Future Imperfect chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Basics

Terms

In Spacelands, there are a few terms used throughout the book. The players will be referred to as Crew, the GM as Starmaster and characters as Heroes.

What you need

Besides some pencils, paper, and an overactive imagination, there are three things you need to play Spacelands: dice, cards and poker chips.

Dice

Because Spacelands is a game, we need some way of randomizing certain actions such as determining whether or not your Hero hears the alien creeping up behind him. We achieve this with dice. Spacelands uses 4-, 6-. 8-, 10-, 12- and sometimes 20-sided dice. These are abbreviated as d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. If there's a number in front of the type of die, such as 2d6, it means you should roll that many dice. If you see "5d8," for example, you should roll 5 eight—sided dice. Sometimes there's a number added to or taken away from the roll, like "2d12+2.” You always apply the modifier after you roll the dice. A d10's a bit special. It's got a “0” in the 10s place, so if you roll a 0 be sure to read that as a "10."

Cards

Spacelands also uses a standard deck of playing cards with the Jokers left in (54 cards total). If your deck comes with identical Jokers, you need to come up with some way to distinguish between them, make sure you designate one Joker red and the other black. The easiest way to do this is to simply mark one of the Jokers with a red marker. That way, you can never forget which is which. In combat, the cards are used as "Action Decks.” You need one for the crew and one for the Starmaster. We'll tell you how these work in Chapter Five. Certain character types (those with psionic powers) need their own decks, so if you're playing one of these, make sure you have a spare deck. The Starmaster should also have an extra deck for when those kinds of characters show up as extras. You should shuffle that deck (the psionic deck) immediately after using powers. We'll tell you more about it if you play one of those character types. These decks are not action decks, they are ability decks.

Finally, it's good to have decks with different backings. That way you can separate them if they get mixed together. If you don’t have different backings, you can take each deck and color the edges with colored markers.

Chips

Spacelands uses standard poker chips to represent how a hero might control his own fate. We'll get into how this works in Chapter 6. Now, all you need to know is that your Crew needs 50 white chips, 25 red chips, and 10 blue chips to play. Put all of these into a big cup or "Fate Pot" so you can draw them out of the pot without looking at them. Once you've set up the crew's Fate Pot, put unused chips away.

Only under special circumstances do you ever add new chips to the pot. Whenever you spend a chip (again, more later), toss it back into the Fate Pot.

Traits & Attributes

Heroes, extras, and other characters are mostly made up of Traits and Aptitudes. Traits are things like Strength, Quickness and Cognition. These are always written in Capitalized Italics and are expressed as a type of die. A really strong alien might have a d12 Strength, while an elderly IRSOL probably has a d6 or even a d4.

Aptitudes are skills, talents, or trades learned during life. These are rated from 1 to 5 initially and tell you how many Trait dice to roll when using that Aptitude. Their names are always written in lowercase italics.

Spacelands uses fairly broad Aptitude descriptions, so you often need to choose a "concentration." The fighting Aptitude by itself, for example, is useless. You need to choose a concentration such as brawling, knives, or swords. The same is true for an Aptitude like science—you need to specialize in biology, chemistry, or engineering.

Coordination

When you are asked to make a test of one of your character's basic Traits, you roll a number of that Trait’s dice equal to its "Coordination." Coordinations function just like Aptitudes—they tell you how many of your Trait dice to roll whenever you need to test that Trait.

Trait tests are usually called for when the Starmaster wants to test your character's raw abilities, such as his Strength or Cognition. Quickness is another Trait that you'll use often, especially in combat.

For instance, Ronan Lynch, a legendary Spacelands gunslinger has a Deftness of d10 with a Coordination of 4, so he rolls 4d10 to make a Deftness test.

Mixing Aptitudes

Aptitudes are normally associated with a particular Trait. When the Starmaster asks for an Aptitude test, such as a climbing roll, just use the Trait that climbing is listed under. But sometimes he might ask you for a climbing/Knowledge roll. This means he wants to see how much your character knows about climbing, not how well he can actually scale a cliff.

Reading the Bones

A character's Trait tells you what kind of dice to roll, and the Aptitude or Coordination tells you how many dice to roll. Your result is the highest number you get when you roll all your dice together. So if you roll 3d6 and get 2, 3, and 5, your result is a 5.

If there are any modifiers, they are applied after the dice are rolled. Negative modifiers are penalties of some sort, and positive modifiers are bonuses. Ronan and his trusty steed are sliding down a hill into the jaws of a nasty varmint. The Starmaster wants a horse riding roll. Ronans horse riding is 2d8. He rolls and gets a 3 and a 4. His highest die is a 4. Not too hot. The horse is kibble and Ronan is in serious sheep-dip.

Unskilled Checks

Sometimes you have to make an Aptitude check, when lo and behold, you discover you dont actually have the Aptitude. In these cases, you can roll your character's Trait dice (using its Coordination as its "Aptitude" level), but you halve your total. If your character has a related Aptitude, you can roll that instead, but at a -2 penalty. Concentrations within an Aptitude are always related—such as shooting pistols, shotguns, and rifles. Other Aptitudes may be related depending on the situation. You and your Starmaster have to figure out if an Aptitude might be used in place of another. Traits are never considered "related" to Aptitudes.

Search and tracking are good examples of Aptitudes that are usually related, as are persuasion and bluff, assuming a few little white lies are involved.

Aces

Trait and Aptitude rolls are open-ended, this means if you roll the maximum number on any of your dice, you can roll that die again and add the next roll to that die's current total. The maximum number on a die is called the "Ace." You can keep rolling the die and adding it to the running total as long as you keep getting Aces.

If you should get Aces on several of your individual dice, you need to keep track of each series of dice rolls separately. When you're done, the series that got the highest total is the number you should give to the Starmaster.

Ronan is hanging on to the hillside for dear life after his horse's unfortunate demise. The Starmaster wants a climbing total. Ronan has 2d8 climbing and rolls two 8s. Lucky dog. He rolls both Aces again and gets a 7 and an 8. These dice are hot. Ronan rolls the last 8 again and gets a 3 for a grand total of (8+8+3=) 19. He climbs up the hillside just as the thing below finishes his horse and snaps at his boots.

Going Bust

If more than half of your dice come up 1, you have gone bust. Something spectacularly bad happens, at the Starmaster’s discretion, and the task fails automatically. Additionally, you cannot spend Fate Chips (Chapter XX) to reroll or add to your dice. You are still considered to have gone bust even if one (or more) of your dice comes up Aces.

Target Numbers

Okay, you've got your result. How do you know exactly how well you've done? Just look on the standard Difficulty Table below. The “difficulty" is a rough estimation of how hard a particular task might be for someone to actually accomplish. The "TN", or Target Number, is the number you need to meet or beat on your dice roll to succeed at that task.

Difficulty Target Number
Foolproof 3
Fair 5
Onerous 7
Hard 9
Incredible 11

Raising the Pot

Every time you beat your Target Number by 5 points, you get an extra success level. This is called a "raise." Raises are sometimes used to show your character has done exceedingly well at whatever it was he was trying to accomplish.

Just as Dylan dies, he whispers a plea into Ronans ears. He wants Ronan to go to Antares VII and protect an accused prisoner from certain doom. Ronan, being the Hero he is, can’t turn down a friend's dying wish and sets off for Antares. The Starmaster asks Ronan’s player for a Fair (5) area knowledge roll to know the location. Ronan gets a 10, which is 5 points over the TN of 5. That's a success and a raise. He know exactly how to get to Antares, including some unadvertised shipping lanes and taxi routes.

Result

Success: You achieved the desired effect. If this is an opposed roll, the opponent continues to resist normally and you both should roll again next round. One Raise: You manage to accomplish your goal with room to spare. If this is an opposed roll, your opponent loses or surrenders, at least until he can find another way to recover his loss. Two Raises: You make it look easy. If this is an opposed roll, your opponent surrenders and will not resist or attempt to recover without a major change in the situation.

Opposed Rolls

Occasionally, your Hero may attempt a task that is also being attempted by another individual. If this is the case, both characters roll against a Fair (5) difficulty. The character who beats the TN and his opponent wins.

Raises are always used in opposed rolls, though they are counted from the opponent's total.

Ronan gets to Antares just in time. Now he has to convince a crowd of rowdy locals not to bust through him and the few IPA deputies that have stayed on duty in the face of such overwhelming odds. The Starmaster asks for a persuasion total. Ronan gets a 7 and the leader of the mob gets a 5. The townsfolk back down, but since Ronan didn't get any raises they haven't given up just yet. Of course, there's a bad side to all this dice-rolling business. If the majority of your dice come up "1s", you've “gone bust”. The Starmaster determines how bad the catastrophe is based on the situation. Needless to say, you don't want to go bust if you’re trying to disarm a plasma grenade.