulder to cry on,” while a
Soul of 35 might be a “cold fish.” Mind descriptors could
range from “irrational” to “quotes encyclopedias.” Speed
descriptors might be “catches flies” or “all thumbs.” Body
descriptors might be “totally ripped abs™ or “flabby.”
T BODY STAT
This is a measure of how healthy, strong, and generally
fit you are. A finess buff has a really high Body score. A
strung-out alcoholic has a really low score. Body determines
how hard it is to kill you.
WHAT BODY MEANS
10s You're on death’s door. You can’t walk unassisted and
require constant medical care.
20s You're very frail. You can manage maybe five shallow
steps without taking a rest, but that's it.
30s You're sickly and weak. You breathe heavy after climb-
ing a flight of stairs. Your muscle tone is best described
as “suety.”
40s You're either generally puny or a lard-ass, but not too
bad.
50s You're average: you can wear a swimsuit without too
much embarrassment and helping a friend move is no
big effort.
60s You qualify as “brawny.” You're always among the
first picks at the company softball game.
70s As far as you're concerned, every bottle has a twist-off
top. You can do one-handed chin-ups.
80s You had the potential to be a professional athlete. You
move heavy furniture without effort. “Getting tired™ is
something that happens to other people.
90s Professional strongman level here: tearing phone
books, lifting the front end of cars, bending metal bars,
etc.
'BODY AND WOUND POINTS
Wound points are a measure of how much damage you can
take before dying the death of a small brown dog. Your
initial store of wound points is equal to your Body score.
Every time your Body score goes up through experience (but
not through magick|, your wound points increase too.
If you hit 0 wound points, you're dead. If you hit 5,
you're unconscious or in shock. You can read more about
wounds and healing on p. 58.
You do not keep track of your wound points. The GM
does that in secret and tells you how you're feeling.
THE SPEED STAT
This stat measures how physically quick and responsive
you are. A race car driver probably has a high Speed stat,
while a toll-booth attendant could have a low one. Wiggling
through a tight space, trying not to slip on ice, or playing a
computer game are all governed by your Speed.
WHAT SPEED MEANS
10s You're pretty much immobile, capable of only limited
and tentative movements. People in the advanced
stages of degenerative nerve disease fit into this cat-
egory.
20s You can get around on your own, but you're still
pathologically clumsy. You probably need canes or a
walker.
30s You're a klutz: you routinely spill drinks (even when
you're sober), walk into door frames, and trip over
your own feet.
40s The low end of average. When you play darts, almost
all your shots hit the board. If you drive a stick-shift, it
rarely stalls due to incompetence.
50s You're normal. You can hit the bull's-eye at darts
(sometimes), you can run a city block in a reasonable
amount of time, and you can box-shuffle a deck of
cards without playing 52 Pick-Up.
60s As a kid, you were the local champ at “Bloody Knuck-
les™ (or Pac-Man, depending on your age and inclina-
tion). You can manage an impressive sprint when you
want to, and if you're not a good dancer it’s because
you didn't care to try.
70s Your childhood nickname was “Flash,” even if you
kept your clothes on all the time. You learned to juggle
in about two minutes, just by watching someone do it.
You can run a five-minute mile.
80s Your control of your body is nearly complete. You can
beat carnival games of skill.
90s Your grace and dexterity is incredible. With training,
you could compete at the Olympic level.
THE MIND STAT
Steven Hawking has a really high Mind score. Most people
who appear on Maury Povich don't. It governs how quickly
you think, and how good you are at examining an idea
from all sides. It's also how mentally tough you are. When
things go south in the occult underground, people lose their
marbles. With a high Mind stat, you've got a much bigger
sack of marbles you can lose.
WHAT MIND MEANS
10s You are a clinical moron requiring institutional care.
205 You're mentally retarded, but capable of independent
living with frequent oversight.
30s You've got an IQ around 60. You can read (slowly)
and write (poorly), but long division is pushing it.
40s You're no genius, but you can answer the occasional
riddle on Jeopardy and remember to phrase it as a
question.
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CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTION
50s You're average. You can balance a checkbook and
you're fairly well-informed on subjects that interest
you or employ you (sports, finance, Greek history,
etc.).
60s You do crosswords in ink. You sometimes complete
other people’s sentences for them.
70s If you wanted to, you could get into Mensa. Whenever
you took standardized intelligence tests, you scored in
the top 5%. Even if you have little formal education,
you retain information well and remember easily.
80s You're a genius, with an IQ of 150+. It takes you
about ten minutes to do the New York Times Sunday
crossword—less if you really push yourself.
You're capable of lightning-fast inductions and deduc-
tions that look like ESP to average minds.
2
MIND AND MADNESS METERS
When you created your fear passion, you linked it to one
of the five madness meters. These measure how close you
are to going crazy, freaking out, freezing like a headlighted
deer, blowing your brains out, or running into the night
howling like a wolf. These things happen when you start
talking with demons, melting your face to win friends, and
exorcising the supernatural resonance of a sex crime. It's
tough stuff, and your Mind stat is all that stands between
you and going completely gonzo batshit.
But why go crazy if you already live there? If you've had
some heavy trauma in your life, you can go ahead and
start using those madness meters right now. You need to
read through the Madness chapter (p. 64) first, but if it
sounds like a good idea then go right ahead, freak boy. You
can put up to three “failed” notches onto your madness
meters, total. For each one you take, you can also rake a
“hardened™ notch as well. They don't have to be on the
same meters—if you're going to be crazy, be your own
special kind of crazy. And if you want more than three of
cach, talk to your GM. Remember to wear clothes.
One more thing. If you're an adept, you have to take
one failed and one hardened notch in the Unnatural meter.
(This is in addition to any other notches you take.) Play
with fire, get burned.
THE SOUL STAT
Do you care about anything? If so, that's your Soul stat
working. Emotions, nonverbal skills, social interaction,
and magick are all governed by Soul. If you want to seduce
people, sell cars, make a speech, or turn your will into
reality, go with the Soul.
WHATSOUL MEANS
10s You're emotionally stunted and almost incapable of
forming emotional attachments.
20s You're congenitally crude, uncultured, and crass. Any
time you dress acceptably or do the polite thing, it's
completely accidental.
30s You're an uncouth slob with all the sensitivity of 2
toilet sear.
405 You're at the low end of average in the personality
department. Unless you're such a nebbish that no one
notices you at all, you make people uncomfortable
sometimes with your boorish comments and rude
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
jokes, but you can get along. At least one person in
your life secretly despises you.
50s You're average. You at least know enough to be
uncomfortable in a delicate situation.
60s You're unusually sensitive. If you turn this towards
supernatural matters, you probably have a general feel-
ing of the unseen powers in the world around you.
If you turn it towards human society, you're probably
empathetic and likeable.
70s At this level, those who pay attention to the spirit
world get indistinct feelings about certain objects,
areas, and people. Those who tun their perceptions
to their fellow humans always seem to say and do the
right thing,
80s Emotional energy and supernatural encrgy are both quite
perceptible to you, and your own emotions are pretty
easy to detect if you're not bothering to conceal them.
If you turn your mind to politics and manipulation, you
could be a state senator within a decade or so.
90s You can learn almost as much from your “extra”
senses as you do from the normal five,
SOUL AND ADEPTS & AVATARS
If you're an adept or an avatar, your Soul stat matters big
time. Soul governs the Magick skill of adepts and the Avatar
skill of avatars. Don't slack on spending the points here, if
you want to do more than pull rabbits from hats.
YOUR SKILLS
Skills are narrow applications of stats. You can be a huge,
strong guy, but if you've never been in a fight or got trained
to throw a punch, a lot of people can clean your clock.
Skills work on a percentile basis—from 1-99. You roll
percentile dice and compare the result to your skill. How
this works depends on the situation, since you make one of
three different kinds of skill checks.
For minor skill checks, you need a 15% or higher skill
rating for an automatic success—no dice needed. These
are situations where you have plenty of time and no risk,
like taking a photograph of your house o reading up on
Greek history.
Higher skill levels are important for significant skill checks.
These happen when you aren’t in an intense situation such
as combat, but there’s still some pressure on you or what
you're doing has a high element of uncertainty. Spending a
day hacking an unfamiliar operating system, keeping an eye
on your husband in a big crowd, or studying for a weekly
test could qualify. For these tasks, you have a strong success
if you roll under your skill level. If you fail the roll, you get
a weak success if that roll is still under the related stat. You
only fail completely if you roll above your stat.
Major skill checks are the big ones, and in the occult
underground they happen all the time. All combat rolls are
major checks, as are any actions you attempt under stress
and risk. If it really marters, it’s a major check.
There is a limit to how high your starting skill ratings
can be. The limit depends on which kind of campaign you
are going to play:
* Street-level maximum: 55%
* Global-level maximum: 70%
* Cosmic-level maximum: 85%
If you have a good reason for a higher starting skill than
allowed, you can ask the GM for approval. But starting with a
single skill too high cripples your other skills within that stat.
There’s no comprehensive skill list. You can pretry much
define any skill you want, but the GM has to okay it first.
Lots of examples follow.
One rule: Your skill number can never exceed its govern-
ing stat. If you have Body 30, no way are you going to be
able to handle the training to get Boxing at 45%.
BUYING SKILLS
As with stats, you have a certain amount of points to spend on
skills. But unlike stats, there is no fixed list. You can take as
many or as few different skills as you like. It's better to take a
few skills at higher scores than lots of skills at lower scores.
The amount of points you have to spend on skills is based
on the stat that governs those skills, because every skill is
tied to a single stat. If you have a Body of 60, that gives you
60 points to spend on Body-based skills.
You also get some bonus points you can distribute among
your skills regardless of which stat they are tied to. These
bonus points are based on the kind of campaign you are
creating a character for:
* Street-level bonus points: 15
« Global-level bonus points: 70
* Cosmic-level bonus points: 125
NOTES ON SKILLS
You're going to read more about sample skills, in the order
of their governing stats. But first, here’s a few things you
oughta know.
FREE SKILLS
Before you spend any points on skills, you get some free
skills per stat right off the bat. All of these begin at 15%
except for Initiative, which starts at half your Speed score.
You can use some of your points to improve them, or just
let them be and spend the points on something else. The free
skills you can take are discussed with each stat section in the
following pages. As a quick reference, the free skills are:
Body: General Athletics, Struggle
Speed: Dodge, Driving, Initiative
Mind: General Education, Notice, Conceal
Soul: Charm, Lying
What if you grew up someplace without cars? Replace
Driving with Horseback Riding or Sprinting or whatever
you did to get around. You can replace any free skill with
a similar skill appropriate to your background, bu only
if your GM gives you the thumbs-up. Don't try using this
flexibility to turn every free skill ino Pistol Packing Mofo,
though. That's a loser mancuver.
SKILL NAMES
You can call your skills whatever you want. Rename the
free skills if you like. Instead of Struggle, you could use Take
"Em Down Street-Style, or make boring old Driving into
Reckless Driving.
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SKILL PENUMBRAS
A skill is more than a direct action. It’s also the knowledge
you have related to that skill. This area of knowledge
around a skill is the penumbra. Your Firearms skill lets you
shoot guns, but it’s also the skill you use for knowledge
about firearms: what the gun laws are in your area, who
sells guns on the black market, how much a gun is worth,
and so on. The penumbra is abstract knowledge, it's knowl-
edge of people with similar skills and interests, and so on.
Gor a skill in Egyptology? The skill's penumbra means
you know about current Egyptian antiquities exhibits tour-
ing the country’s museums, or who can figure out how old
that mummy in your basement is, or where to sell stolen
grave goods. It’s all right there in that one skill.
‘The higher your skill, the wider your penumbra. Somcone
with a Firearms skill of 30 is unlikely to know any arms
smugglers. Someone with an Egyptology of 70 s on a first-
name basis with nationally recognized experts in the field.
BSESSION SKILL
Your obsession isn’t just what drives you. It also governs
what you're good at. Pick one of your skills as your obses-
sion skill. It's gotta be related to your obsession. Put a star
next to that skill. Every time you make a roll on your
obsession skill, you can choose to flip-flop the roll. You only
get one obsession skill, and never get another, and can’t
change unless you somehow change your obsession—so
pick carefully.
If you're an adept, your school of magick must be your
obsession skill.
ThE BaDY SKiLLS
The skills governed by your Body stat are anything you
do with strength or endurance. It covers practices that
are physically taxing or that require training and muscle
memory, like the Martial Arts skill. Body can also govern
inborn physical traits like “gorgeous™ or “freakishly tall.”
Your free Body skills are General Athletics and Struggle.
The first is any basic physical activity—running, jumping,
throwing balls or rocks. The second is fighting without
guns, using your fists, knives, baseball bats, etc.
FREE BODY SKILL: GENERAL ATHLETICS
General Athlctics 15%. Swimming, catching, hitting—all
that stuff you spend some time doing as a kid, including
organized sports. This is a poor substitute for specialization,
though. If you're playing dollar-a-point volleyball against
someone with a Volleyball skill, you have to make a signifi-
cant skill check. If the winner gets the loser’s car, its a major
check.
WHAT GENERAL ATHLETICSMEAKS
10s You can hit a fly ball—sometimes. With a lot of huffing
and puffing you can scale a ten foot fence.
20s This is about average for someone with an inactive
lifestyle. You can hit an overhand pitch—sometimes.
Your golf game hovers around the bad side of par.
30s This is about average for someone with an active
lifestyle. You can sink free throws predictably. You can
run a mile and not be exhausted at the end.
CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTION
40 This level of skill is appropriate for someone with a
very active lifestyle. Teenagers down at the schoolyard
try to get you to play basketball on their team. You
could outrun attack dogs with a little luck or a head
start.
50s If you'rc on the company softball team, you pitch and
bat clean-up. You get a lot of spikes playing volleyball
and can sometimes slam-dunk a basketball.
60 You could play AAA bascball, or possibly be a minor
pro in a less-lucrative sport like ice skating or horse
racing.
70s You could be on a professional baseball, basketball, or
football team. You'd spend a lot of time on the bench,
but you'd be a pampered, well-paid pro.
You could be a top professional athlete—a Bretr Favre
or Tiger Woods.
80
FREE BODY SKILL: STRUGGLE
Struggle 15%. When you have to put the hurt on some-
one, this is how you do it. Even if you don’t know Lotus
Form from Lotus Notes, you can try to dodge, throw
haymakers, pinch, spit, and bite. Besides, you might get
lucky and roll that 01, right? If you want a martial-arts
skill such as Tae Kwon Do or Savate, that’s what Struggle
becomes.
If you make Struggle your obsession skill—calling it Mar-
tial Arts or Big Brawl or whatever—then you get Cherries.
These are special effects triggered whenever you roll a suc-
cessful match (such as 11, 33, or 66) on your hand-to-hand
attack. For a list of Cherries, see pp. 55-56.
WHAT STRUGGLE MEANS
10s Your combat skills are pretty much limited to slapping,
shin kicks, and hair pulling.
20s This is about right for someone who grew up in a nasty
neighborhood but who has outgrown weekly fisticuffs.
30s You're a skilled fighter. Nothing really impressive, but
you're the equal of the average unarmed mugger.
40s Which nickname do you prefer, “Crusher” or “Light-
ning”? If you've studied the martial arts, you may have
your black belt.
50s If you don’t pound on people for a living, you could.
Your punches can break ribs and pop jawbones.
60s You're a match for two average opponents, even if
they've got knives.
70s You could go toe-to-toe with most professional boxers.
80s Your body is a finely tuned killing machine.
BODY SKILL EXAMPLES
Distracting Physique. There's something about your body
that just draws stares. Maybe you're almost inhumanly
beautiful. Or maybe you have a gigantic goiter on your
neck, a filmed-over eye, or one arm is a foot longer than
the other. In any event, whenever someone sees you for the
first time, you can make a Distracting Physique roll. If you
succeed, the viewer is freaked out and is at -10% to all
skills until you leave his presence. Unfortunately, this only
works once per target—and it works on your allies as well
as your enemies.
Hold Your Breath. You can hold your breath a freakishly
long time. Normally a person can hold their breath for a
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
number of seconds equal to their Body score. Then they
have to breathe. Not you; you can hold your breath for an
extra second for each point you put in this skill.
Hold Your Liquor. Normally, people take penalties for
sucking down booze like a dissipated writer; some people
with iron guts can imbibe like William Faulkner and show
no appreciable effects. At that point where an unskilled
drinker would start taking penalties, the GM rolls this skill
for you. If the roll succeeds, you don't take the penalty. If
it fails, you still do—but you don’t know it until you try to
make a roll on your own. You cannot negate the effects of
more than four drinks within a six-hour period.
Large And Hard To Move. You've got a low center of
gravity, so you're hard to knock off your feet. Any attack
or effect that would knock you down only does so if the
person who rolled for it rolled over your Large And Hard
To Move skill. (Note that you can also be Small And Hard
To Move; ever try to push over someone who weighs 140
pounds and is only four feet tall?)
DO-IT-YOURSELF BODY SKILLS
Here are some examples of Body skills you might make up
for yourself in consultation with the GM: Climbing, Boxing,
Weight Lifting, Work Without Rest, Marathon Running,
Football, Basketball, Judo, Swimming, Enduring Torture.
THE SPEED SKILLS
These cover reaction time, aim, and coordination—skills
governed by your sense of where your body is. There is
some overlap with Body; this is because a lot of sports
and other activities have a reflex component and a physical-
training aspect. If in doubt, ask your GM for a decision. (If
you have Speed 50 and Body 40, you can still probably get
away with having a Tennis skill at 45% if you really want
it and your GM says okay. If you had Body 30, it might
be a different matter.)
FREE SPEED SKILL: DODGE
Dodge 15%. People have natural flinch impulses when
lunged at or startled. This dodge score represents that reflex.
It also your ability to avoid getting hurt in combat. If you
just use your Dodge skill instead of fighting or doing anything
lse, it’s your chance to hunker down and not get smacked.
'WHAT DODGE MEANS
105 You can barely get out of the way of your own feet
when youre dancing.
205 You can dodgea single falling object.
305 You have an okay—not good—chance of avoiding
being hit by a specding car.
40 The other kids never liked playing tag with you—you
were too good.,
50s If you work at a high-risk job (firefighting, police
work), your co-workers probably call you “Cat” and
make jokes about your nine lives.
605 You're darn near impossible to hit or kick when you
put your mind to it.
70s People who try to shoot at you tend to get unnerved by
your uncanny ability to not be where the bullets go.
80s Two words: Jackie Chan.
FREE SPEED SKILL: DRIVING
Driving 15%. This is your chance to drive safely in
a tense situation—controlling a skid, swerving around a
pedestrian, or stopping before you drive offa cliff. You
don’t have to roll for parallel parking unless someone is
shooting at you or you're trying to do it at 70 mph.
'WHAT DRIVING MEANS
10s You're a bad driver. You either go too fast when it
isn’t safe or you crawl along at ten miles below the
speed limit.
205 You're an average driver: you still get caught in traffic
jams, but you know enough to pump the brakes on ice.
This is a good level for a professional driver, like
a cabbie or a trucker. Not a professional with an
outstanding record for safety, but a professional.
40s You actually are as good behind the wheel as the
standard jerk in a Trans Am thinks he is.
Your car could pop up on the two driver's-side wheels
and you'd have a good chance of bringing it back
down safely.
60s This is a good level for a professional stunt driver or an
adequate race car driver.
70s You’re an honorary Duke of Hazzard.
80s You could be a strong competitor on the stock-car
circuit.
30
50
FREE SPEED SKILL: INITIATIVE
Initiative. When danger strikes, some people stand
around slack jawed, while others instantly leap for safety.
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Initiative is a measure of how quickly (if not how well) you
respond when someone tries to shoot you, grab you, or cave
in your head with a 2x4 plank.
Your Initiative score is equal to half your Speed. In a
combat situation, you have a choice. You can either roll for
initiative and hope to get a result under your Speed stat, or
you can just go on your Initiative score as it is.
You can improve this skill normally, either by buying it
up during character generation, or by improving it later
with experience.
WHAT INITIATIVE MEANS
10s Wha?
20s Your first instinct when threatened is to frown angrily.
30s You're fairly alert to troubles around you.
40s Your jittery nerves pay off when the chips are down.
50s This is the level that separates “fast” from “goddamn
fast.”
60s You've got the combat smarts of Doc Holliday.
70s Miyamoto Musashi reborn.
80s The only rational explanation is a sixth sense for
danger.
SPEED SKILL EXAMPLES
Do Two Things At Once. You're adept at splitting your
attention without halving it. As a consequence, whenever
you're successful at a Speed-based skill, and your roll was
lower than your Do Two Things At Once skill, you can do
something different at the same time (as long as the two
actions aren’t mutually exclusive). For instance, you can
shoot your gun and kick someone in the same round, if
your Firearms roll was low enough. Or you can yank the
parachute out of your enemy's hands and pull the cord at
the same time. However, the second action fails if the roll is
higher than the relevant skill or if it’s higher than your Do
Two Things At Once skill.
Fast Draw. You're real good at getting a weapon ready
real fast. Normally it takes an action to draw a weapon;
however, if your initiative roll (or skill) is under your Fast
Draw skill, you can draw your weapon and attack with it
immediately.
Snatch. This is the skill of grabbing things out of peo-
ple’s hands or pockets before they can react. This is not
the same as picking a pocket; the victim is immediately
going to know what you've done. However, there’s not
a lot he can do about it. One limit to the Snatch skill is
on its use in combat; if you try to snatch a gun or knife
out of someone’s hand, you have to not only roll under
your Snatch skill, but above the target's relevant skill
(Handguns or Knife Fighting or whatever). This is only for
disarming someone with a drawn weapon; it doesn't apply
to weapons still in their holsters, which can be yanked
with a simple Snatch roll.
Squirrelly Reflexes. You're just an intrinsically jumpy,
paranoid person. When a fight starts, your first instinct
is to make like a squirrel—grab your nuts and run. Conse-
quently, when you're making an initiative roll, you can flip-
flop it if the roll is lower than your Squirrelly Reflexes skill.
You can do this even if the result would then be higher than
your skill level (but still under your Speed). For example,
if you have Squirrelly Reflexes 30% and you roll a 24 on
initiative, you can make it into a 42.
CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTION
DO-IT-YOURSELF SPEED SKILLS
Here are some examples of Speed skills you might make
up for yourself in consultation with the GM: Billiards,
Ping Pong, Fircarms, Darts, Sleight of Hand, Picking Pock-
ets, Moving Silently, Sprinting, Tennis, Juggling, Horseback
Riding.
THE MIND SKILLS
Your basic book learning, plus logic and reason. If a skill
requires alertmess, perception, quick wits, and generally
being-on-the-ball, it may be a Mind skill.
FREE MIND SKILL: CONCEAL
Conceal 15%. You can hide physical objects, including
yourself or another person. This covers hiding a gun inside
a chair, not hiding money in an offshore bank account.
If you're hiding a person, Conceal only works as long as
you're not moving.
WHAT CONCEAL MEANS
10s You never really understood the concept of “Hide and
Go Seek.”
205 Your hiding options tend towards “under the bed™ and
“in the underwear drawer.”
You've purloined your share of letters.
You can outwit the standard jealous spouse or suspi-
cious parent.
50s You could be a professional smuggler.
60s You could be a professional smuggler who's never done
jail time.
70s Misdirection, disguise, and subtlety are only the most
blatant tools in your arsenal of concealment.
80s You are ninja. You own the night.
]
FREE MIND SKILL: GENERAL EDUCATION
General Education 15%. It is difficult to get through life
without learning something in school. 15% is the low end
of average. 25% would be enough to put you on the honor
roll, while 0% probably represents a college degree and
some postgraduate work. If you do have a skill indicating a
college degree or substantial professional training, you can
change General Education to Philosophy, Medicine, Eastern
European History, or whatever other academic or profes-
sional knowledge you specialize in; its penumbra still serves
for general knowledge checks.
WHAT GENERAL EDUCATION MEANS
10s If you graduated high school, you did so with an
unimpressive C average.
205 You were a good student and probably finished college.
30s You graduated from college with honors.
40s You probably have a master's degree.
50s You either have a terminal degree (Ph.D., M.D.,
M.EA.) or multiple master’s degrees.
60s You are an acknowledged expert in your area of study.
70s You are internationally known in your area of special-
ization. You can demand high fees as a consultant.
80s If lay people are aware of your field, they know your
name. You appear in documentaries and Newsteek.
UNKNGW,
ARMI&SM
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
FREE MIND SKILL: NOTICE
Notice 15%. See that? Probably not. Most people live
in a haze of self-absorption, but sometimes we pick up on
things that stand out: a cute puppy, a brand new car in a
bad neighborhood, the glint ofa telescopic sight moments
before the sniper plants a bullet in your brain, that sort
of thing. Some people notice more than others. Police detec-
tives tend to have a Notice skill of 40% or higher.
WHAT NOTICE MEANS
10s You notice the obvious, most of the time, but you're
casily distracted.
20s You're about average: if someone drops a shiny dime
on the sidewalk, you at least see it.
30s You're pretty sharp: you can spy a toupee or dye job at
twenty paces, and your typing is always free of typos.
You're remarkably perceptive: this level is typical of
police detectives, forensic pathologists, and archaeolo-
gists.
50s You notice even tiny details—the one book that’s
upside-down in a shelf, incongruous scents, a previ-
ously locked door that's now open a crack.
60s You can hear a whisper from twenty feet away on a
still night, or read a newspaper by starlight.
70s You could trail a cat through a dark alley.
80s Like Sherlock Holmes, no detail escapes you.
40
MIND SKILL EXANPLES
Authority. For whatever reason, you are in a position
to tell people to do things and have them get done. This
is the requisite skill for people who want to play cops,
mob bosses, bishops and other people who have a power
structure backing them up. (GM characters in such posi-
tions don’t need to take this skill; it’s just a game balance
thing for players in these jobs.) A police officer has an
Authority score of about 15%, while a federal agent would
have a score more like 30%. You can use this skill to wow
the yokels, call for backup, obtain the skills of specialists—
it's a very broad-based skill. (If you need to coerce someone
into obeying you in a normal situation, like writing a speed-
ing ticket, it happens automatically unless the person is
predisposed against compliance.) Just make sure you and
your GM agree on what kind of authority you are. You can
also lose this skill by failing to uphold the responsibilities
and expected duties of your station (“You were out of line,
McBlain! Hand in your badge!”), so be warned.
Doublethink. This is a weird skill—the skill of briefly
convincing yourself of things you really know aren’t true.
“I don’t know what you're talking about! I didn’t shoot
nobody!” It’s a short-term and intense form of method acting
that involves suppressing your memories under waves of
powerful emotion—usually an intense wish that what you're
saying was true. When you make a successful Doublethink
roll, the next time someone asks you about something, you
can give them a brief answer that appears true; you don’t
have to make a Lie roll because you believe it. The down
side of Doublethink is that using it about minor stuff is a
rank-2 Self mental-stress challenge, and using it on anything
important (“Of course I love you!”) is a rank-5 Self challenge.
(To read about stress checks for madness, se p. 64.)
Hypnotherapist. This isn’t any kind of mind-control
shtick. It just means you can put a willing subject into a
trance state, You can use this to recover lost memories,
reinforce suggestions, and get them to quack like a duck or
gibber like a mandrill. You're more than just a sideshow
entertainer, however; you're also trained in helping people
deal with repressed, distorted, or just plain painful memo-
ries. (Meaning, you're qualified to put people under and
erase those nasty “Failed” dots on their Madness Meters—
see p. 69 for info on mental help). Note that it is possible to
hypnotize an unsuspecting suspect, but it’s hard—you have
to roll at least a 40% and still get under your skill, It is
impossible to hypnotize an unwilling suspect who knows
what you're doing.
Photographic Memory. This is the ability to rapidly mem-
orize everything in your visual field. You have to do it delib-
erately and it takes one action. Write down what you've
mentally “photographed” when you do it; later you can roll
to pull discrete details out of your “picture.” (This means
you can do that trick where you glance at a page in a
phone book and can later recite it back.) A variation is
eidetic memory or “total recall” where you can roll to recall
anything you paid attention to; this does not allow you to
do the phone book trick (you'd have to thoroughly read
the page first instead of just looking at it), but you can
(with an okay roll) remember any page of any book you've
ever read.
DY MiND SKILLS
Here are some examples of Mind skills you might make
up for yourself in consultation with the GM: Automotive
Repair, Biology, Locksmithing, Medicine, Strategy, Physics,
Psychotherapy, Occult.
PARADIGM MIND SKILLS
A Paradigm skill is a deeply held philosophy. It’s how you
relate to the world. This might be military training, religious
faith, or deep skepticism about the unnatural. Taking a
paradigm skill helps you with some mental stresses, but
leaves you more vulnerable to others. You can only have
one paradigm skill, and it must be consistent with your
obsession, passions, and personality. (Adepts cannot have a
paradigm skill at all, because their philosophy is rooted in
their school of magick.)
If you decide to take a paradigm skill—you don't have
to—then you link it to two types of mental stresses. One is
a stress that your paradigm skill protects you against. The
other is a stress to which your paradigm skill is vulnerable.
Mental stresses are defined in the Madness chapter begin-
ning on p. 64. If it’s appropriate, you can use the same stress
for both slots.
Once you create the skill, you must take a failed notch
on the vulnerable stress you chose. This failed notch is
permanent—it cannot be erased. It is the weak link in your
mental armor. Having it does not affect your madness rolls,
but it means you are always that one notch closer to suffer-
ing a permanent mental affliction. Mark this notch in with a
pen 0 you don't lose track of .
Any time you fail a Mind roll on the protected stress, you
may choose to immediately roll again. This time you roll
against your paradigm skill, not your Mind stat. If you suc-
ceed, you avoid the stress reaction because your philosophical
paradigm was strong enough to see you through the stress.
You do not, however, get a hardened notch for this success.
UNKNGW,
M?HIESM
There are no re-rolls on your vulnerable scress unless it's
the same as your protected one. The permanent failed notch
is trouble enough.
Here are some sample paradigm skills you can use, each of
which lists its protected and vulnerable stresses in that order:
Military (Violence/Isolation). Your service in the armed
forces indoctrinated you against the horrors of combat, but
you're ill equipped to handle problems when cut off from
the chain of command.
Scientific (Unnatural/Unnatural). Your scientific mindset
stresses logic, reason, and predictability. While you value an
open mind, the contradiction of commonly accepted natural
law is very hard for you to assimilate.
Superstitious (Unnatural/Helplessness). You see patterns
and symbolic connections where others see only coinci-
dence. This makes you more open to the idea of invisible
and sub rosa forces, but your faith in the power of symbolic
gestures makes it hard to accept powerlessness.
Corporate (Self/Violence). Your hard-bitten, hard-headed
business sense values pragmatism and results above all else.
Occasional moral weakness is easy to assimilate as “flex-
ibility.” But your world of abstract results and maneuvers
does little to prepare you for visceral realities.
Christian (Helplessness/Self). Your faith in the benevo-
lence of a higher power makes it easier to accept setbacks
with equanimity. But in accepting the strength of Jesus, you
are quick to see the weakness in yourself.
Orthodox Buddbhist (Isolation/Violence). Your Buddhist
doctrines of detachment and non-involvement, coupled with
your instruction in meditation, makes loneliness less of a
burden—almost a treat. However, pacifism can leave you
ill-prepared for the barbarity of modern life.
THE SOUL SKILLS
These are skills based on interaction and intuition rather
than on mental acuity. Any social skill is a Soul skill, as are
most artistic skills.
If you're an adep, your school of magick is a Soul
skill. But don't just write down “Magick™ by itself—include
the school title, like Magick: Entropomancy, Magick: Por-
nomancy, Magick: Cliomancy, and Magick: Dipsomancy. If
you're not sure yet, go ahead and write down “Magick”
on the character sheet. Just make sure and change it to the
name of your school of magick once you know what it is.
Another rule for adepts: Your school of Magick is your
obsession skill. As with martial artists who take Struggle
as their obsession skill, you get Cherries. These are
special effects triggered whenever you roll a successful
match (such as 11, 33, or 66) on your Magick roll.
Sample cherries for Magick appear on p. 116, and
you can make up your own with the GM’s approval.
FREE SOUL SKILL: CHARM
Charm 15%. You have to make a good impression some-
times—maybe with Miss Congeniality down at the pub,
maybe in a job interview, maybe with the high priestess of
the cult you're trying to infiltrate.
WHAT CHARM MEANS
10s Even your friends find you a bit annoying at times.
205 You can get along with people, if you have a lot in
CHAPTER THREE: CONCEPTION
common. You can flatter the boss without being too
slimy.
30s You can be entertaining and friendly, even with people
you don’t particularly care for.
40s Whenever an important client comes into town, your
boss asks you to take him or her out to dinner.
50s You could make a pretty good living as a confidence
trickster, provided that you can lie as well as you
schmooze.
60s You have the skills of a great diplomat or a great
seducer (or both).
70s Your honeyed tongue is nigh irresistible.
80s Even your enemies feel bad about hating you.
FREE SOUL SKILL:LYING
Lying 15%. Sometimes you gotta lay it on thick for the
sake of the greater good—or just to get out of a traffic
ticket. Most people can’t do it without looking around
nervously, blushing, over-elaborating their stories, etc.
WHAT LYING MEANS
10s You can lie convincingly—as longas it's a white lie and
you're telling your listener what they want to hear.
205 You can put one over on people now and again, as
long as you don’t have to sustain it for too long.
30s You can tell a complete whopper with a straight face.
40s You lie with ease and facility. This is a standard level
of Lie skill for people who deceive routinely—crooked
salespeople, con artists, private investigators, and com-
pulsive philanderers.
50s You lie like it’s second nature. This is the minimum
level of skill possessed by most undercover cops or
deep-cover secret agents.
60s You can instantly create claborate and intricate lies,
and keep track of them.
70s You can present the most illogical untruth and sill be
persuasive. You can keep track of multiple identities
and stories without getting them confused.
80s People basically believe anything you tell them.
SOUL SKILL EXAMPLES
A Friend in the Family. You have a buddy who's a mob-
ster. (Or a forensic pathologist, or an expert in the occult,
or whatever.) Your buddy helps you out on minor matters
without a roll. (“Hey Rocco, can you spot me a twenty
until payday?™) Activities involving risk or considerable
effort will not only require a roll but an explanation.
(“Hey Rocco, can you help me bury the body of this
dead senator | got in my trunk2") You lose points off this
skill if you only see your pal at your convenience; after
all, who likes a friend who's only around when he needs
something?
Aura Sight. Even though you're not trained in a school
of magick, you're aware of auras. If you make a conscious
effort, you can roll to pick up information about someone’s
magickal aptitude, health, physical capabilities, mood, and
general state of metaphysical health. Demon possession and
astral parasite infestation are easily detectable. Only living
things have auras, however, so you can't tell if an item is
magickal or if a car was last driven by a werewolf.
Commanding Presence. You come across as someone
UK
i
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
who should be obeyed, regardless of whether you actually
have any authority or not. You’re the kind of guy who
can direct people to the lifeboats in a calm and orderly
fashion, tell people convincingly that the situation is under
control, and get them to answer questions on the flimsiest
of pretexts.
Good Old Whatsisname. You seem awfully familiar to
people. Maybe you just have an unusually average face.
Maybe you subconsciously imitate the word choice and
accent of those you hear around you. In any event, people
are always mistaking you for distant cousins, old high
school acquaintances, long-ago frat buddies, etc.
Hunches. If you make a successful roll, you get a hunch,
as explained on p. 7. You can try this skill a number of
times a day equal to the tens digit of your Hunches skill.
You can’t do this iz combat—though an existing hunch is
valid when combat starts.
Play Dumb. You're real good at convincing people that
you're about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. This means
they’re likely to underestimate you as a threat and often put
the best interpretation on your actions (“Aw, the poor retard
just wandered into a restricted area. Show him out and kick
his ass a little, but don’t bother writing it up.”) It can also be
used to get people to tell you more than they meant to in the
process of explaining what they do want you to know.
Vocal Imitation. You have a knack for recreating sounds
with your voice. Not only is this a useful skill for doing duck
calls and spicing up your Bill Clinton jokes at parties, it can
be remarkably useful for fooling people over the telephone.
Sing the Blues. You may not be musically trained (or
maybe you were) but you can sing a decent blues riff
or karaoke along to “Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)”
without sounding like a jackass.
DIY SouL SKiLLs
Here are some examples of Soul skills you might make up
for yourself in consultation with the GM: Persuasion, Acting,
Getting Sympathy, Painting, Intimidation, Seduction, Cadg-
ing Drinks, Getting Bank Loans, Dancing, Social Worker.
UNSKILLED ACTIONS
Sometimes you need to do things that you don’t know how
to do—you don’t have the right skill, or even the right skill
penumbra. You may be in luck, if the dice are on your side.
For minor and significant skill checks, you can roll
against the appropriate stat. But your stat has a 30 shifc.
If you make it, you succeed but only barely—no finesse, no
user-definable results, just a lucky but marginal success. Pat
yourself on the back and next time, find somebody who
knows what she’s doing.
For major checks, you can roll a Hail Mary against the
appropriate stat. Only matched successes and crits succeed.
You don’t get to treat the results as a match or a crit,
cither—they just give you a half-assed, marginal success.
Any unskilled failure is unusually bad. The GM comes
up with an appropriate screw job as you bumble your way
o disaster.
Example: You don't have a Photography skill, but this
doesn’t mean you can't point and shoot. If you're taking
casual photos at your brother’s wedding, you have to
roll your Mind stat with a —30 shift. If you succeed,
ARNIES
you've got something your mom can stick in her photo
album.
Now suppose you're staking out an apartment with
your detective buddy. He takes off for coffee, leaving
behind his complicated surveillance camera with tele-
photo lens, etc. Suddenly a car drives up and honks.
The surveillance target leaves the building and hurries
to the car. You've got to photograph the car, but
you have no idea how to work the camera and only
moments to figure it out. You make the roll against
your Mind stat of 58. If you get a 01, 11, 22, 33, 44,
or 55, you get an acceptable photograph. If you fail,
you might damage the camera. You might even drop
it out the window, causing the target and his driver to
come beat on you.
But some things are just plain impossible. Even if you
have all day to sit in the cockpit of an F-15, humming to
yourself and pushing buttons in relaxed comfort, you're just
not going to get it off the ground,
The GM is the final arbiter of all unskilled action
attempts. She may choose to impose stiffer penalties than
suggested if it scems appropriate, and may even disallow the
attempt outright. In some cases, she may choose to make
things casier.
How DO YOU CHANGE?
Only the dead are static. You are a dynamic, living person
who isn't content to sit around doing nothing. You're going
to get out into the occult underground and make waves. As
you do, you're going to make a rep for yourself. But you're
also going to get better at the things you do.
INSTANT IMPROVEMENT
If you roll a matched success or failure on a major skill
check, the skill you rolled against gocs up 1% immediately.
A given skill can only be improved this way once per ses-
sion, but multiple skills can each improve once. Stats do not
improve this way, only skills, and this does not apply to
minor or significant skill checks.
GAINING EXPERIENCE POINTS
When you take action, the GM can grant you experience
points (XP). These are points you can spend to improve
your stats and skills at the end of the session, or you can
hang on to them to spend them later.
Just for playinga session, you get 1 XP. Thanks for
showing up.
If you're present at the climax of a plotline, your GM
gives you 1-2 XP. Even if you didn't save the day, even if
you got your butt kicked, you still get at least 1 XP for
having been there in the clinch.
Each time you do something clever, your GM gives you
1 XP. Figured out a clue? Planned a good ambush? Made
things exciting, entertaining, and unpredictable? That's
good thinking and merits you a reward...
Finally, at the end of the session everybody but the GM
votes on who did the best job. (Each person decides what
“best job™ means.) You can't vote for yourself. The GM
breaks ties. Whoever wins the vote gets 1-2 XP, GM’s call.
You can look forward to 1-8 XP per session. Don't
whine if your GM seems stingy with the points—granting
XP is one way a GM can pace the campaign. If the GM
wants to play in a high-power style, you may get a lot of
experience points so you can turn into hardcore bad-asses
really fast. If she wants a gritty-realism tone, she’ll probably
keep the point load low and make you work for "em.
SPENDING EXPERIENCE POINTS
Raising a skill by 1 costs 1 XP. Raising a stat by 1 costs 2
XP. However, you can't spend more than 3 XP on a single
skill or more than 2 XP on a single stat in a single session.
You can improve multiple skills and stats, however.
The only exception to this is new skills. Buying a new
skill costs ten experience points. It starts out at 10%. Your
GM may decide that you need a teacher or special training
to gain a new skill. If you want to fly a helicopter, for
example, you need to take lessons.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
CHARACTER CREATION
First and foremost, Unknoton Armies is about making a
good story. You're not playing it against the GM and you're
not playing it against the other players. You're playing it
against the fictions your GM is creating to oppose you.
Now this may sound real artsy-fartsy and abstract, but
in the end it's simple: the best story is the one that keeps
getting told. So all the point-stacking in the world isn't
going to save a boring character.
What makes a character boring? Safety is the biggest
thing. This game (like most roleplaying games) is all about
risk, danger, adventure, and intrigue. Since you signed on to
play, you have to accept the fact that bad things are likely
to happen to your character, including madness, maiming,
and death,
If you try to build a character who is immune o all
those things, not only will you fail, but your character will
be built around avoiding conflict (or at best, surviving it)
instead of resolving it. Sure, you want your character to be
competent, and the rules are tools to do that. But he should
be just as competent at starfing things as at finishing them.
If you want your character to survive in UA, it's easy:
ratchet up your accounting skill and play a guy who works
for a bank. Of course, you won't be doing anything while
everyone else is doing everything—but you'll survive! (Bleah.)
If you want to do more than survive, you'll need an
interesting character. Lucky for you, the rules are designed
to help you develop one.
OBSESSED SKILLS
Your obsession skill is a really big deal. Besides defining the
focus of your character, it jacks up your chances of success
in a major way because you can always flip-flop the roll. The
URKNOW
APNIESN
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
OH WELL
till determined? Backed into a corner with no way out?
Have to fight for the greater good? Up against someone too
stupid to know this is a bad idea? Or maybe just itching for
some action? So be it. The rest of this chapter contains rules
for simulating the murder of human beings. Have fun,
COMBAT OVERVIEW
Combat consists of a few main concepts: who goes first
(initiative), how do you hurt someone (attacking), how do
you avoid getting hurt (dodging), what happens when you
get hurt (damage), what else you can do besides fight (non-
combat actions), and what to do after the fight (wounds
and healing).
Fighting is unpredictable and often unexpectedly dan-
gerous. You aren’t a bulletproof hero who can swagger
through gunfire with a wicked grin, bowling over scads
of inferior opponents. Even punks can get lucky and even
leathery street fighters can take hard falls onto broken
bottles.
Your combat skills are calibrated on the assumption that
they’re being used in chaotic, confusing circumstances. Your
skill of Firearms 40% doesn’t mean you have a 40% chance
to hit a paper target down at the shooting range. It means
you have a 40% chance of hitting a moving, screaming,
dodging enemy in a dark, rainy alley while she does her
damnedest to fire the steel back at you.
Furthermore, your combat skills measure your ability to
do something effective. A single Struggle attack may be one
haymaker, or it could be a series of slaps, gouges, bites and
hair grabs. Mechanics-wise, there’s no difference between
a single elegant kick and the aggregate damage of several
hasty rabbit punches, but for storytelling style, it helps to
really visualize your personal technique.
INITIATIVE
At the beginning of the combat, the GM determines who
goes first, second, third, and so forth. This process is
known as initiative. When it's your turn to take action,
say what you're doing. Going sooner is better than going
later, because slower characters have to react to what faster
characters are doing.
Combat is divided into rounds. In a single round you
could use an atack skill, dodge, cast a spell, or start per-
forming some other simple action. Rounds are an abstrac-
tion intended for casier gameplay, not a definite measure of
time. Assume a round is about three seconds, but don’t get
hung up on accurate timekeeping.
ROLLING INITIATIVE
To determine your place in the initiative for this combat,
roll against your Speed stat. You always want to roll high.
‘Treat matches, crits, and fumbles as normal rolls—they
don’t give you any special bonuses or penalties.
o If you succeed in your Speed check, you act before every-
one who failed their roll. You also act before everyone
with a successful roll that was lower than yours was.
= If you fail in your Speed check, you act after everyone
who succeeded in their roll. You also act before everyone
with a failed roll that was lower than yours.
DEFAULT INITIATIVE
Instead of rolling, you can decide to use your Initiative skill
as your roll result. If you have Initiative 34%, your initiative
number is 34. Taking default initiative is considered the
same as a successful roll.
© With default initiative, you act before everyone who
failed their roll. You also act before everyone with a
successful roll that was lower than your Initiative skill.
AMBUSH INITIATIVE
If you begin a combat by ambushing someone, you get that
first attack immediately. For the rest of the combat, you act
on your Speed stat number and that is considered the same
as a successful roll. If your Speed is 62 and you make a
successful ambush, your initiative number is 62.
With ambush initiative, you get the very first action. For
the rest of the combat, you act before everyone who
failed their roll. You also act before everyone with a
successful roll that was lower than your Speed stat is.
Ambush initiative is only valid for fotal surprise. If you're
face to face and staring beadily at one another, the guy who
punches first or goes for his gun first doesn’t have total
surprise. You only get the ambush advantage if the GM
agrees you completely bushwhacked your target.
IMPROVING INITIATIVE
Once the initiative ranking is set, it stays the same through-
out the entire combat. If you want to improve your ranking
during the combat, you can spend one round without taking
any action. At the start of the next round, you can either
roll against your Speed stat or use your Initiative skill just
like at the start of combat.
TIED INITIATIVE
If you are tied for initiative ranking with another character,
roll a die to break the tie. The loser’s initiative ranking
drops by one point so he or she is just below your ranking.
Example: Aron, Brian, Claudia, and Derek are facing
three members of a rival cabal—Xander, Yolanda, and
Zack. Aron, Brian, and Claudia opt o go on their Initia-
tive scores, but Derek decides that, with his high Speed
score, he might as well roll and see what he gets.
Aron Speed: 30 Ini ive skill: 25
Brian Speed: 40 Initiative skill: 20
Claudia Speed: 50 Initiative skill: 30
Derek Speed: 60 Stat Roll: 54 (succeeds)
The GM decides that Yolanda and Zack go on their
skill and Xander rolls. (Xander isn’t too bright and is
something of a risk-taker.)
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Xander Speed: 45 Stat Rolk: 61 (failed)
Yolanda Speed: 55 Initiative Skill: 30
Zack Speed: 65 ative Skill: 33
The only failure is Xander, so he goes last. Claudia and
Yolanda are tied with 30. Claudia rolls a 7 and the GM
rolls a 3, so Yolanda's ranking drops to 29. The initiative
ranking for this combat is:
Derek 54 Aron 25
Zack 33 Brian 20
Claudia 30 Xander (Fail)
Yolanda 29
This continues until the combat ends or until someone
attempts to improve their standing. Yolanda could try
this, using her Initiative skill of 30 to trigger another
tie-breaker roll with Claudia—but that’s not worth
spending a round as a sitting duck. As it happens,
the only person who makes the attempt is Xander. He
takes a beating for a round and rolls, getting a 40.
Since this is a success, he moves up in the ranking and
the new ranking becomes:
Derck 54 Yolanda 29
Xander 40 Aron 25
Zack 33 Brian 20
Claudia 30
ATTACKING
When it’s your turn to take an action during a round of
combat, you can choose to attack someone. Just tell the GM
what combat skill you're going to use and who you're going
to use it on. Then roll percentile dice. You want to roll equal
to or less than your combat skill, and given that, you want
as high a result as possible. If you succeed, you've just hurt
or killed someone. Congratulations.
All skill checks in combat are major skill checks. If you
can't stand heat, don't pick fights with burning men.
DRAWING A WEAPON
Note that to use a weapon of any sort, you need to have it
in your hand ready to go. If you have to draw your weapon,
it takes one round. Without a weapon readied, you cannot
use it in the first round of combat.
ATTACK SHIFTS
Attack shifts are shifts—bonuses or penalties—applied to
your combat skill because of some situational factor. Note
that you add them to your skill, not to your die roll. Once
your shift is applied, roll against the adjusted skill.
GMs use shifts to model dramatic reality, not physical
reality. Shifts should make combat more intense and more
deadly, based on the nature of the situation. They usually
range from —30 to +30, and are applied in increments of
10. Remember that your combat skills already assume a
challenging, fast-paced fight.
CHAPTER FOUR: COMBAT
Shift Example Situation
-30% You're blind
20% I’ ten degrees below zero and you're just wearing
sweatpants
-20% You've been set on fire
-20% You’re fighting on a thin plank over a forty foot
drop
-10% You’re underwater (at least up to the waist)
-10% You've been drugged and are having a hell of a
bad trip
-10% You're shooting while falling after jumping
through a plate glass window
-10% Your feet are manacled together
-10% You'rein free fall
0% A rypical fast-paced, chaotic, pants-wetting
combat environment
+10% You're shooting someone far away who isn't
dodging
+10% You're using a long hand-to-hand weapon against
an unarmed opponent at appropriate distance
+10% Opponent is barefoot on broken glass
+10% Opponent is easily scared and just saw you grue-
somely kill somebody
+10% Opponent has on a big, heavy, off-balance frame
backpack
+20% Opponent's feet are tightly chained to the ground
+20% Opponent just ran a marathon
+20% Opponent just killed your best friend and is
laughing over the corpse
430% Opponent s in leg irons and handcuffs
If you're a GM, don't make a habit of applying every
shift you can to a situation—these examples are meant to
serve as guidelines, not s a shopping list. You don’t have to
use every shift that applies. Does it seem like the character
should have a littde tougher time? -10% shift. Does it seem
like things are going his way? +10% shift. Use the examples
to gauge an aggregate shift, not to add up every litdle factor.
Wing it.
If a factor is going to affect all the combatants equally,
it’s rarely worth the trouble to penalize all of them. If two
characters are fist-fighting in a phone booth, they’re both
at the same disadvantage. Ditto environmental factors like
rain, mud, darkness, and so forth. If they effect everyone,
don’t apply them.
Shifts should underline dramatics and modulate game-
play. They should not dictate dramatics and encumber
gameplay.
FOCUS SHIFTS
If you really want to put the hurt on someone, you can ask
for a focus shift. You have to declare this at the beginning
of the round, not when it’s your turn during the round.
If the GM doesn’t believe you can pull off a focus shift
owing to circumstances—perhaps you're badly wounded,
or drunk, or affected by magick that makes it hard to
concentrate—you don't get to do it.
A focus shift means you concentrate on attacking a single
target and pay less attention to the rest of the combat. You
can choose a focus shift of +10, +20, or +30, and you
apply it to your attack roll when it’s your turn during that
round—assuming you're still standing when your turn comes
around. You can only take a focus shift on a combar skill.
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
I¢s clear to everyone else from the start of the round that
you're focusing on your target. This is the moment in the
movie when the two fighters’ eyes meet and the melee around
them gets quiet even though the fighting continues unabated.
As a result, however, anyone else who attacks you this round,
including the target of your focus shift, gets the same shift
applied to any attack against you. If you take a +30 focus
shift, anyone who attacks you that round does so at +30.
This means if you and your target both declare focus
shifts against each other, you each get two shifts: one for
your own focus shift, and one as a bonus against your
opponent because he or she is taking a focus shift as well,
Mutual focus shifts are cumulative to a maximum of +30.
Should you declare a +10 shift against your target and your
target declares a +10 shift against you, you'd each have
+20: +10 from your own focus shift and +10 from your
opponent’s focus shift. But if you both declared at +20,
you'd cach have a +30 to hit the other, not +40.
Whether or not another character can take that shifred
attack against you is up to the GM. Someone on the other
side of the room in a furious hand-to-hand struggle is hardly
going to kick you while you're focused on your target. But
that guy who's been popping off shots at your partner down
the street won't think twice about shooting you while you're
preoccupied. You make a tempting target. Still if you think
you've got a decent chance at getting away with a focus
shift then take a +10 and up the odds—or go for that fat
+30 and call down the thunder.
Example: At the beginning of the third round of combat,
Claudia declares a focus shift of +20 against Yolanda.
When it’s Claudia’s turn, she gets a +20 shift to her attacl
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skill if she uses it on Yolanda. But Claudia is fourth in the
initiative ranking, which means that Xander and Zack
could each take a +20 attack against her before it's her
turn. Likewise, Yolanda (ffth in the initiative ranking)
could have a +20 attack against Claudia if she survives
Claudia’s attack. The GM determines if Xander or Zac
could and would take that attack, or if they're too busy
with the rest of the combat.
DoociNG
You can avoid getting hurt. When it's your turn during a
round, declare that you're using your Dodge skill as your
only action. For the rest of that round, you have some
protection versus attacks. (Attacks made against you before
it's your turn aren’t affected by dodging—they’re just plain
faster than you.) When someone successfully attacks you
while you're dodging, two things happen:
=> First, make a Dodge skill check with a minimum roll
equal to your opponent’s attack roll. If you succeed, the
attack does no damage at all.
2 Second, if you fail but your opponent’s attack roll is
lower than your Dodge skill rating, the attack does half
damage (round up).
If you want to continue dodging next round, you have to
declare this at the start of that round. By doing this, your
dodge even affects attackers who have a higher initiative
rank than you during that round. You can continue this as
long as you like. If you stop declaring your dodge at the
start of the round in order to take a different action, your
next dodge starts the process over again.
“Dodging” means you are doing nothing but avoiding
attacks. It doesn’t mean ordinary flinching and blocking,
which the rules assume you’re doing in combat all the time.
HiGH DoDGE
If your Dodge skill is 5% or higher, you can attack or
perform another action while dodging, as long as your GM
thinks it's plausible under the circumstances.
DODGING BLASTS
Your Dodge skill has no effect against most Blast attacks—
that is, magickal energy attacks made against you by an
adept. Blast attacks succeed or fail on their own unnatural
merits, and are not affected in any way by your Dodge skill.
Blast attacks are discussed in the Adepts chapter. The only
exceptions are Blast attacks that result in physical attacks
by mundane objects, such as a Blast that makes a knife fly
through the air at you.
DAMAGE
When you get hit by an attack during combat, you lose wound
points as a result. This happens immediately, before the next
combatant’s turn, with whatever consequences that brings.
The successful attack roll also determines damage in one of
two ways, depending on the type of attack. Firearms damage
is equal to your successful attack roll (a 43 attack roll does 43
wound points of damage). Hand-to-hand damage is equal to
the sum of your successful attack dice (a 43 attack roll does
4+ 3 =7 wound points of damage). There are modifiers that
affect these results, and they are discussed in the following
sections. Damage from an adept’s use of the Blast magickal
attack is covered in the Adepts chapter.
Note: Just being shot at triggers a Rank-1 Violence check
(see the Madness chapter). Particularly inexperienced ene-
mies may freeze or run away after cracking under the strain.
FIREARMS DAMAGE
Firearms damage is identical to the successful attack roll—a
roll of 45 does 45 wound points of damage. The higher
your skill, the more damage you can do because you're
shooting more accurately and you're hitting parts of the
body that are more vulnerable. But your skill also serves
as a limit on how much damage you can do. If you have
a Firearms skill of 40, you usually cannot do 70 points of
damage in a single gunshor.
‘There is another limitation on your damage result: differ-
ent calibers of firearms have different maximum amounts
of damage they can dish out. If your successful attack roll
is higher than the maximum damage for the firearm you're
using, the damage you do drops to the maximum for that
firearm. Damage maximums appear on the firearms tables.
Example: Derek has a Firearms skill of 65%. He’s using
a Colt Viper revolver, a firearm that has a maximum
damage of 50 points. If his attack result is a 79, he
misses and does no damage. If it’s a 23, he hits and
does 23 wound points of damage to his target. If it's a
62, however, he only does 50 wound points of damage
because he can’t do more than the firearm can dish out.
Crits do maximum damage for that firearm—even if the
maximum damage is higher than your Firearms skill rating.
Fumbles cause your weapon to jam or misfire. Semi-
automatic and full-auto firearms jam (meaning the mechan-
ics of moving a bullet through the weapon have gotten
gummed up) and all others misfire (meaning the bullet was
just a dud and the mechanics are okay). If it's a jam, you
have to spend a round and make a successful firearms skill
check to clear the weapon before it works again. If you
fail the check then you can keep trying, but each attempt
takes one round. If it's a misfire, nothing happens this round
but next round you can fire again normally; mark off that
bullet as a dud.
Matches have no effect on firearms damage.
CALLED SHOTS
5
To fire at a specific body part or other target of similar size,
you need a successful attack with the following restrictions:
* Leg. A minimum roll of 30. @
* Arm. A minimum roll of 40.
* Hand or Foot. A minimum roll of 40. Inflicts hand-to-
hand damage. If against the hand, target drops any item
held in that hand. 0
* Head. A minimum roll of 50, but take a +10% shift to 5
your skill. (Same chance as hitting the arm or hand, but
can do more damage.)
MULTIPLE SHOTS
To fire more than one shot in a round, divvy up your
skill rating—which includes any shifts applied—among the
number of attacks you want to make. You cannot take more
than three attacks per round without using the suppressive
fire rules in the next section.
You choose how to divide your skill rating. If you have
Firearms 30% and you want to shoot at two targets this
round, or fire two shots at the same target, then you could
take two 15% shots, or a 20% shot and a 10% shot, or
229% shot and a 1%. To make three shots, you might
take three Firearms 10% shots or two shots at 9% and
one at 12%,
You cannot use a focus shift if you are shooting multiple
targets, but you may use one with multiple attacks against a
single target. If you do this, add the focus shift before you
divide your skill up, as with any shift. You don't add the
bonus to every subdivided shot.
SUPPRESSIVE FIRE
You're not aiming, you're just shooting to make your
enemy stop shooting while your buddy does something.
This requires that you fire at least four shots per round of
suppressive fire. More than one person can lay down sup-
pressive fire in the same round; the effects are cumulative.
As with dodging, your first round of suppressive fire
kicks in when it’s your turn, making it useless against faster
opponents. You can continue it by declaring so at the start
of each subsequent round, in which case it then affects
everyone regardless of initiative ranking.
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52 BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
FIREARMS TABLE
HANDGUNS
Name
Ruger Mark II semi-automatic
Walther PPK semi-automatic
Colt Viper revolver
Glock Model 17 semi-automatic
Smith & Wesson M586 revolver
Ruger Super Redhawk revolver
IMI Desert Eagle semi-automatic
RIFLES
Name
Iver Johnson Model EW semi-automatic
Hechler & Koch G41 semi-automatic
Remington Sportsman 74 semi-automatic
FN FAL Light semi-automatic
SIG-Sauer S5G2000 Sniper bolt-action
Barrett Light Fifty M82A1 semi-automatic
SHOTGUNS
Name
Charles Daly Field Grade break-open
Mossberg 5500 semi-automatic
Mossberg Model S00ATP8 pump-action
Bernardelli Model 115$ break-open
Luigi Franchi SPAS 12 semi-automatic
Mossberg Model S00TP8-SP pump-action
Browning BPS pump-action
Harrington & Richardson Model 176 break-open
SUBMACHINE GUNS
Name
Heckler & Koch MPS full-auto
Ingram M11 full-auto
Micro-Uzi full-auto
AKSU-74 full-auto
Caliber
22 long rifle
32 ACP
.38 Special
9mm Parabellum
.357 magnum
44 Magnum
.50 AE
Caliber
22 Long Rifle
5.56mm NATO
3006
7.62mm NATO
.300 Weatherby Magnum
50 M2
Caliber
20 gauge
20 gauge
20 gauge
12 gauge
12 gauge
12 gauge
10 gauge
10 gauge magnum
Caliber
9mm Parabellum
.380 ACP
45 ACP
5.45mm M74
HAND-TO-HAND WEAPONS TABLE
Damage BonusWeapon
Knife (switchblade, cleaver, stiletto)...
Blackjack, brass knuckles, roll of quarters
Light club, bo or jo staff, baseball bat, vas
Sai, tonfa, nunchaku..
Small or light blunt object (toaster oven, skateboard, plank)
Serious blunt object (chair, fireplace poker, wrench, tire iron;
Huge club or baseball bat with sharpened nails in the business end
Sword or machete (any sturdy blade six inches or longer).,
Hatchet or kama
Very large sword or katan:
Spear or fire axe.
Chainsaw..
Capacity Max Damage
10 35
7 40
6 50
17 50
6 60
6 80
7 95
Capacity Max Damage
15 35
30 60
4 80
20 80
4 100
11 170
Max Damage
Capacity (buckshot/slug)
2 60170
5 60/70
8 60/70
2 120/80
8 120/80
8 120/80
5 130/85
1 1401115
Capacity Max Damage
20 50
32 50
16 60
30 60
etv i prisin o
Gove, .. i W Corpanden.
Conbi, W Fogn Ptishiog,1993
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CHAPTER FOUR: COMBAT
FIREARMS DAMAGE BY CALIBER TABLE
This table gives the maximum damage for a wide variety of fircarms calibers so you can stat up weapons that arent on
the main table.
Handgun/Submachine Gun Caliber Max Damage .300 Weatherby Magnum 100
22 long 30 -300 Winchester Magnum 100 .
.22 long rifle 35 .30-06 80 -
22 short v 25 3030 80
32 ACP 40 .303 British 80
.32 Colt New Police 40 .338 Winchester Magnum 100
.357 Magnum 60 .35 Remington 100 .
-38 Colt New Police 50 .358 Winchester 100 %,
.38 Special 50 444 Marlin 100
.38 Super Auto 50 .50 M2 170
2380 ACP 50 5.45mm M74 60 5
40 S&W 50 5.56mm NATO 60
.41 Magnum 70 6.5mm Mauser 75
.44 Magnum 80 7mm Mauser 80
44 Special 60 7mm Remington Magnum 100
45 ACP 60 7.51mm M31 80
45 Colt Long 60 7.62mm M1943 60 @
S50 AE 95 7.62mm NATO 80
7.62mm Type P 40 7.62mm Russian 80
7.63mm Mauser 40 7.92mm Mauser 80
7.65mm Luger 40 12.7mm Soviet 170
9mm Largo 50 14.5mm Soviet 180 0
9mm Makarov 50 Pan
9mm Mauser 50 Shotgun Caliber Max Damage
9mm Parabellum 50 10-gauge, slug 85 4
9mm Steyr 50 10-gauge, buckshot 130 On 150
10mm Auto 55 12-gauge, slug 80
12-gauge, buckshot 120
Rifle/Machine Gun Caliber Max Damage 12-gauge Magnum, slug 110
22 Hornet 50 12-gauge Magnum, buckshor 130
.22 long 30 16-gauge, slug 75
22 long rifle 35 16-gauge, buckshot 70
22 short 25 20-gauge, slug 70
.222 Remington 60 20-gauge, buckshor 60
243 Winchester 65 20-gauge Magnum, slug 90
25-06 65 20-gauge Magnum, buckshot 60
270 Winchester 80 28-gauge, slug 65
284 Winchester 80 28-gauge, buckshor 45
.30 Carbine 60
(Suppressive Fire continued) FULL-AUTO WEAPONS
Make a single roll for all the shots you're firing this Firearms are already stupendously dangerous. Full auto
round. On a 01 or a match, you hit someone by luck. Roll makes them worse. Here's how they work:
one die to see how much damage you did, while the GM
determines randomly who you hit. = You can either fire a three-shot burst or just hold the
The effects of suppressive fire depend on how many shots trigger down. A burst counts as a single shot for rules
are in the air that round: purposes. Blazing away counts as ten shots for rules
purposes—it automatically qualifies as suppressive fire.
* 4-10 shots cause a ~10% shift to everyone in the same = A three-shot burst gives you a Firearms shift of +10%.
field of fire = Blazing away gives you a Firearms shift of +40%, but you
* 1120 shots cause a ~20% shift to everyone in the same need a minimum roll of 20.
field of fire = Either way, ignore the maximum damage for your ammo
* 21+ shots cause a~30% shift to everyone in the same type. Your total damage is whatever you roll, period.
field of fire
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54 BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
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Fully automatic firearms are more or less illegal in the
United States and many foreign countries. Usage of full-
auto weapons in combat is going to attract substantial law-
enforcement attention—and of course, they just encourage
your enemies to up the ante.
SPECIAL AMMO
There are many types of ammunition available for fircarms,
such as hollow-point, safety slugs, and so on. All have
the same effect: the maximum damage of your weapon
is increased by 10. One exception is armor-picrcing bul-
lets—the so-called cop-killer rounds that penetrate bullet-
proof vests. These are described in the next section.
BULLETPROOF VESTS
If you get shot while wearing a bulletproof vest, the gunshot
does damage like it wasa martial arts actack, but without
the weapon damage shift. That's right: that 62-point gun-
shot just became an 8-point bruise.
If you are shooting at someone with a bulletproof vest, you
can opt to aim for the head, legs, hand, or some other unpro-
tected area. This is discussed earlier under “Called Shots.”
Armor-piercing bullets punch right through bulletproof
vests, but when you figure damage you round dotwn to the
nearest multiple of 10. If you roll a 45, you do 40 points of
damage. If you roll a 08, you do 0 points of damage.
HAND-TO-HAND DAMAGE
For hand-to-hand attacks—that is, physical attacks such
as punches, kicks, takedowns, baseball bat to the skull,
ete.—the damage you do is equal to the sum of the two dice
you rolled. A successful roll of 47 does 4 + 7 = 11 points
of damage. (There are some exceptions to this, described
later)
If you're using a weapon of some sort in your hand-to-
hand attack, you do more damage. To decide a weapon’s
damage shift, ask three simple questions:
= Is the weapon bi
wield it effectively.)
= Is it heavy? (“Heavy” means it has enough heft to crack
bones.)
= Is it penetrating? (“Penetrating
through the skin.)
means you need both hands to
means it cuts or stabs
For each “yes” you get, the weapon does 3 additional
points of damage. A rock is heavy, but not big or penetrat-
ing, so it adds 3 points of damage. A steel chair is big and
heavy, so it adds 6 points of damage. A knife is penetrating,
so it adds 3 points. A machete or sword is heavy and
penetrating, so it adds 6 points. A chainsaw is big, hea
and penetrating, so it adds 9 points. A table of sample hand-
to-hand weapons and their recommended damage appears
in the table nearby.
Crits cause your target to die or drop unconscious imme-
diately. Your choice. If he hasn’t acted this round, he doesn’t
get to. This only happens if the GM says it makes sense. If
you were throwing a pillow at the target, he’s just not going
to die or fall unconscious no matter what you roll.
Fumbles cause you to take the damage you rolled—that
is, the weapon bonus plus 20 points (0+0 = 10 + 10 = 20).
avoh by b
You screwed up so badly that either you hurt yourself all on
your own or your target deftly countered your attack and
hurt you in the process, GM’s choice.
Matched successes do firearms damage plus weapon
bonus, but only if you're using a weapon with a bonus of
+6 or higher. If you're using a weapon with a +3 weapon
bonus, or no weapon at all, the match has no special effect.
Note: If your hand-to-hand attack skill is also your obses-
sion skill, matched successes inflict Cherries; these are dis-
cussed later in the chapter. If your attack gets the firearm
damage effect, that happens in addition to the Cherry unless
the Cherry states otherwise.
Matched failures cause you to take your weapon's bonus
in damage, if you’re using a weapon. A +6 weapon would
cause you 6 points damage. If you aren't using a weapon,
the match has no special effect.
DISARMING ATTACKS
To take away a target’s weapon, make a successful attack
with a minimum roll of 30. This does no damage, but
the weapon is either in your hand or on the floor, your
choice.
Note: If the weapon is a penetrating weapon, you auto-
matically take 3 wound points unless you get a matched
success or a crit in the attempt. Taking edged weapons away
from people, using anything other than psychology, is a
great way to lose some fingers.
MULTIPLE ATTACKS
To make more than one hand-to-hand attack in a round,
divvy up your skill rating—which includes any shifts
applied—among the number of attacks you want to make.
You cannot take more than three attacks per round.
You choose how to divide your skill rating. If you have
Brawling 55% and you want to strike at two targets this
round, or make two attacks ar the same target, then you
could take a 30% attack and a 25% attack, or a 40%
attack and a 15% attack, or a 54% attack and a 1%. To
make three attacks, you might take them at 20%, 20%,
and 15%.
You cannot use a focus shift if you are attacking multiple
targets, but you may use one with multiple attacks against a
single target. If you do this, you add the focus shift before
you divide your skill up. You don't add the bonus to every
subdivided shot. That is, you can take a +30% focus shift
to your 15% Brawling skill and have a 45% attack to divvy
up, but you can't divide your 15% into three attacks and
then add +30% to each one,
THROWING PECPLE
To throw a person you're fighting, make a successful attack
with a minimum roll of 30, If you succeed, you do your
normal damage and also inflict the Knock Down cherry.
THROWING OBJECTS
To attack a arget by throwing an object or weapon at
him, use your General Achletics skill instead of your hand-
to-hand attack skill. The only exception is when your hand-
to-hand attack skill is also your obsession skill, in which
case you can usc it for the throw, This only applies to direct
attacks at a target, not throwing a grenade or tossing a
Frisbee around.
For a thrown object to do any damage, it must be big,
heavy, or penetrating as described earlier. You do not add
the weapon’s bonus to the damage inflicted, but the special
effects of matched successes still work as normal.
KNIFE ATTACKS
Any hand-to-hand attack with a penetrating weapon does
a minimum of 1 wound point damage ever if you miss.
This does not apply to thrown weapons, only weapons used
directly in close-quarters combat.
Example: You have Brawling 37% and are wielding a
knife against an opponent in hand-to-hand combat. You
roll a 43, a miss. Your opponent takes 1 wound point
damage.
Why is this? Knives cut. Imagine you are wearing a white
suit with white gloves, and you are facing an angry child
waving a black magic marker. Imagine trying to take the
marker away from the child, or grabbing the child, or doing
anything to the child except running away from it. You're
going to be covered in black marks in a matter of seconds.
That's why. Knives cut.
SUCKER ATTACKS
To feint and then lunge with a powerful attack, declare a
sucker attack and describe the fake move you pull to fool
your target: trick him into stepping onto slippery ground,
push him back so you can yank him forward when he
resists, pretend to hit him high so you can really hit him
low, or whatever the GM agrees sounds reasonable. Then
make your attack roll this round as normal. If you succeed,
you do no damage this round and your attack has no effect
except to mislead your enemy. (Dodging does not affect
this, since you aren't doing damage this round.) On your
next round, if you attack the same target, roll only one die.
Treat this roll as a match. If you roll a 1, your result is 11. If
you roll a 7, your result is 77.
So if your first attack succeeds, you get an automatic
‘match next round. It might be a matched failure or even a
fumble—a 00—so use with caution.
CHERRY ATTACKS
If your hand-to-hand combat skill—whether it's street
brawling or judo—is your obsession skill, you get Cherrics.
Cherries are extra-special results that occur on a successful
matched roll, (Unless the cherry specifies otherwise, the
normal matched-success effect of extra damage still applies.)
Having a hand-to-hand combat skill of any sort that is not
your obsession skill does not grant you these cherries.
Each time you get a cherry during combat, pick one from
the following list. You may also design new cherries, as long
as your GM approves them.
SAVPLE CHERRIES
Big Hurt. If you aren't using a +6 or greater weapon—or
even no weapon at all—you still get the matched-success
effect of doing firearms damage.
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
Blind. You cause no wound-point damage, but your
target cannot see for the next four rounds (a -30% shift).
Dazed. In addition to taking the normal damage, your
target has a -10% shift to all skills for the next four rounds.
Gimme. In addition to taking the normal damage, your
target loses whatever weapon he is holding. You choose
whether the weapon drops to the floor or ends up in your
hands. Either way, this occurs immediately, and you don't
take the usual automatic damage from disarming attempts.
Knock Down. In addition to taking damage, your target
is immediately knocked off his feet. He automatically goes
to the end of the Initiative queue. Furthermore, until he
takes an action to stand up he can only attack characters
who are standing within a few feet of him.
Kung Fu Grip. Instead of doing damage, you put your target
in a restraining grip. Your target cannot attack or dodge on
his next action because you've got him held. This continues
until your target gets free. Getting Free: You can choose to
release the grip at the beginning of the round before anyone
acts, and then you can both act normally. Your target can get
free by rolling against his hand-to-hand combat skill (Struggle,
Tae Kwon Do, whatever), but he must make a minimum
roll of your hand-to-hand skill score to succeed. Attacking:
Held targets can be attacked by anyone nearby with a +10%
shift for the attacker. While holding him, you get to inflict 5
points of damage each round automatically by wrenching his
shoulder socket, kneeing him, etc. If you have any sort of hand-
to-hand weapon ready, you get to inflict 8 points of damage
each round instead. Disarming: You can make another hand-
to-hand skill roll in any round after the one where you make
the hold and, if successful, use the effect of the Gimme cherry.
This s instead of doing any damage this round. Limitations:
You cannot make any attack besides the automatic one on the
person held, and you can't dodge, either.
Monkey Dodge. Not only do you damage this target,
but you may redirect the next attack declared against you
(before it is rolled) to any other combatant who could
reasonably be targeted instead (GM's call). You can't use
this to make someone attack himself. You can choose to
redirect the attack so it hits the floor, wall, furniture, large
plate-glass window, etc. instead of another combatant.
More Hurt. Roll and add another single die of damage
to the current attack.
New Damage. Roll two dice and use that for damage
instead of your original roll. If you're using a +6 weapon or
greater, you still get to do firearms-style damage even if your
new damage roll isn’t a match.
Second Helping. In addition to inflicting the normal
damage, you can use your attack skill again immediately in
the same round at no penalty.
Turning Tide. In addition to taking the normal damage,
your target can’t get any benefits from rolling matches for
the rest of the combat.
EXPLAINING CRIT KILLS
If you roll that fatal 01 and drop some poor bastard in his
tracks, it’s not terribly dramatic to say “he dies.” Here are a
number of plausible one-hit kills for smaller weapons.
WITH A BLUNT OBJECT
o A sharp blow to the temple puts a deadly shock through
the brain, resulting in instant death.
A transverse blow across the bridge of the nose sends
bone fragments into a sinus cavity, shredding it and caus-
ing the victim to drown in his own blood unless someone
performs an emergency tracheotomy within about five
minutes. For purposes of the 01, assume the blow also
knocks him out or immobilizes him with pain while he
dies.
An upward blow at the base of the skull (cither attacking
from behind or by reaching around) breaks the neck or
causes instant unconsciousness.
A blow o the front of the throat crushes the trachea.
Intense pain and panic is immediate. Unconsciousness
occurs within 20 seconds, or less if he was already breath-
ing heavy. Asphyxiation happens soon after.
A hard thrust right to the bottom of the sternum breaks
off a bone called the xiphoid process and drives it into
the heart.
Ahard blow directly between the shoulder blades
instantly stops the heart.
.
WITH A SHARP OBJECT
« Evena small knife driven up into the head through
the top of the eye socket kills quickly. (Elizabethan play-
wright Kit Marlowe died this way.)
An upward blow under the sternum pierces the heart.
A stab to the temple shanks the brain.
A shallow slash across the throat causes blood to drain
down the windpipe and drown the target.
A deep slash to the neck causes a rapid bleed-out from
cither the vein or the artery.
Along slash along the inside of the bicep from elbow to
armpit opens an artery.
A slash on the inside of the leg from knee to groin also
opens an artery.
EXOTIC DAMAGE
You can die in all kinds of terrible ways. Here are a few
examples.
POINTBLANKING
Pointblanking is trying to kill an immobile, helpless target in
close proximity. This doesn’t mean an ambush. This means
cutting the throat of a guy tightly bound to a chair, or
shooting a slecping person in the face.
So your target is helpless. I¢s up to you to decide if he
or she lives or dies.
This is a dramatic moment, so don’t try to gloss it over.
The consequences of your decision are likely to be severe,
no matter how you decide. The decision to snuff out a
human life in a cold and calculated fashion—not in combat,
not by “accident,” not in a rage of anger or fear—is one of
the most important ones you may face. Choose carefully.
1 you decide to murder someone, then, here’s how you
do it. Roll the appropriate skill. If it’s martial arts and
you fail, you do the damage you rolled, firearms-style. If
ii’s firearms and you fail, your weapon does the maximum
damage for its caliber.
If you succeed with either roll, the defenseless victim is
dead. Lights out.
That's not it for you, though. Deliberately trying to kill
a helpless target is a rank-7 Violence check. Your GM may
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assign other checks as well; after all, if you generally think
of yourselfas a friendly, forgiving guy, or a law-abiding
straight arrow, such a deed may well merit a Self check. On
the other hand, if you fail to kill your target then you may
have to face a Helplessness or Unnatural check (the latter if
some sort of magick saved the target).
DROWNING
In a crisis, you can hold your breath for a number of
seconds equal to your Body score. After that, you have to
breathe or pass out. If you breathe in (or pass our) underwa-
ter. you're out of the fight and drown unless someone drags
you out and performs CPR. (GMs may make characters
who've been saved roll their Body or under to have the CPR
work.) An average Body 50 victim can stay alive for fifty
seconds, so it takes about sixteen rounds to drown. Not
drowning means doing your best to stay above water, either
with the Swim skill or (if you don’t know how to swim) a
General Athletics check. Each success gets you a breath of
air, and the breath-holding clock is restarted.
STRANGLING
There are two ways to choke someone: cut off air to the
windpipe (the standard, untrained strangle) or cut off blood
to the brain. For the windpipe choke, just use the drowning
rules. This goes for untrained neck grabbing, smothering
with pillows, plastic bags over the head, and other forms of
smothering. An average Body 50 victim can stay alive for
fifty seconds, so it takes about sixteen rounds to strangle
him to death. For the blood choke, make a successful attack
with a minimum roll of 20. Maintain this for three more
rounds and the target passes out. Two more rounds and
the target dies. This qualifiesas pointblanking for Madness
purposes. A blood choke requires you to put a rope or scarf
or other long, thin object around someone’s throat, twist it
once in the back, and pull real tight. It worksvery fast.
To break a choke that’s on you, you can make one Dodge
or Struggle attempt each round, your choice. If you succeed,
you break free. Whether you succeed or fail, however, that
attempt is the only action you can take that round.
CAR WRECKS
The GM rolls one dic for cach 10mph the car was going,
and arbitrarily assembles a number out of any two of the
dice rolled based on factors such as seatbelts, air bags, the
typeof car, and so on. If a car hits somethingat 50mph, the
GM rolls five dice and picks any two to build a two-digit
number from. Different occupants in the car can receive
different combinations of damage numbers if the GM feels
it is appropriate.
Example: A car strikes brick wall at 40mph. The GM
rolls four dice and gets 7, 7, 3, and 2. Possible damage
results include 23, 27, 32, 37, 72, 73, and 77. It a late-
model luxury sedan. The driver is wearing his seatbelt
and there’s an airbag but it sill a bad wreck, so the
GM assigns him 27 points of damage. The passenger
wasn't wearing a seatbelt and was leaning half-way out
the window shooting at someonc, so the GM assigns him
77 points of damage.
Note: If two cars hit head-on, you combine their speeds.
Two cars going at 40 that do a head-on yield cight dice of
damage o the occupants.
Is your character wearing her seatbelt? Unless you stated
so carlier, you need to make a Mind check: if you succeed,
you have your seatbelt on.
FALLING
The GM rolls one die per ten feet fallen, adding the dice
together. f it's a controlled, deliberate fall, drop the highest
dic. (So if you carefully jump down 10 feet, you take no
damage. If you're shoved out of a first-story window, you
take full damage because you aren't in control of the fall.)
NON-COMBAT ACTIONS
If you're fighting someone, there’s an excellent chance it isn’t
just because you're a psycho. You want something. The two
of you are fighting because the Maltese Falcon is on the table
or because you're trying to get out the door to your car
or whatever. Atempting goals like these in the middle of a
fight means you're using non-combat actions. These are any
actions you take that are not directly related to injury.
“The tactical use of magick qualifies as a combat action,
such as using magick to whack somebody, or confuse them,
or control them. But if you try to divine what you're having
for lunch tomorrow in the middle of a fight, that's a non-
combat action.
SHORT ACTIONS
Any non-combat action takes at least two rounds. The first
round, you declare your action but you still get to attack
or dodge that round as normal. The second round, you can
neither attack nor dodge—you just perform your action.
Non-combat actions work this way because it requires pres-
ence of mind to do anythingin a fight other than fight.
Once you declare your action in the first round, you
cannot change it in the second round. You can modulate it
slightly if the GM allows it. If you declared you were going
to get in a car, you could change that to getting under the
car instead.
LONG ACTIONS
The GM may rule that some non-combat actions take
longer than two rounds. Remember that a roundis roughly
three seconds and plan accordingly. These longer actions
work the same way as two-round actions: declare the first
round, then spend the other rounds taking the action.
You have more freedom to modulate your actions when
they're stretched across a longer span of time. If you're running
for the door and it takes you four rounds, on round three or
four you could decide to change direction and run in a different
direction. Butif you want to cancela longer action and go
back to fighting, you have to announce this during your turn
one round and can then attack or dodge the mext round.
DRAWING ACTIONS
It takes one round to draw a weapon, not two. When you
declare you're going to draw, you do it right away instead
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
of making an attack or dodge. It’s ready for use next round.
You have to draw a weapon before you can use it, of
course—so you cannot shoot your gun on the first round
of combat unless you were walking around with it in your
hand before the combat began.
SIMULTANEQUS ACTIONS
If your attack skill is 85% or higher and the GM approves,
you can attack and either dodge or perform another action
at the same time. Similarly, if your Dodge skill is 85%+, you
can dodge and either attack or perform another action at
the same time. If you're such a lightning-quick bad mofo
that your attack skill and Dodge skill are both 85% or
higher, you can attack, dodge, and perform a non-combat
action in the same round.
WOUNDS AND HEALING
You begin the game with a number of wound points equal
to your Body stat. When you get hurt, you lose wound
points.
The GM is in charge of tracking your wound points. You
are not allowed to know how many wound points you have
at any point in time. When you get hurt, the GM tells you
what happens: what it fecls like, whether you have to move
slowly, and so forth. There’s more information on this in
the GM section.
The GM makes a note of how much you lost from cach
separate injury. That's because healing is on an injury-by-
injury basis.
WOUND PENALTIES
When you've lost somewhere between a quarter and a third
of your wound points, the GM tells you that you now
have a~10% shift o all your stats for stat check purposes.
Exactly when this penalty kicks in is up to the GM.
If you get hurt so badly that your wound points are down
to somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of your
total, the GM tells you that you're now at-20% to your stats.
‘The first penalty is a warning that you need to get off the
streets. The second penalty is a warning that you're about
to die. But if you're getting so trashed that your stats are at
~20%, you're probably dead meat anyway.
These penalties only apply when you're rolling against
your stats. They don’t affect your skills.
HEALING A MINOR INJURY
Basic first aid is sufficient for an injury up to about 10% of
your Body stat. To perform first aid, you need the right sup-
plics—bandages, makeshift splints, whatever the GM deems
sufficient—and you must make the attempt within an hour
after the injury occurred. Make an appropriate significant
skill check, or a major check if yowre under fire.
A successful first-aid attempt heals a number of wound
points equal to the dice rolled, added together. A roll of 56
would heal 5 + 6 = 11 wound points. A roll of 10 heals
1+ 10 = 11 wound points. If the result is higher than the
number of wound points inflicted by that particular injury,
the extra points are ignored.
You may attempt first aid only once for each minor
injury. If you fail any of those checks, the victim may get
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another set of attempts from a professional medical facility,
or from convalescence.
No matter how well you roll to patch it up, one wound
point of damage always remains to be healed by convales-
cence. No mortal science can heal an injury perfectly and
instantly.
Example: Aron gets kicked in the crotch and takes 4
points of damage. Claudia convinces him to let her
help and, after icing it to reduce the swelling, she
makes an unskilled significant check against her Mind
stat because she doesn’t have an appropriate skill. She
gets a 42, which is more than 30 and lower than her
stat, so she could heal a maximum of 6 points of
damage—more than enough to take care of the injury.
But, because no first aid is perfect, Aron’s still down
one point.
HEALING A MAJOR INJURY
A major injury is one that inflicts more than 10% of your
Body stat in wound points. This is beyond the scope of first
aid. You need professional help, and you need it fast.
Listen up: EMTs and doctors agree that people have a
much better chance of surviving major injuries if they get
treated within one hour. It’s what ambulance response time
and ER procedures are designed to accomplish.
If you get to a medical facility within one hour of receiv-
ing the injury, the GM rolls the doctor’s medical skill. Heal-
ing a major injury is always a major skill check. A successful
check heals that number of wound points immediately,
the same way firearms damage is computed. Each injury
requires a separate check. Healed points in excess of the
particular injury are ignored. Even rolls that heal more than
enough damage still leave one wound point, as with minor
injuries, to be healed in convalescence.
Example: Your doctor (Medical 68%) rolls a 43 and it's a
success, so you get back 43 points. If the injury was only
24 points, the extra healing points are ignored and you're
down 1 wound point instead of 24. If he'd failed with a
94, you'd get back nothing,
If you don’t get there within an hour, you're in bad shape.
The skill use only heals back the sum of the dice, the same
way hand-to-hand damage is computed.
Example: If your doctor got that successful 43, you'd
only regain 4 + 3 = 7 points because you lost blood and
weakened before you were treated.
Most doctors range in skill from 35% for a newbie to
70% for a veteran. Most can flip-flop their rolls, since
it’s probably their obsession skill. If the doctor makes a
matched miss or a fumble, the GM may rule that additional
wound points were lost. If so, those additional points count
asa new injury.
All this assumes modern medical facilities and a skilled
staff of assistants, of course. If your doctor—or a helpful
boy scout with a First Aid merit badge—is trying to put
you back together on your kitchen table with that bathroom
first-aid kit, you can only get the sum of the dice, no matter
how fast you're treated—a gauze pad won't do much to
help a broken arm.
CONVALESCENCE
To heal damage missed by first aid or emergency medical
care, you must cither stay in a hospital or at home with
regular attention from a doctor or nurse. You heal 2 wound
points per day that you rest. If you go out and run around,
the GM can rule you heal nothing for that day.
Once you're at 60% of your normal wound point total,
you are well enough to get out and about again. You may
not be fully healed, but you can get back to work. If you
leave convalescence at that point, you can still heal 1 point
per day. Remaining in bed continues healing you at 2 points
per day. If you push yourself too hard, the GM may give
you nothing back for that day.
You can also spend experience points to heal. Each point
you spend restores a point of damage. You cannot spend
more than three experience points on this per day.
As usual, you won't know precisely how many wound
points you have. The GM will describe how you feel, such
as “achy,” tired,” or “like you're going to puke.” “Unable
to focus your eyes™ and “seeping” are signs that you should
slow down a bit.
PERMANENT DAMAGE
If you take 50 wound points or more in damage from a single
attack and survive, you're a stud and should feel good about
yourself. However, you also survived damage that would kill
many people, and you never fully recover. A hit that bad
marks you for lfe, and there’s no way to avoid it.
The nature of the loss is up to your GM, though your
group may make suggestions. It could be a straight, perma-
nent loss of wound points—between 5 and 10 is a good
number. You could lose points in a relevant skill, or even a
stat—Body and Speed are obvious choices, but Mind is also
appropriate for cranial traumas. You may lose limbs.
CAR CHASES
Movement in car chases is measured in lengths. If you are
being chased, you want to increase the number of lengths
between you and the car pursuing you. If you are chasing
another car, you want to decrease the number of lengths
between you.
The GM determines how many lengths there are between
the vehicles involved in the chase. The lead car might have
two or three lengths ahead of the next one if the chase
began tight, or up to eight if they had a good head start.
A length is an abstraction for rules purposes. The distance
is not important; the number of lengths is. If a car gets ten or
more lengths ahead of the next one, that next car is now out of
the chase and loses track of what is happening up ahead.
Every round, all the drivers in the chase make a sig-
nificant Drive skill check. Drivers who beat their Speed
but get under their Drive neither gain nor lose a length.
Rolling under the Drive skill means that car advances one
lengeh, closer to any cars up ahead and farther from any
cars behind. Failure means that car drops back one length,
farther from any cars up ahead and closer to any cars
behind. A match under your Speed or a crit means you
advance two lengths. A matched failure or fumble means
you drop back two lengths and may suffer additional prob-
lems at the GM’s discretion.
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BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
HAZARDS
The GM may ask you to make a second Drive roll in a
single round to navigate past a hazard, such as an obstacle
in the road, congested traffic, or a sharp curve. Hazard rolls
may be major or significant, depending on the nature of the
hazard. If you fail the hazard check, you drop back a car-
length and may suffer other consequences. If you succeed,
you get past the hazard safely.
RISKS
To close on your quarry or escape your pursuer even faster,
you can try a risk. You must first succeed in any GM-
mandated Drive rolls this round. Then you can describe the
risk you take to advance in the chase. You must be specific
and creative, and you cannot use the same risk twice in the
same chase. Some sample risks include:
o “I'runa red light.”
* “I lunge into the oncoming lane for about ten feet to get
past this truck.”
“I jump my motorbike onto the sidewalk.”
“I sideswipe that Escort out of the right lane and shoot
up there.”
“I drive my motorcycle between those two big semis,
right up the lane marker.”
If the GM accepts your risk, make a major Drive roll. If
you succeed, you gain a car-length. If you fail, you lose a
car-length. Matches double the car-length results.
INSANE RiSkS
To make a real run at advancing, you can do something
insane. This works the same as a normal risk, but you must
come up with a sufficiently dangerous maneuver, such as:
* “ljump my car over the barrier onto the highway, go the
wrong way, and then get off ahead of him by driving the
wrong way up the on-ramp.”
“I tilt my motorbike onto its side, slide under the tanker
truck, and catch up lost ground while everyone else is
cut off.”
* “Itakethe turn at maximum speed so my car goes up on the
two driver's-side wheels, then maneuver it onto the sidewalk
and get the passenger wheels on the front of the building, so
that I'm driving along the sidewalk at a 45 degree angle.™
If the GM accepts your insane risk, make a Drive roll at
half your skill, rounding down. Add any shifts to your halved
skill number. If you succeed, you advance five lengths. If you
fail, you wreck the car, you're out of the chase, and you suffer
injury as per the car-wreck damage rules on p. 57.
RAMMING AND ROADBLOCKING
Once two cars in a chase are at zero lengths, they can try to
stop each other by ramming or roadblocking.
To roadblock, you must advance one length ahead of the
other car any way you can. If you succeed, you steer right in
front of them. They have two choices: run into you or run
off the road. If they run into you, both cars stop and car-
wreck damage occurs. If they run off the road, they might
wreck, plunge off the side of the bridge, or suffer some other
result depending on the circumstances.
If you ram, you don't roll—but the guy you hit does. If he
succeeds at a major Drive check, your distance remains the
same. If he fails, he must drop back one car-length or two if it’s
2 matched failure. You may only ram once per round, and you
‘may ram the same round that you closed the gap to zero.
PASSENGERS
Passengers using magick roll as normal. Passengers using
firearms against targets at zero lengths roll as normal. For
firearm attacks at distance, the attack is made at a -10%
penalty. These are for attacks against human targets.
To fire at a car, make a normal Firearms skill roll:
Crit. You hit the driver.
Matched success. You hit a passenger in the car.
20 or lower. Cosmetic damage only.
21 or higher. No damage, but driver is distracted and
must make a hazard roll.
JUMPING BETWEEN CARS
Unless you have a skill such as Hollywood Stuntman, this
is not at all easy. To jump from one moving car to another,
make a General Athletics skill check with a -20% penalty. If
you fail, you suffer damage as per a car wreck.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
COMBAT STRATEGIES
Fighting in Unknown Armies is different from many games
in some very important ways. Psychology, in the form of
Violence checks, can matter as much as physiology. Combat
is extremely dangerous and unpredictable, even for experi-
enced and skilled fighters. It is not something any reason-
able person takes lighly.
o get a better grip on what the system actually does, and
on how you can handle it best for a fun and interesting game,
here are some strategies and observations to keep in mind.
Weapons Make a Difference. The bigger the weapon, the
more difference it makes. Fist fighting, while not “safe,” is
much less likely to leave you dead or permanendly crippled.
As soon as a deadly weapon enters the scenc—a big knife,
a hatchet, or a baseball bat—matched successes become
really, really painful because they inflict fircarms damage.
Suddenly, 10% of all the hits are extremely bad news. Once
guns come into play, it's even worse. On a rough average,
a gunshot does four to five times as much damage as an
equivalent hand-to-hand roll.
UK
il
Keeping this in mind, you should realize the following:
= If you're armed and your opponent isn't, you have a big
advantage.
= If the situation is reversed, you should run away.
= Once weapons are involved, fights can get fatal much
quicker. Three rounds of successful punching means less
than one successful gunshot.
Fools Fight to the Death. The difference between uncon-
sciousness and death is pretty thin when weapons are out.
That means you want to get out of the fight before you're
unconscious, because most gunshot damage can skip right
past the KO and into the Undiscovered Country. If you're
hit with a weapon, you might want to run. If you're unwill-
ing (or unable) to get away, consider dodging or diving for
cover.
Fools Also Give No Quarter. Living problems are—in the
short term, at least—preferable to dead ones, Sure, the guy
you roughed up and let go may come back and jump you
later. But if you kill him, even in self defense, you've got
major problems with the police, who are almost assuredly
more trouble than any individual GMC you can put down.
Besides, a living enemy is one you can pump for informa-
tion, one you can intimidate more easily, and one who’s a
walking testimony to your bad-assitude. Furthermore, the
guy you let go with a beating roday may be the guy who
returns the favor next month—whereas if you kill him, you
may get that deed repaid in kind by his son, his sister, or
his vengeful ghast.
‘The First Round is Different. The first round in a fight
sets up a lot of what happens later, and it gives a good sense
of what kind of fight you're in for. If all your enemies are
sticking their hands in their pockets, odds are good they’re
drawing weapons. (Remember, it usually takes a round to
draw.) If you’re unarmed, you may want to spend that
first round grabbing their weapons, getting some cover, or
running the heck away.
Ambushes Work. Going first in the round can be an
important advantage. If you get at the top of the initiative
ranking, your attacks are less likely to be dodged. This
also means if you get ambushed, your best option is to
get away—at least long enough to catch your breath and
resume the fight on more even terms.
Watch Out for Sucker Attacks. A sucker atrack is a
powerful move, especially if you're using a +6 or +9
weapon or if you're an obsessed martial artist. However,
it is not without risks. If your skill isn’t very high, you
can easily end up with a matched failure and screw
yourself. Of course, sucker attacks work both ways. If
you see an opponent ducking and weaving and distract-
ing you, next turn may be a good time to Dodge. If
you're fast enough.
The Initiative Skill is a Good Deal. Let’s do the math
with the Initiative skill. It's half your Speed stat by default,
so even if you roll against Speed successfully, there’s a
50% chance your roll is worse than what your Initiative
skill already is. Furthermore, rolling allows for the pos-
sibility of failure, while the Initiative skill even at its worst
never leaves you with a failure. Most people use the Initia-
tive skill most of the time. Rolling is really only smart if
you know your opponent is going to beat your Initiative
skill anyhow.
CHAPTER FOUR: COMBAT
OPTIONAL RULE: NEGATIVEFOCUS SHIFTS
If your group agrees to this before a combat starts, you can
have negative focus shifts as well as positive ones. Negative
shifts mean you're being extra-cautious, 50 you are not only
harder to hit but you have a harder time hitting. Otherwise
they work the same as normal focus shifts. We do not
recommend you use these, as they slow down combat and
encourage constant fiddling with numbers, (The positive
focus shifts compensate for this by increasing risk to you
and to your target, thereby speeding up combat.) But if your
group wants to play that way, give it a shot.
A BRIEF PRIMER ON FIREARMS
For the curious and the damned, here’s a quick look at some
common firearms issues likely to come up in your games.
These are necessarily brief; if your real-world knowledge
supersedes these generalities, by all means go with what
you know. In particular, the section on legalities contains
baseline assumptions. Local laws vary, but go with these
assumptions if you don't have better information yourself.
If you want more details, especially about your local laws,
just call a gun store and ask. This information refers to the
situation in America; foreign countries have very different
laws.
Note that some information in this section falls under the
rubric of “how to use firearms illegally and not get caught.”
This information is provided because it's the sort of thing
that firearms-using characters in the game are likely to try,
and the GM needs to know how to handle such activity.
Nothing is provided in this section that cannot be readily
inferred from the mass media. As stated later, however, you
should understand that nothing draws the attention of law-
enforcement authorities faster than illegal usage of firearms.
You may think you're slick and will get away with it, but
the fact is there will be anywhere from a couple to a couple
dozen highly trained professionals doing everything they
can to put your slick self behind bars.
LEGALITIES
An adult can walk into a gun store and choose from a
wide variety of revolvers, semi-automatic handguns, bolt-
action rifles, semi-automatic rifles, break-open shotguns,
pump-action shotguns, and semi-automatic shotguns. Long
arms—rifles and shotguns—can be purchased and taken
from the store immediately, but the buyer must fill out a
one-page form with his name and vital statistics, describing
the firearm and its serial number, and asserting that he is
not a felon, is not abusing drugs or alcohol, does not have
mental problems, and so forth. Handguns—both revolvers
and semi-automatics—can be purchased, but must be left at
the store for several days so local law-enforcement authori-
ties can run a criminal-records check on you; if you're a
felon, you can't buy a gun. The only identification required
is a driver’s license or some other governmental ID. (The
waiting period for handgun purchases generally ranges from
five to fifteen days, varying by state.)
Many restrictions on the manufacture and importation
of specific types of firearms have been passed over the
years. They do not restrict the sale or ownership of already-
existing firearms of these types, however, and in many
cases such a large quantity of these weapons are already
UNKNGWN
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in circulation that the various bans merely raise the price,
without greatly affecting availability. If you want it, you can
buy it, and you can probably afford it.
Note that the above government forms and waiting
period are only a factor if you're buyinga weapon from a
dealer. Firearm sales between private individuals—buying a
weapon from a friend, co-worker, or what have you—are
legal and unregulated, with the exception of fully automatic
weapons.
Fully automatic weapons—machine guns, submachine
guns, military assault rifles, and the like—are not legal to
buy, sell, or own without special permits. These permits are
expensive, are difficult to get, and essentially require you to
surrender several of your civil liberties—if you have such
a permit, for example, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms can search your home without 2
warrant.
ot
Asa rule of thumb,if you needa good handgun, rifle,or
shotgun, $500 does the trick. Dependingon your needs and
budget, you can go a lot cheaper or a lot more expensive.
You can legally buy a cheap .22-caliber semi-automatic
handgun for well under $200, making it very popular
among street gangs. Low-end medium-caliber handguns
(9mm, .38) can be had for $200 or $300. Good-quality
handguns in a variety of calibers range from $400-$600.
High-quality or specialty models can go for more than
$1000.
Long arms tend o fall into similar price ranges. A
cheap .22-caliber hunting rifle or double-barrel break-open
12-gauge shotgun can be had for $200 or less. Most good-
quality rifles and shotguns—including semi-automatic rifles
and pump-action shotguns, popular with movie criminals
and player characters—are priced from $400-$600. Again,
high-quality or specialty models—or collector pieces that
have been banned from new manufacture or import—can
go above $1,000. Even among banned weapons, however,
the prices may not be outrageous. A typical civilian version
of the AK-47 that once sold for $350 was banned in the
spring of 1998; after the ban, the price jumped to $520, still
well within the typical range of prices.
These prices are all for new weapons. For used weap-
ons—offered at gun stores, pawn shops, or by private own-
ers—you can typically expect to pay $100-5200 less than
the new price, assuming the weapon isn't some sort of
collector’s piece.
(PERATIN
The mechanics of firearms operation vary widely. Some
need to be cocked in some fashion before they work. Others
fire from the first squeeze of the trigger. Many have a
“safety” of some sort, generally a simple mechanical switch
that must be flipped before the weapon functions. Details of
which firearms require what sorts of operation are beyond
the scope of this game, though again you're welcome to use
these details if you're aware of them. Otherwise, assume
that a character with some sort of firearms skill can safely
and reliably operate any civilian firearm. Characters with-
out a firearms skill use a star check instead; if they're in
combat, it’s a major check and they can only succeed with
a Hail Mary.
Itis illegal to carry a concealedhandgun on your body
without a permit. (Long arms are generally unconcealable.)
Permits vary in cost and restrictions, but in general you can
assume that a concealed-weaponspermit may be issued to
any adult who can pass a stringent criminal-records check.
Expect to wait up to thirty days to receive the permit.
Once you have it, however, you can carry your handgun
almost anywhere. It’s often illegal to carry even otherwise
legally concealed handguns into places like banks, bars,
schools, court houses and police stations, though this varies
by locale. A given permit is only legal within the state where
it was issued. You must keep the permit with you if you’re
armed and show it to police when requested.
It’s generallynot illegal to carry unconcealed long arms or
handguns. You can walk into a gun store, buy a shotgun,
and immediately wander all over town on foot, your shot-
gun cocked and loaded at your side, as long as you dont
brandish it in anything resembling a threatening fashion.
Howeves, police usually take a dim view of such activity,
and will certainly ask you a few questions, decide if you're
drunk or on drugs, check your record, and maybe cite you
for something like disturbing the peace or being a nuisance.
You'll also probably end up causing a panic and showing up
on the local news, given the spate of disgruntled mailmen/
employees/schoolchildren shootings in recent years.
Rifles and shotguns must have a barrel length of at least
eighteen inches. You can saw the end off your shotgun if
you want with o problem, as long as the barrel doesn’t
go below that limit. This generally makes it impractical to
conceal long arms.
It is illegal o ship fircarms through the mail across state
lines without dispensation to do so—such as if you're a
legitimategun dealer. You can bring fircarms on airplancs,
but they must go with your checked baggage, and you
cannot bring ammunition with you. You must also inform
the airline that you're flying with a firearm.
If you're traveling in a car, any firearm you have with you
should be unloaded, in the trunk, and preferably wrapped
in a blanket or stored in a firearms case. Carrying a hand-
gun in your glove compartment or under your seat is gener-
ally considered the same as illegally carrying a concealed
weapon, with big penalties. This varies, however—in some
states, you can have the gun lying on the seat next to you
as long as it’s not loaded.
The presence of a firearm of any sort at the commission of
a crime—even if the crime is jaywalking, or being drunk &
disorderly—immediately puts up a red flag for law enforce-
ment. Should a police officer realize you have a gun, no
matter what the circumstances, he’s going to take the situa-
tion very seriously and will, first and foremost, attempt to
neutralize the threar of the gun. Preferably, he asks you to
put it down, and then finds out what the hell you were
doing with it. If you refuse to surrender the firearm and
cannot be reasoned with, he may shoot you outright, if you
pose an immediate threat to him or anyone else.
If you've been charged with a crime of some sort, and
you had a gun with you—even if you weren't using it in
UNKNGW
KRNIES
the crime—it’s safe to assume the legal consequences are
graver than if you hadn't had the gun, owing to the implicd
threat and level of malicious intent this suggests. In some
places, there are additional, mandated penalties for having
a firearm during a crime. In many places, claiming to have
a firearm during a crime is considered the same as having a
firearm during the crime, even if you were lying
If you show up at a hospital or doctor’s office with a
gunshot wound, medical personnel are typically required to
notify the police immediately.
FORENSICS
Every rifle and handgun leaves unique marks on bullets,
nabling a gun and a fired bullet to be matched up conclu
sively. The spent cartridge casing left in the weapon (or
cjected to the side) also carries a unique mark from the
firing pin that can be matched up as well.
Shotguns are a bit different, however, if you're using
pellers (also known as “shot™ such as birdshot or buckshot)
The pellets cannot be matched with a particular shotgun,
but the metal and plastic cartridge casing that contained the
T
CHAPTER FOUR: COMBAT
pellets can. Semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns kick
these used shells out to the side when fired, but break-open
shotguns (such as the familiar double-barrel style) keep
the shells inside until manually removed. If you want to
kil someone and minimize the evidence, use a break-open
shotgun and don't remove the spent shells until you're safely
away, or use a pump-action or semi-automatic shotgun and
pick up the shells before you leave
When a fircarm is used, it gains a distinctive smell and
residue that indicates recent use. Cleaning a used fircarm
thoroughly can make such determinations much harder.
However, residuc is also left on the shooter. Tiny particles
thrown off by the detonation can easily become lodged
in your skin, giving away your recent fircarms usage. The
more time that passes since the firearm was used, the harder
it is to obtain useful forensic evidence from the shooter.
Likewise, shooting someone at close range leaves evi-
denceon their body that shows how close you were when
the gun went off. The explosion from the end of the barrel
acrually tattoos the victim's skin permanently with powder
burns, if it's within a few feet or so. If this evidence contra
dicts the story you tell the police, you're in trouble.
UNKNOWN
ARNIES
63
64 BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS _
CHAPTER FIVE
MADNESS
QG
You're going to face a lot of threats out there, and not all
of them are physical. You're going to be exposed to stresses
that are beyond the normal, experiences that challenge your
mind’s ability to fit them into your view of how the world
works.
These stresses are measured on the Madness Meters.
These are five gauges that measure how resilient or suscep:
are to different mental threats. First, let's explain
how challenges to your sanity are handled.
STRESS CHECKS
There are five categories of mental stress: Violence, the
tible you
Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. It quite pos
sible to be very casual about, say, Violence, while being a
basket case when it comes to the Unnatural.
Each stress has two types of notches you can mark off.
Hardened notches represent stress checks you've beaten,
and they are numbered 1-10. Failed notches represent stress
checks you've blown, and they are numbered 1-5.
Different stresses have different power levels, ranging
from 1-10. These are called ranks. The higher the rank, the
more extreme the stress and the more you're likely to suffer
if you fail the check.
If you already have a hardened notch at the same rank
as the stress, and in the same meter, you don’t have to roll
You automatically beat the check because you've faced this
down before and prevailed. Failed notches don’t affect stress
checks.
Example: You face a rank-4 Violence check. You have
five hardened notches on your Violence meter. You don’t
have to roll.
If you don’t have a hardened notch at the rank of
the stress check, make a Mind roll. If you succeed, mark
off the lowest unmarked “hardened” notch on the appropri
ate madness meter. If you fail, you mark off the lowest
ed “failed” notch instead and choose one of threeunmar anic, paralysis, or frenzy; these are discussedreactions:
more under “Getting Crazy” on p. 69. A failure may have
other long-term effects as well.
Example: You face a rank-4 Violence check. You have
four hardened notches in Helplessness, but that doesn’t
do you any good. You only have two hardened notches in
Violence. You have to roll against your Mind stat of 58,
You roll a 47, and so you mark the third hardened notch
under Violence. If you had rolled a 64, you would mark
the next failed Violence notch and react accordingly
It's common to have both hardened and failed notches in
the same meter. Someone who's deep in both directions on
Isolation probably has a highly ambivalent attitude towards
being alone, which is perfectly in character for people who
have been repeatedly exposed to that mental stress. Some
one with the same situation for Violence feels little or noth
ing when exposed to most forms of bloodshed, but when
something is so shocking that it gets through the hardened
barrier, the result is devastating,
UNKNOW)
ABMIES
THE VIOLENCE STRESS
You have an instinctive revulsion towards actual violence.
It’s stressful to hurt others, to watch others get hurt, and
to get hurt. This stress also covers the fear of death that
everyone suffers from in varying degrees.
SAMPLE VIOLENCE CHECKS
1 Beattacked with a weapon—shot at or slashed.
2 Witness an act of torture.
3 Get shot at random. Be tortured briefly.
4 Kill someone in a fight.
5 Be present ar a massive bartle, with hundreds of deaths
on both sides.
6 Perform an act of torture.
7 Deliberately kill a helpless target.
8 Get tortured for an hour or longer.
9 Witness a brutal mass execution,
10 Watch as someone you love is tortured to death.
FAILED VIOLENCE NOTCHES
1 At this level, you're superficially fine. Perhaps you're a
little edgy whenever a knife in the room happens to be
pointing your direction.
You are very aware of violence, both as it exists and as
it is depicted. It strikes you as somewhat odd that so
many people don't realize that movie violence is very
different from real violence.
3 Youget alert or uneasy every time you sée blood,
even badly faked blood in a horror flick or when some-
one cuts a rare steak. Sometimes you have nightmares
about violence you've witnessed.
4 You instinctively take a defensive posture whenever
there’s a loud noise or raised voice nearby. Your night-
mares are frequent, and you have a hard time looking
at anyone without imagining (if briefly) what you
would do ar that moment if they attacked you.
"
HARDENED VIOLENCE NOTCHES
1-3 Superficially, you're much like everyone else.
4-5 Your attitude towards violence shows on your face
when the subject comes up in conversation, unless
you work to keep it hidden. It might be intensity, or
nervousness, or just a grim silence, depending on how
you cope.
6-7 Violence is a common feature of your mental land-
scape. Unlike less-hardened people, you show little
reaction at all when it is discussed or depicted in fic-
tion.
8-9 Your callousness shows in your every word and expres-
sion unless you make a continuous effort to suppress
it. Again, the exact tone is up to you: it could be bitter
and harsh, feverish and vehement, or icy cold.
10 It’s not hard for people to realize that the deepest
horrors of torture and brutality have become com-
monplace to you, unless you work very, very hard to
keep it hidden—swhich means you come off as tense
and guarded all the time. The death of others, or
yourself, has no intrinsic significance. You might prefer
to stay alive, but it’s only a matter of personal taste.
Life, in the abstract, doesn't mean anything.
CHAPTER FIVE: MADNESS
THE UNNATURAL STRESS
It hurts your brain to think of things that don't belong
in your concept of the world. Contemplating infinity for
too long, seeing proof that sometimes 2 + 2 = 5, and real-
izing that magick actually works are all unnatural stresses.
It's more subtle and unnerving than Violence. Everyone
recognizes that violence exists, even those who are insulated
from it. Unnatural stresses don't just attack your idea of
safety. They attack your idea of how the universe works.
SAMPLE UNNATURAL CHECKS
1 Experience a preternaturally strong deja vie.
2 See a creature or machine that cannot logically exist.
3 Realize that a vision you had of the future has come true.
4 See convincing proof that 2+2 does not equal 4.
5 Besuccessfully attacked with magick.
6 See someone you know killed by magick, without any
visible or “rational” cause.
7 Havea conversation with a loved one whom you know
is dead.
8 See an animal with human features.
9 See the dead rise.
10 Realize that the reason you and your husband of ten
years have never had children is that he’s not really a
human being.
FAILED UNNATURAL NOTCHES
1 Acthis level it's pretty hard to tell. Perhaps you become
a little superstitious—reading your horoscope daily,
watching for “lucky™ numbers, avoiding cracks in the
sidewalk, erc.
2 You have a few nightmares, and you are suspicious of
and/or fascinated by occult and religious books, places,
paraphernalia, and people.
3 You frequently feel like you're being watched, even
when there’s no one around. Sometimes it seems like
you hear voices in “white noise™—sounds like the
wind in the trees, the sloshing of a washing machine,
or the noises of traffic.
4 The nightmares are frequent, and often you don’t
know you're dreaming until you jerk awake. Some-
times you feel like there’s someone—or something—
watching you and you can almost see it out of the
comer of your eye. When you whip your head around,
there’s nothing there.
HARDENED UNNATURAL NOTCHES
1-3 There’s little to distinguish you from the average
person, except perhaps a tendency to snort derisively
when someone mentions their “intuitions.™
4-5 You tend to listen very closely and intently when some-
one discusses the paranormal or supernatural, trying
to figure out if they know something or if they’re just
talking trash.
67 You now know and accept that there are vast, incom-
prehensible forces governing the universe. It strikes you
as odd when people act as if they're in control of their
lives: you know better.
8-9 Things that average people consider “meaningless
coincidences™ strike you as deeply, intensely funny
UNKNGW
M?m&s”
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
UNKNGWY
ANIES
because you see the connections that they do not. You
may develop a reputation for laughing inappropriately.
10 You are no longer surprised by violations of ordinary
logic. Everything is “normal” to you—alking foliage,
spontaneous combustion, and stigmata are as ordinary
and reasonable as cars, dogs, and rain.
THE HELPLESSNESS STRESS
A sense of control is crucial for feelings of safety, even when
it's completely unmerited. When you have been challenged
by helplessness, you can lose your ability to gauge how
“in control” ofa situation you are: you may feel powerless
when the situation is not completely lost, or you may ignore
real impediments from a misplaced sense of capability.
SAMPLE HELPLESSNESS CHECKS
1 Unintentionally humiliate yourself in public.
2 Get fired from a job you love.
3 Fail ar something when it's imperative that you succeed.
4 Get dumped into a pit of maggots.
5 Spend a month in jail.
6 Watch a videotape of your spouse committing adultery.
7 Be placed in a situation where you have to either saw
off one of your limbs or die.
Watch someone you love die.
Watch someone you love die because you tried to save
them and failed.
10 Be possessed, yet conscious, as your body commits
unspeakable acts against your will,
FAILED HELPLESSNESS NOTCHES
1 At this level you're fairly normal. Perhaps you're a
litele finicky or meticulous, trying to eliminate the pos-
sibility of something going wrong.
2 You have a tendency to get unreasonably nervous and
pessimistic when small things go wrong. You may be
irritated if a bus is just a few minutes late, or if your
computer freezes up.
3 You have an intense dislike for surprises, even good
ones. They remind you of the essentially unpredictable
nature of reality, and that scares and annoys you.
4 You find it very difficult to trust anything. Your friends,
your own abilities, even your memories could be false,
waiting to betray you. You have a tendency towards
obsessive-compulsive behaviors such as checking the door
to your house two or three (or more) times every time you
leave to make absolutely certain it's locked. You attempt
to be prepared for every eventuality.
HARDENED HELPLESSNESS NOTCHES
1-3 You don't have any major behavior or attitude shifts
yet, just minor things. You tend to be pessimistic and
fatalistic, perhaps.
4-6 Your fatalism has increased. When things go wrong
in a big, bad way, or when trouble comes from a com-
pletely unexpected or unlikely source, you handle it
with a remarkable lack of affect. (This is not necessar-
ily incongruent with the behaviors of 2+ failed notches:
its perfectly possible to be freakishly calm about big
things and freakishly upset about little things.)
©®
7-9 You have a boundless faith in the ability of chaos to
screw you over. You can easily believe that even the
most suspicious of mishaps is simple random chance.
(“So my brake cable snapped and my gas pedal got
stuck down to the floor. What makes you think some-
one tinkered with my car? Shit happens.”)
10 The distinction between “intentional™ and “acciden-
tal” is pretry much lost on you. Maybe you believe
that everything is completely predestined, or maybe
you believe that everything in the world happens due
to chance. The one thing you find hard to swallow is
the idea that we are the captains of our fates.
THE ISOLATION STRESS
Isolation is a subtle danger: it corrodes your sanity by
denying you input. You rely on other human beings for
feedback. Without the opinions of others, you do not know
how to judge yourself. When you become resistant to isola-
tion, you overlook social morés and unwritten rules because
you've forgotten how to conform to the expectations of
others. If you've suffered from isolation, you become very
needy. These are not mutually exclusive: it’s possible to be
very clingy and still be unable to pick up hints about when
your behavior is unacceptable.
SAMPLE ISOLATION CHECKS o
Spend a day without seeing anyone you know.
Spend five hours in a sensory-deprivation tank.
Spend three days without talking to another human
being.
Be institutionalized by someone you love and trust.
Spend a week in solitary confinement.
See someone you thought you knew intimately behaving
in a fashion completely contrary to her normal behavior.
7 Spend a month in a country where no one speaks
your language and where you can't make yourself
understood no matter how hard you try.
8 Be deeply, painfully, and violently betrayed by someone
you love.
9 Be treated like a stranger by your closest friends.
10 Spend a month in a sensory-deprivation tank.
N
RS
FAILED SOLATION NOTCHES
1 You can interact in society and get through your every-
day life with no real problems. You're maybe a little
shy with people at first, but you feel a kind ofgratitude
whenever a new acquaintance doesn't reject you.
You're a bit nervous around new people, eager to make
2 good impression. This could be expressed as shyness
or through “chatterbox™ behaviors.
3 Ifyou sleep alone, you sometimes suffer from insom-
nia. Perhaps you don't like silence when you're by
yourself, and always keep a television on or a radio
playing. Sometimes, when you're not paying attention,
you talk to yourself or think out loud.
4 Sometimes when you're isolated (cither all by yourself
or surrounded by strangers) you have panic attacks—a
sense of intangible, impending doom. Your skin
flushes, your breath becomes rapid and labored, you
sweat. Simply put, you show the signs of being in
mortal danger, when there is no danger around.
-
UNKNGW
ARHIESN
BOOK ONE: THESECRET NAMES OF STREETS
HARDENED ISOLATION NOTCHES
1-3 There are no really obvious signs of your experiences.
Perhaps you're a little standoffish or curt.
4-5 You can be unthinkingly rude, breaking in during the
middle of a conversation before someone’s done speak-
ing, scratching yourself in an indelicate fashion, or
telling the truth when it isn’t diplomatic to do so. (For
example, you might blurt out “Darmn that’s an ugly
haircut!™ instead of saying “Wow, that's a new look
for you, isn't it?”)
67 You lack patience with people who don't immediately
understand what you're trying to tell them. Your nat-
ural inclination is to repeat the same explanations
(which are obvious to you) over and over, or just give
up. (This is just your first impulse; it can, of course,
be overcome if you pay extra attention. In game terms,
this means that your Charm or Explain skills aren’t
penalized any time you make a roll, but you might
have a little bit of trouble in casual situations.)
8-9 Unless you're concentrating, you lack dialogue skills.
You don't like it when people interrupt, but you fre-
quently interrupt others. You also don’t see the point
of a lot of social conventions such as clothing, groom-
ing, etc. You might still shave every day, but it all seems
a litcle silly.
10 At some level, you not only don't care what people
think about you: you can't understand how anyone
could care. You are very aware that people are inher-
ently alone, that we can never really understand
anyone or communicateanything but the most rudi-
mentary ideas and feelings. You know everyoneis an
island, in the final analysis. Especially you.
THE SELF STRESS
This is the trickiest one. It's your guilt and self-loathing, but
it's more than that. A major stress is when you find out
you're nor the person you thought you were, by breaking a
promise you honestly meant to keep, or by standing idly by
when your values (or what you thought were your values)
are desecrated. It’s your sense of alienation from self that
provides, perhaps, the deepest terror. Where other meters
measure how traumatized you are by things that happen
to you, Self measures how traumatized you are by your
©own reactions to those things. To put it another way, the
only thingyou can ever really be 100% sure ofis “I think,
therefore I am.” The Self meter measures how uncertain you
are about the “I™ in that statement.
SELF STRESSES
1 Break a minor promise.
2 Confront proof that your self-image is incor-
rect. (“T'm very responsible; I'm sure I've called you
back every time I said | would.” *Actually, you've
blown me offso many times | started keeping track
in my journal. Lessce, November 19, December 3 . . .
againon December 17.. . January9 . .."
3 Secretly gratify an urge that is unacceptable to your
upbringing and background. (Spit on a cross if Chris-
tian, date a person of another race if raised in a racist
home, have a homosexual affair if you come from a
homophobic background, etc.)
4 Lie to conceal some aspect of your personality from a
close friend or loved one who trusts you implicitly.
5 Decide not o act on an impulse from your Noble
stimulus (see p. 34) because it's “too dangerous.”
6 Deliberately deceive someone you love in a way that is
certain to cause them terrible pain if they find out.
7 Discover that you have inadvertently committed an act
of cannibalism.
8 Deliberately act completely contrary to your Noble
impulse.
9 Kill someone you love.
10 Deliberately destroy everything you've risked your life
to support.
FAILED SELF NOTCHES
1 You don't have any real kinks yet, but every now
and again you feel a sense of dissociation, an eerie
moment when you feel alienated from your own char-
acter and motivations. “Sure, | know I'm Greg Stolze,”
you might think, “but who's Gre Stolze?™
2 The “who am [” moments come more frequently.
You tend to become introspective whenever someone
mentions “truth™ or “lies” or “promises.”
3 Half the time your words and actions feel oddly forced,
fake, or rehearsed to you—as if, rather than yourself,
you were an actor playing the role of you.
4 You frequently feel like you're watching your every
action from the outside. You have little o no sense of
will o volition: it’ as if you're a passive observer, along
for the ride while your body goes through the motions.
HARDENEDSELF NOTCHES
1-3 There are few external signs of your interior struggle:
people may sometimes find you to be a little brittle or
“phony™-sceming.
4-5 Even when you're telling the truth, people often think
you're lying, unless you make a particular effort to act
“narural.”
67 You've lost a sense of connection to those who were
previously close to you. You can predict the actions
of your friends, relatives, or lovers, but you no longer
know exactly what you feel about them.
8-9 Half the time, you only know you're telling the truth
if you take a minute to think about it. Truth and lies
aren't nearly as important as they used to be—back
before you quit lying to yourself. . .
10 Life has been pared down to the essentials for you:
you no longer have opinions about music, food, or
fashion. You've lost the ability to enjoy or dislike
things, because there’s so little “you™ there to interact.
GETTING CALLOUS
Cops, coroners, and social workers know about getting
callous. When you've seen enough horror, it loses its power
to horrify you. The more hardened notches you have on
a single meter, the more it takes for that kind of stress
to rip up your head. Once you resist ten incidents on a
meter—that is, all ten hardened notches on that gauge are
filled in—you're so jaded and blasé¢ about it that nothing in
that category of stress can endanger your mind.
UNKNGY,
APHIES”
This is not a good thing.
Mental stress makes us vulnerable. But it also makes us
human. If you fill in too many hardened marks, you become
So completely callous that you are unable to feel fear at
all. That's because you are now cut off from a broad range
of emotional experiences that everyone else shares. You're
“hardened” all right: hardened into an emortional fortresses,
completely isolated, unable to make a fundamental connec-
tion with other human beings.
You're a sociopath:
= You become a sociopath when you have all ten hard
marks in two or more gauges, or when your total sum of
hardened marks exceeds thirty-five.
= You can no longer use your passions—the Noble, Rage,
and Fear events that represent you at your most intense.
You just can't relate to them anymore, and you don’t get
to flip-flop those passion-related rolls.
= If you're an avatar, you cannot use your Avatar skill until
you get treatment. Avatars rely on an empathic connec-
tion to the global unconsciousness, and sociopaths slam
that particular door shut.
GETTING CRAZY
When you fail a stress check, you mark off a failed notch
on the appropriate meter. You also freak out in one of three
ways: panic, paralysis, and frenzy.
If you panic, you run away at high speed. You can take
no action except to run full out in the direction farthest
from what made you panic.
On the other hand, disturbing events often produce paraly-
sis: indecision, terror, and a general “deer in the headlights™
effect that persists until the stimulus ceases. This can be
completely silent, or accompanied by screams and moans.
Frenzy is just what it sounds like. You attack the source
of discomfort with any means at your disposal. You can't
dodge or attempt any fancy moves, like multiple attacks on
a single target. You just shoot or punch o start biting.
You act like this until the stress that triggered the behav-
ior is gone. Until then, you must follow your choice. If you
frenzy against someone who can beat the holy heck out of
you, you are niot able to run away. You fight until you or
your opponent is dead.
While you're in this state, you don’t have to make any
more stress checks. You're too screwed up to process any
other stresses.
Example: You swing a lead pipe at an occult weirdo, When
you see your pipe nightstick go right through the adept's
arm with little apparent effect, you make a rank-3 Unnatu-
ral check. You fail the roll and flip your lid, attacking the
adept with mindless frenzy. The adept defends herself by
using a magickal attack which lets her tear chunks out of
you with her bare hands. Being successfully attacked with
magick is a rank-5 Unnatural check, but since you are
already out of your mind, you don't have to make the roll.
You just take the failed notch for the first one.
MENTAL HELP: PRE-INSANITY
You can get counseling to help you with your mental problems
before you become certifiable—that is, before all the failed
CHAPTER FIVE: MADNES
notches on one of your meters are filled. To do so, you need
a psychotherapist, social worker, philosophical counselor, or
another professional you trust. Even if you're a mental-health
professional, you cannot perform this on yourself.
The GM decides what your counselor’s relevant skill
score is. After a few introductory sessions to get trust estab-
lished, you make a Mind roll and your counselor makes a
skill roll on her Psychoanalysis skill for each session.
= Any time cither you or your counselor get a matched
success, you can erase a hardened notch or a failed notch
of your choice.
= Any time both you and your counselor succeed, you can
erase a hardened notch or a failed notch of your choice.
= If you succeed and your counselor fails, you can choose
to erase any failed notch.
= If you fail and your counselor succeeds, you can choose
to erase any hardened notch. (Or choose not to erase any
notch—and get a lecture on “resisting therapy.”)
= Any time both of you get a matched success, you can
erase up to three failed or up to three hardened notches
in any one gauge. (You cannot erase some of each; excess
erasures are lost.)
Another option is to get psychological first aid, though
this only works to erase failed notches, not hardened ones.
If you've got a friend with psychological training, he can
attempt to counsel you right away—as long as you talk to
him within an hour of your Mind check failure. Anecdotal
evidence indicates that people who get counseling right away
tend to do better in the long run. After all, if the counselor
can put things in perspective right away, it saves the effort
of uprooting an entrenched and sick attitude. If you can get
counseling that fast, your counselor makes a roll. If he makes
any success, you can erase that failed notch.
PERMANENT MADNESS
Once you have five failed notches marked in a single meter,
you don't have to make stress checks when confronted with
that stress any more. You just flee, fight, or frecze as if you'd
failed the roll. The only exception is when your hardened
notches are enough to void the stress check anyway, in which
case you suffer no effects at all. Otherwise, you have your
short-term freak-out, mark no notches, and life goes on.
Of course, it’s not really that simple. The first time you
hit five failed notches in a single meter, you pick up some
kind of mental aberration. You and the GM should work
out your insanity together. Note that a permanent madness
should play off your obsession and your passions, because
anything that central to your personality is reflected in your
disorder. Also keep in mind that insane people can often
get along okay (if nor very well) in the world. Many go
undetected for years, making their mad way through life.
An automatic failure on a meter you've maxed out on
doesn't give you another aberration. One per stress is plenty.
Some permanent forms of madness inchude:
« Phobia. If something drove you mad, it's quite likely
you'll develop a debilitating and irrational fear of it. If
someone only talks about it or shows you a picture of
, you have to make a Mind check in order to avoid
freezing or panicking. If you're exposed to the thing itself,
you automatically freak out without makinga check.
URK
G
APNIESN
0 BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
UNKNGW,
APHIESN
* Trauma Bond. This is like a phobia, but instead of the
actual stimulus, you get scared around something inci-
dental to the trauma. If your father molested you in the
mornings before work, you might repress your memories
of that event but the smell of brewing coffee would set
you off.
Flashbacks. This is also known as Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (or PTSD for short). If you're exposed to any
element that was present during the trauma, you're in
danger of reliving the event. In the example given above,
the smell of coffee might sometimes be a perfectly okay
scent for you—but other times, it might make you relive
the event. Or sometimes you might flash back from hear-
ing footsteps on stairs, or simply from waking up in a
bed that reminds you of the bed where the assault took
place. There are many examples of combat veterans who
flash back at the sound of fireworks, or when in a setting
similar to that where combat occurred.
« Blackouts. You can slip into a semi-conscious state and
simply wander away in an attempt to flee your past. When
you come to, you have no recollection of your flight. These
blackouts (or “fugue states™) can last for days and cover a
lot of territory. You're usually non-violent and seem pretry
dazed—you're just wandering away. Threatening stimuli
usually snap you out ofa fugue, So can the presence of
friends or trusted individuals.
Addictive Behaviors. You can smother your memories
of the past with any one of the countless chemicals avail-
able in this modern world. Alcohol is a perennial favor-
ite—powerful and easily available. Marijuana, heroin,
and synthetic depressants might appeal to you because
they deaden the pain and make everything seem okay. On
the other hand, uppers like “drines, speed, or coke give
you vital illusions of being in control.
= Philia/Obsession. You may develop an unhealthy affection
for an individual, object, or action that you perceive (for
whatever reason) to have “saved” you from the trauma.
The target of your affection didn necessarily have to save
you directly—you sce some sort of salvation connection that
isn't necessarily rational. This philia could result in a desire
to constantly be around that person/object/area, or it could
result in a compulsive repetition of the saving action. If
you said the Lord's Prayer when you were “saved,” you
might develop an obsession with the Lord’s Prayer, say it
constantly, carry a rosary at all times, etc.
Delusions. You believe something that simply isn’t true
because it covers up the pain. Delusions in response to
trauma can range from flat denial to elaborate confabula-
tions that rationalize or justify the experience.
MENTAL HELP: POST-INSANITY
“Permanent madness” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s only
permanent if you don’t get cured. But curing insanity is
to walk in the park. By the time you're that badly hung
up on an issue, it’s sunk deep into your psyche. Seeking
professional help at this point is like shutting the gate after
the cows have wandered away.
To get rid of a permanent insanity, you need a therapist
to rid you of that final, fifth failure notch that drove you
over the edge. Your therapist probably suggests residential
treatment—often a good idea. You pack up your things, leave
your job, and go to live in a residential treatment facility to
try and get better. (You can try normal therapy, but as you'll
see, it takes a lot longer once you've gone mad.)
Every month of residential treatment, or every six months
of non-residential treatment (normal therapy), you make a
Mind check while your therapist makes his skill check. If
both of you succeed then you can shake off your insanity
and go back to four failed notches in that gauge—you're not
stable, but you're okay, and you can leave the residence and
go back to normal therapy. If either of you fails, you're still
insane. (Matches have no effect on these outcomes.)
Needless to say, it's a good idea to continue normal
therapy after this point to work off a few more of those
failed notches. Otherwise, all it takes is one failed Mind
check on that same old mental stress to knock you back into
your insanity again.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABoUT
MISSING MADNESS
We have not included schizophrenia and multiple personali-
ties. A great many people have misperceprions about these
disorders, and we dont want to reinforce any incorrect
information out there.
Multiple Personality Disorder (or MPD for shore) s believed
to be the result of severe and repeated traumatic betrayals in
childhood. As one professional put it, “people who go through
this sort of treatment end up onc of three ways: catatonic,
dead, or multiple.” Bur you are an adult, not a child, and for
better or worse you face your traumas as a grown-up.
We also don’t wan to split your attention. |
ing with two personalitics, both may become caricature
Instead of being one person with two personalities, we'd
rather see you be one person with twice the personality.
Now that MPD is taken care of, that leaves schizophrenia,
The two disorders are often mixed up, because both are
injuries to the sense of self. However, where the self fragments
into separate selves in the case of a multiple, in the case
of a schizophrenic the self is simply fractured and has a dif-
ficult time processing the world or interacting with it appro-
priately. Furthermore, there’s strong evidence for a physical,
neurological basis for schizophrenia. (The success of certain
psychotropic drugs in alleviating its symptoms also argues for
a chemical disorder.) While psychological stresses probably
play a part in causing the disease to manifest, it first has to be
present (albeit dormant) in the chemiistry of the brain.
We left schizophrenia out because we don’t understand
it all that well, and because its effects are so varied and
intrusive that it would detract from most stories that did not
center on it exclusively.
Both of these cases are suggestions. If you're interested in
playing a character who suffers—or who is predisposed to
suffer—from such a mental illness, go for it. But the time to
make this decision is before you begin, not the heat of play,
and you should know something about these illnesses before
taking a stab at playing them.
UNKNGWY
ABMIES
%
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
CHAPTER SIX
PLAYING THE GAME
now. You know who you are,You know a few thing:
what you can do, and how you can change. You know
how to handle yourself in a fight, even if that means
slapping a r like the
marathon. You've even popped your hood and gotten
umber on your back and making
your hands dirty mucking around inside your brains.
Now it's time to learn what to do with all this. It’s time
to play the game
GETTING BUSY
There are no instructionson how to find the occult under
ground. You don't get it handed to you on a platter, com-
plete wit ha copy of Secret Magick Cults For Dummies
You have to find it for yourself. The best way to do this
or askir danceg youisn't spending time in a libr:
counselor for help. The best way is simple: pick a goal,
follow your obsession, trust your passions, and get ready
for trouble
The secret to finding the occult underground is ro create
it for yourself. You and your group start doing thin
ing things, and the fact that you're making things happen
attracts attention. Just deciding you're goingto be part of
the occult underground is like puttingout an “Open For
Business” sign. You start giving off yibes that tell the right
people you're one of them. Next thing you know, there’s a
knock at the door ¢
got a proposition for you
tap on the shoulder and somebody’s
Get prepped. Start acting like you're a part of the occult
underground and it'll become a part of you
r T
YOUR GOAL
What do you want? Your group wants somethin , sure. But
at do you want? It could be something selfish, altruistic,
or indifferent. It might coincide with your group’s goal, or
your group may just be a vehicle for getting what you want
Power? Wealth? Pleasure?
There’s somethin
10 get what you want? You might be willing to die for it,
or lose a friend, or just lose your job. The more vital your
goal, the more it's goingto violate the comfort zone of
everyday life—and the closer you'll be to finding the occult
else to consider: what would you risk
underground
Figure out your goal and make a note of it, plus how
you're going to achieve it. That tells you some useful things
right there. If your goal is to pull a bank heist and retire, the
thing you need to do is hook up with some people who
Here
* Payback. Someone whacked your kid brother, and you're
out for revenge. You can start by finding the scum that
pulled the trigger, but you won't be satisfied until you've
gone as far up the food chain as you can. Somewhere,
there’s a whole system in place that considered your
brother’s death a necessity. You're going to take down
that system one corpse at a time. You need people with
street contacts, people with brawn and brains, people
who have good reason to help you out. The enemy of
your enemy is your friend,
URKNOWK
ARMIES
o Understanding. You've had an experience you can't
explain—your trigger event. You can't just ignore it any
more. Go back to where it happened. Relive the experi-
ence. Start at ground zero. Find the people who know
about this kind of bad craziness. Find someone who has
had the same experience. Learn what they know. Make
sense of your life.
Independence. You're not living your own life. You need
to get out of your parent’s house, out of your boring job,
out of your loser scene. You have a passion for life and an
obsession with something that won't let you sleep. Stick
a match in your world and sculpt a new one from the
ashes. Quit your job, say goodbye, pack a bag, and hit
the streets. Look in the eyes of the people you meet as
you walk this strange new road: some of them have the
look you see in the mirror, the haunted look of a seeker.
Those are your people.
Greed. You want the fly car, the cool clothes, and the
mansion guarded by pit bulls in diamond collars. You
want the good-looking people lounging ‘round your pool,
drinking your champagne, and trying to kiss your ass.
Forget enlightenment, forget being a better person, forget
personal fulfillment and all that Oprah crap. You want
stuff. More stuff is better, and while people squawk about
all that altruistic, social justice, hard workin’ American
dream bullshit, you've noticed they all seem pretty eager
for stuff too. There’s only so much to go around, so you
need an edge: something to get you on the fast track.
Unless you'd rather hump the chump change at Arby’s
and work your way up the corporate ladder. Uh huh,
Right.
Ambition. In the final analysis, power is simply the ability
to get things done. It is the line that divides those who get
what they want from those who take what they’re given.
In the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what you want until
you have the power to make it happen. A powerless fiend
is just as pathetic and insignificant as a powerless saint. It
therefore stands to reason that the acquisition of power
is an essential step, no matter what concrete goal you
decide upon.
* Altruism. People are hurting and you want to help. The
world isn’t just or kind, but we can be if we let ourselves.
And if you don', if you choose to be cruel or selfish or to
simply look away, then what's the point of being human?
One more thing about your goal: people who get every-
thing they want are dead people. It isn't the destination
so much as the journey. It's the friction between what you
want to pursue and what you are able to achieve that makes
your life interesting. Don't skip to the end of the book just
to read the last page. Throw yourself into every single day,
make every stage of your goal a lifetime in itself. Think of
those Russian dolls, one inside the other. The biggest one is
your goal, the thing you’re after. It’s bright and gaudy and
hard to miss. But inside of it are all the experiences you're
going to have along the way, and those are treasures and
those are surprises and those are the things you want to
savor the most.
YOUR OBSESSION
Your obsession is critical. When your brain is idle, your
obsession is what you turn to. Even when you think of
something else, you tic it back to your obsession.
APTER SIX: PLAYING THE GAME
It could be linked to your goal, or to that of your group.
But its not as concrete as a goal. If your goal is to make
a million dollars, you could achieve it. If your obsession is
wealth, you could never have enough.
Your goal is what you plan and do. Your obsession is
how you understand the world.
Maybe your obsession is “toughness.” This infuses your
goal of becoming stronger and more dangerous, but it also .
colors the way you see every situation. If you witness two
people compromising on something, you know neither of
them was tough enough to make the other cave. If you
see a guy you hate drive off with three slugs in his gut,
you're furious—but you respect him for being so hard. Even s
buying a car feeds off your obsession. You want a truck that
can take a lot of punishment, but it also got to look tough.
It's who you are, and how you want to be seen, because it’s
most to you. 9
d with wealth would see these same
When those two people compromise, he
acting like reasonable businessmen and
ot tough-guy whackjobs. He's angry when the enemy gets é
away, because the time he’s spent taking the guy down is
an investment that went bust—and now he has to calculate
how much pursuing an angry, wounded foe is really worth.
As for a tough truck, forget it. He might pick a cheap car
to save his capital for more important things, making it a
symbol of his frugality and wisdom. Or he might go for a
flashy BMW, a status symbol to display his wealth and an o
emblem of quality.
Your obsession is the lens you see the world through, the
principle you organize your life around, and the key that
unlocks all the input you get from your five senses.
YOUR PASSIONS
Your passions mean a lot to you. They are stronger than
reason and intellect. They are stronger than willpower and
drugs. They come bubbling up from deep inside you no
matter what you do.
When your passions erupt, you lose some control. Those
are the times when you are at your most human, the most
true to yourself. Your social filters drop away and you are
pure existence. They may conflict with your goal, or even
your obsession. They may arise at the worst time, and put
you in terrible danger. But to deny them is to deny yourself.
Strong people find ways to channel their passions.
Maybe you're in a tense negotiation, with everything
riding on the line. Something triggers your rage passion
and you lose your temper. Use that anger. Instead of just
lashing out at the source, reframe why you're angry in
the context of the negotiation. Turn your fury to your
advantage. If you can.
The GM may set up situations where your passions
threaten to defeat you. Don’t suppress them. Embrace them,
channel them, use them, be them.
OPENING YOUR MIND
Going mad s the worst thing that can happen to you short
of death, It is a terrible, shattering experience, not a cliché-
ridden Oscar-grabbing thrill ride of hammy acting. Don't
approach it as an opportunity to get wacky. Respect it for
what it is: the ultimate betrayal of your own mind.
URKNG
i
BOOK ONE: THE SECRET NAMES OF STREETS
Going mad leaves you naked. It robs you of choices
It means your mind has been stressed so hard for so
long that in the moment of panic, only primal animal
reactions remain. Fight with tooth and nail. Flee headlong,
abandoning everything and everybody. Or freeze, shut
down, turtle up in hopes the threat somehow overlooks
you.
Once the moment passes, the more insidious side of
insanity can emerge. A mental illness does not change or
replace your essential character. Instead, it often brings
that character to the fore in distorted and disproportionate
ways. If you were always cautious, you become recklessly
violent—but only if the caution was just a mask for a
powerfully repressed impetuousness. If you genuinely were
cautious, permanent madness is more likely to come to you
as an irrational caution, a disproportionate caution, a cau-
tion that makes no logical sense—but which has a meaning
to you that transcends logic.
Insanity is the failure of your rational side. It is the death
of options. It is when you cannot choose between reason-
able paths because you can no longer judge them.
Madness is what you see when you've got nothing left
to fall back on.
CLOSING YOUR MIND
Getting callous towards threats is a dead-end street, Wheres
the challenge in being a null? What's the excitement in dead-
ening your head? It also cuts off options. Your emotional
inputs are clogged. True, you don't get scared when some-
thing nasty happens. But you also couldn’t care less when
something good happens. You're so emotionally insulated
you can't feel a damn thing.
You only have so much “fuel” for your feelings. When
you get callous, your emotional gas tank is empty. You're
running on fumes. Nothing is worth doing because you
know there is no payoff. No pleasure, no sensation of suc-
55, no satisfaction in camaraderic. It all loses meaning.
It may be that you dig this for a while. If you approach
it as an opportunity to give you and your group interesting
problems, maybe there’s some value there. But you can’t
maintain it for long. The bonds that hold you to the group
don't last when you're a walking corpse. Make some trou-
ble, explore this terrain, and then fight your way back to
life.
When you're ready to fight back through therapy, don't
just roll dice. Talk it out. What drove you to this strange
place? The rest of your group can help. They might take
the roles of other people in therapy with you for a bit,
asking questions and probing to the heart of where you
went wrong. Then roll the dice.
MEETING AND GREETING
The occult underground is a conceptual space, not a physi-
But as much as it’s a churning fire of ideas, it’s also
al network of people. Concepts don't live long outside
the brain, and conceptual spaces only exist where people
are interacting.
You deal with people based on your personal and group
goals, your obsession, your passions, and your mental state.
There are times when you really have to strut and challenge.
c
cal ong
a soc
There are other times when you just shut it down and
follow the pack. You need to know when one approach is
better than the other.
Within your group, you can sometimes justify popping
off and letting one of your allies have it. If she’s been
getting in your face, or disrespecting you, you need to
stand up for yourself. But you're a group, not a bunch
of punks on the playground. Know when to stand
your ground and when to back down. No group goes
without arguments, and if you weren’t such a passiona
person you probably wouldn’t be hanging with these
people anyway. It's your common drive that brought you
together. A big blowup can even strengthen your group,
revealing your true selves to each other and finding a way
to communicate in the aftermath of fury. The time to do
this is not when the chips are down, though. Pick your
fight. When you're in the downtime, talking and planning
and hashing things out, that’s when the time is right to
open up and say your piece.
It's different with people who aren't in your group. To
the world at large, you can choose the face you show. It’s
expected. Behave the way you want to be perceived. If that
means copping an attitude, or shrugging off the small stuff,
don’t hesitate. There are still right times and wrong times
to tell the world who the hell you are, but treat it as a
conscious decision. Don’t just fly off the handle.
There’s more to dealing with people than conflict, Like
the greeting cards say, smell the flowers sometimes. If some-
body does well, don’t just let it go by. React. Interact. Mix
it up. Establish yourself and your relationships with the
people you meet. Don’t just sit there, watching the world go
by, wondering if you'll ever get to roll the dice. You are the
dice. Roll your own bones.
60 FIGURE
The occult underground doesn't advertise. If you're going to
find it and get into it, you're going to have to ask questions.
The more you look, the more mysteries you find. Here's the
straight dope on finding stuff out.
SOCIAL ENGINEERING
That's what con artists and old-school phone hackers called
it when they contacted somebody in authority and talked
them into revealing what they shouldn't reveal. The blunt-
force approach is lying and intimidation. Tell them you're
a cop, or a CIA agent, or a troubleshooter from the home
office looking for downsizing opportunitics. Or you can
be clever. Don't come right out and say you're one thing
or another. Just be chatty and confident. “Yeah, hey, I'm
supposed to check on that thing that happened last night.
Were the passcodes busted or what?”
Sometimes the mystery you have to solve didn't leave any
witnesses. Check property records at city hall, blueprints
filed with the planning office, newspaper archives, and the
ever-popular inernet.
Speaking of the internet, you can drop fifty bucks—or a
lot more if you hire a real snoop—and get credit records,
shopping profiles, even medical records. Most of that stuff
isn't legal to access, but legality is the least of your worries
right now.
e
URKNOW
API’IIESN
STRUCTURE HACKING
The old B&E—breaking & entering—is a time-tested way to
get the dope. Hire a pro to lift fingerprints and bribe some-
one to run them through the big databases. Found a curly
hair on the floor? Pay a lab to compare it to samples you've
sneakily gathered from likely enemies. Free-enterprise DNA
testing is your friend. When billboards advertising “1-800-
WHO'S THE DADDY!" offer their services to unwed moth-
ers, you know the days of privacy are gone. Make the most
of it.
Getting in can be a pain. Guard dogs, alarm systems,
security guards making eight bucks an hour—what’s a guy
or gal to do? Get a pro on your side and it all turns to
butter, or amateur-hour your way through and end up in
the paddy wagon with the vomit brothers. Of course, there
are rumors of all kinds of freaks in the occult underground
who can walk through walls, spy from the astral plane,
talk to the dead, or turn dogs into cats. 90% of everything
is bullshit but maybe you can find the right duke to lend
a hand. She’ll want something in return, but them's the
breaks.
But why go in when people come out? Park your ass
in a rented car all day and play detective. Watch the right
people, then B&E their homes—security is low, and chances
are good they have papers in their home desk, documents
on their laptop, or passcodes that can get you inside the
target. Good security requires rigor and discipline, and
people are lazy. Exploit their weakness and get what you
need to move on. Sharks die if they don't keep swimming.
DATA ANALYSIS
Once you get a bunch of scrawled-on napkins, accounting
records, and dirty pictures, you have to put it all together
into something coherent. You have to solve the mystery.
Rolling dice is lame. The GM should be able to tell you
enough info about all these clues that you can put the
pieces together in your own sweet head. And don't just
look at the physical stuff. Think about actions, think
about motives. If some people made a move on you, what
did they have to gain? Always question intent. And always
follow the money.
MAKING ALLIES
You can’t do this alone. You need allies. Not just the people
in your group, but other groups too. There's two ways to
make the decision of who to approach: common interest
and common sense.
Common-interest allies are like-minded people who fight
alongside you because you're all after the same thing.
CHAPTER SIX: PLAYING THE GAME
Chances are good you can trust them, as long as you can
share whatever it is you're after.
Common-sense allies are those you hook up with to
get what you need. President Lyndon Johnson kicked ass
when it came to using common-sense allies. Top law dog J.
Edgar Hoover had been a major thorn in the sides of JFK
and RFK, but Johnson slapped him hard and kept him in
line without making him an outright enemy. He even said
this of Hoover: “I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing
out than outside the tent pissing in.” The man knew how
to use people. You may end up fighting next to whacked-
out psychopaths, but they're pretty good in a fight so what
the hell?
You'll find that a lot of people in the occult underground
are stone paranoid freaks. But that doesn’t mean they can’t
cut deals—it just means you have to play to their fears
and delusions. People who are so obsessed with the nature
of identity that they can reshape their own bodies aren’t
usually known for their grace and social skills. Back when
you were going to keg partics and asking your parents
for textbook money, these whackjobs were sitting in dank
basements trying to eradicate the id. They may be paranoid,
but they probably aren't very sophisticated. Make the most
of this,
LOSING ALLIES
Then there’s betrayal. You realize your allies are costing
you more than they're giving in return, and you know it's
time for the kiss-off. But divorces in the occult underground
can be messy. There’s the weasel play, the equivalent of
having an affair just to get caught. Convince them you
aren’t worth their time anymore and they drop you like
yesterday’s boyfriend. Just don't pull this at a point where
you are worth something to their enemies, or they might
Judas your ass on the street for dimes.
You could screw them over. The trick to betraying an
ally is the betrayal has got to be complete. The last thing
you want is to see your old penpals out for revenge, with
a special delivery just for you. No, if you’re going to turn
on somebody you need to do a holistic hosing. Leave noth-
ing standing and keep your hands as clean as possible.
Just remember that bastards have friends, and even a total
hosejob probably leaves some weeping kid brother, third
cousin, or secret acolyte standing in the rain, screaming
your name, and swearing a blood oath to nail you to the
wall. Oops.
Stuff to remember: Without allies, you're doomed. You'll
make new enemies no matter who you ally with. Your allies
are thinking the same things about you that you're thinking
about them. Someone who betrayed others for you is likely
to betray you for others. And snitches get stitches.