Future Imperfect chapter 3-C

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Chapter 3-C, Psychology, Social Conflict and Fear

Psychological Contests

There is more to besting your foes than yanking triggers and smashing things to oblivion. That's a lot of fun (for some), but sometimes it's even more satisfying to stare down an enemy and send him running back to Proxima Centauri, or trick a savvy extra into thinking some alien's sneaking up on him so you can shoot him in the back.

Bluff, intimidate, and ridicule are psychological contests that can be used to break an opponent's nerve or concentration. Persuasion is also a psychological contest, but it isn’t generally used in combat.

A psychological contest is an opposed test versus one of the target's skills. If the test is being made against a group, use the leader's skill. Initiating a psychological contest is an action. Resisting one is not and is done automatically.

Psychological contests can have additional effects besides just getting the bad guys to do what you want. The number of successes and raises determines the effect of the contest.

All this is summed up on the Psychological Contests Table.

Test	Opposed
Bluff	Scrutinize
Intimidate	bravery
Taunt	Taunt

Successes	Effect
1	Annoyed
2	Distraught
3	Broken

Annoyed

Your character's stern gaze or cruel taunt angers or upsets your opponent. The target suffers -4 to his next action. This includes any "passive" defense skills like fighting or resisting further psychological contests.

Distraught

The target is totally distracted by your hero's jibe, trick, or surly stare. The target is annoyed, and in addition loses his highest Action Card. If he's got a reserve card, he loses that instead.

Broken

You've broken the bad guy's will—for the moment at least. He's annoyed and distraught and you get to draw a Story Chip from the pool.

Simple Psychological Contests

Most opposed social interaction takes place during simple psychological contests. When a smooth-talking spacer attempts to learn valuable secrets from a crafty smuggler he met at a backwoods starport, this is a simple psychological contest. This type of action is much more subtle, and open to more interpretation and roleplaying. Simple psychological contests can be checks or tests, at the Master's discretion.

In a simple psychological contest, the initiator of the test or check compares the die roll or Action Card versus a TN set by the relative skill of the other being. Consult the following table for the appropriate difficulty.

Opposing die type is	TN
Less	3
Equal	5
Greater	7
More than 2 greater	9

If the target has 3 or more levels in the appropriate skill, add one to the TN.

Stakes

Before initiating any simple psychological contest, the initiator must make it clear what he is attempting to accomplish. Once both parties understand what is at stake, each has an opportunity to spend chips or otherwise affect the die roll. The Master must be sure that the player knows the potential consequences of each possibility. All declarations of stake are subject to Master approval.

Antares Darkeye wishes to blather the desk sergeant at the local precinct long enough for Harry to sneak past and get into the jailer’s office. He decides he will tell the sergeant a fictional story about a crime he witnessed last evening, and ensure to keep him engaged and unaware of the surroundings. Matt (the player of Antares) declares that if he can win this task, the sergeant is engaged in his story long enough for Harry to get past. If he is able to get a bump, Harry can get in and out without being seen. If Antares fails, however, the sergeant sees through the ruse and maintains his vigilance, noticing Harry before he can get to the jailer’s office.

Players should be encouraged to develop their entire stake scenario. If they have a good and creative set of circumstances the Master should make every effort to accommodate them. If the player does not have a full idea, or if the Master believes the proposed scenario is inappropriate, he should make a counter declaration to the player. The player should not draw until they know the stakes for all likely possibilities. Once the dice are cast, the action is taking place. There is no way to cancel the action, though if another player (or NPC!) wishes to attempt to interrupt, an opposed Reflexes check may be attempted to interrupt, as described in the initiative section.

Game designers note: Most players understand and accept consequences in physical combat. The enemy rolls, they are hit by a specified weapon, the damage is applied: Simple, and without argument. Social combat is another thing entirely. Specify the stakes, such as NPC wants to know where some Hero is hiding. A player may respond, I would not tell them under any circumstances! Yet, a skilled and savvy talker might get the information anyway. They might know when the Hero lies, they could note body language and deduce the truth, there are many possible ways an NPC (or Hero!) could gain information even without cooperation. The stakes are the stakes, and this is not equivalent to losing control of the character, any more than taking damage from a gunshot is. I refuse to take the damage from this blast under any circumstances! Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

The same goes for fear or compulsion. Fire is scary, we know this. Depending on the scope of the game, that might not matter. Players might be free to declare they run into the burning building to look for some dropped item. In a grittier game, a GM might want to use fear rules. A giant monster shows up, make your fear roll.

Often, social consequences, fears and compulsions could be better handled with the carrot than the stick. Instead of deciding that the mastermind NPC has convinced a Hero to reveal vital information, invoke a sliding scale cost based on the NPC skill task that the player must pay to resist. Pay a chip for each success or reveal the information, your choice. Allow the player freedom to determine his reaction, but no matter what, if the cost is not paid the NPC learns the info (somehow). In other words, the Hero might remain completely silent, but some movement, some tic, some inconsequential movement gave away the vital info.

Some players strongly rebel against what they perceive as losing control of their character, even though functionally it is no different than taking damage from a physical attack. Some players enjoy roleplaying the negative consequences. The best solution is to know your players, and use the method that will work the best for your crew. Give the players the game they want!

Fear and Terror

Some things are a lot more unnerving than an adversary hurling insults in your general direction. These sorts of psychological contests can be either active or passive: a scary alien inherently causes fear, but it could use an action to augment the resulting fear.

When the Master calls for a Fear test, the Hero rolls his bravery with a difficulty TN set by the Master and consults the following table.

Successes	Effect
0	Broken
1	Distraught
2	Annoyed
3+	No Effect

Critical failure on a Fear test results in the Hero being terrified.

If Fear wasn’t bad enough, there is also Terror. A Hero may not spend Story Chips in any way during a Terror test. Otherwise, it is the same as a Fear test.

Critical failure or drawing a step 0 is extra bad. If a Hero critically fails on a Terror test, he draws no cards in the next draw phase, takes no actions (including active defenses) and just cowers in place. The hero is catatonic. During the following draw phase he becomes terrified. Same goes for drawing the step 0.

Klackon warriors gather in groups of 7 before attacking, and initiate a click-clacking of their claws. Anyone within earshot is subject to fear (TN 7) upon hearing this noise.

Terrified

A terrified Hero breaks and runs. During the next draw phase, the Hero draws a single card, and when it comes up, must attempt to maximize distance from the Terror causing event.

Collaborative Roleplaying

In Future Imperfect, both the good guys and the bad guys can utilize story chips. These are represented by poker chips which come in three (actually, four-black is covered later) colors (blue, red, and white). The Master starts the first game session with a pool of 10 blue, 25 red, and 50 white chips. The mix won’t change except under very special circumstances which we'll tell you about in Chapter XX. At the start of each game session, every player gets to draw up to three Story Chips at random from the pool. For example, if a player has two chips remaining from the previous session, he draws one, or if he has five, he draws none. The Master also gets to draw one chip that he can use for all the extras and bad guys.

If you quit playing and decide to finish later, or the game is part of a campaign, everyone needs to write down the type and number of chips they had so they can pull them out the next time. There's a space on your character sheet for just this purpose. When you do get your chips back at the beginning of the next game session, make sure everyone gets their old chips before anyone draws their new ones.

Players also get rewarded with specific Story Chips during play. Mainly you get these for learning from a failure. Story chips are not awarded for success or for rolling dice well. Success is its own reward! The Master's section has more specific information on how heroes earn both story chips and bounty points.

Story Chips

A character can use his Story Chips in any one of 3 ways: to improve Trait and skill checks, to save his skin by canceling wounds, and to trade them for bounty points.

White Story Chips allow the player to choose the result directly above or below the normal result during the action card resolution. This effect occurs only on upper results or lower, not both.

Red Story Chips let you draw an extra action card and choose which to keep. Only one red chip may be used per test or check. Alternatively, it maybe be used as a white chip, but for both upper and lower results.

Blue Story Chips allow the player to draw an action card and add the results to the one already drawn, as if an italicized or increased effect result had been generated.

Black Story Chips are special. The pool does not begin the game with any, and they will only be added at Master discretion. When playing a black story chip, the player has the option to completely customize the results from that card. Choose any result from the appropriate upper result column, choose the highest result from the appropriate lower results column, choose any of the hit locations, and use any penetration result listed. During minigames fragment and step results may be shuffled.

One note: You can’t use White or Red Story Chips if you critically fail.

Any Story Chip may be spent to make an unskilled check a skilled check, provided you are invoking an Impetus. More about Impetus in Chapter XX.

Saving your skin

One of the most common usages of story chips is to prevent damage. Spending a story Chip reduces the effects or makes it so the hit never happened in the first place. Whenever your character takes damage, you can spend chips to negate some of it. This applies to damage from a single attack. If your hero's shot twice in the same round, you have to reduce each attack separately.

Wounds are negated before any CT is rolled, but they do not stop the CT. If you need to negate CT (after taking damage from bleeding, drowning, brawling or something else), each level of Story Chip negates 5 points of Wind as shown below.

Chip	Wounds Negated	CT Regained
White	Up to 1	5
Red	Up to 2	10
Blue	Up to 3	15

Red and blue chips have one further special function. If used to negate a wound less than their full value they may also negate the CT roll as well.

Bounty

Story Chips can be converted into bounty points at the end of any session as well, with Master approval (see the next page). Blue chips are worth 3 bounty points, red chips are worth 2, and white chips are worth 1.

A player can spend Story Chips helping other members of the crew. This sort of working together is encouraged. One rule, however, is you cannot spend a Story Chip to reduce the damage another player takes if that player has any chips of his own.

When facing the perils of the galaxy, heroes tend to learn. At the end of each night's game session the Master may give you something called a "bounty". Bounties come from exceptional circumstances. Every Hero in the crew gets a share of the bounty. If there are leftover points, they stay in the pot until the next time the group gets a reward. You can then use your bounty points to raise your character's Traits and skills if you'd like.

New skill levels cost whatever the new level is. If you want your character's shooting to go from 3 to 4, it costs you 4 bounty points. You can only raise skill once per story arc, and only one level at a time

Raising your training in a Trait costs two times the new level. So to go from 4d6 Strength to 5d6 would cost 10 points.

Traits can be raised as well. The cost equal to three times the die type of the level. To go from a d4 to a d6 would cost 18 bounty points. You'll probably have to save up for a while to pull this off. You don’t have to, but it makes for a better story if you say exactly how your character starts getting stronger or smarter. Maybe he spends his off hours lifting weights or reading technical manuals.