Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the de Medici family: Wendy Octavia Gale, Elyssa Tertia Gilmar, Douglas Septimus Bellew, Phil ? Greenberg, Kris V Greenberg, and Daniel GM Rossi for play testing and just being awesome. Special thanks to Russell Impagliazzo, for design and mathematical help. Without them this would be a different and worse game.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. The illustrations in this work are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License, visible at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ Various ctional characters that are mentioned in passing in this work may be the trademarks of their respective owners; if they are they are being used without permission, and the publication of their names is not authorized by, associated with or sponsored by their respective trademark owners. This game has no permission from, connection with, or endorsement by any of the trademark holders of such characters as Captain Kirk or Mal Reynolds that might be mentioned as examples. DO NOT READ OR PLAY THIS GAME UNDER ANY MISAPPREHENSION THAT THE MENTION OF CERTAIN FAMOUS TRADEMARKS MAKES THIS AN OFFICIAL PRODUCT SPONSORED BY ANY OF THE TRADEMARK HOLDERS. You wont nd any stats, descriptions, or images of any of the aforementioned trademarked characters; their names are used purely nominally as points of reference. Zap! is (c) Joshua Macy 2011. Zap! and SFX! are trademarks of Joshua Macy. This document is version 1.04, last revised March 5, 2013.

Introduction
Zap! is a role playing game where the players take the part of science ction adventurers. It is meant to give the players and GM the tools for playing and producing results that feel like science ction without bogging them down in unnecessary detail, and without making them sacrice concept to conform to the rules. Zap! is based on the SFX! game system, as used in Kapow! and Argh!, though knowledge of either is not necessary to play; players familiar with other SFX! games will nd Zap! quiet easy to pick up, though there are minor differences to t the genre. The Primary Rule of Zap! is that actions have to make sense in a science ction kind of way and the players will continually be asked to describe their actions in terms that t the conventions of the genre. In Zap! it isnt enough to say I attack with my Telekinesis, thats 2d6; Zap! asks you to describe how youre using your power, almost as if you were narrating the action in a science ction story: I use my Telekinesis to try to shove the alien marauder out the airlock, or Since the robot seems too heavy for my Telekinesis to lift, I use it to throw the release lever on a nearby cargo crane, dropping a load of plas-steel girders on him. When in doubt, ask yourself Does this sound like something from a science ction story? The Primary Rule applies to the plausibility of actions, particularly the results of actions involving science ctional powers and how they interact that are far outside of the realm of ordinary physics or common sense; it is not intended to force a particular outcome or story, or to substitute collaborating on SF fan-ction for role playing. Zap! is simple enough for novices to play, though perhaps not simple enough for Game Masters with no prior experience in role-playing games. Its assumed that the players know what SF adventures are about and what sort of game they want to play. Its particularly important for the players and the GM to be on the same page about genre conventions such as whether adventurers are frequently killed by the dangers they face or generally triumph, and to what extent the player characters actions can change the world. If one player wants a game where the struggle to keep the megacorporations from hunting them down and destroying the cyberpunk rebellion is a losing battle, and another wants to play the laser-sword wielding bad-ass who topples stellar empires and restores the republic before breakfast, its unlikely that they can both be satised with the same campaign. i This sort of conict of expected tone should be resolved before play begins. It should be the goal of everybody at the table to play up and play into whatever approach the players want to take. Zap! includes everything you need to create adventurers and explore strange new worlds: rules for character generation, campaign scope, superscience and alien powers and character templates, vehicles, bases, adjudicating actions and resolving combat, commerce, designing a setting, science ction campaigns, sample alien creatures, organizations and non-player characters, and some adventure seeds and character sheets. Also included is some analysis of the probabilities for players who worry about that kind of thing. Zap! uses a straightforward mechanic to resolve most actions: you roll some dice (two, unless youre doing something unusual) and take the best. If you are pitting one Power against another you compare that to the best roll of the opposing Power; if unopposed then against a Difculty based on the scale of what youre attempting. For instance, Ace Astra tries to jury-rig a microwave satellite relay dish she found at the crash site into a maser using her Science! power and re it at the amorphous blob creature that consumed the crew of the crashed ship; the blob uses its Amorphous Form to resist. Ace rolls a 7 and the Blob rolls a 3...and the Blob takes a burst of microwave radiation straight to its nucleus. Note that in the example Ace isnt required to make a separate roll to jury-rig the microwave dish into a maser rst, or gure out how to use a maser, thats assumed to be part of the description of her Science! attack on the blob; if theres some doubt that she really could aim the maser, perhaps because the dish is too big to swing around easily, shed just describe a different method such as luring the blob into the dish before activating it, and the die roll would be the same. Nor should there be any rolls or back-and-forth over whether a microwave dish really could be changed into a maser safely, or at all without proper tools and extensive work; it sounds like the kind of thing that people get away with in science ction adventures, and by the Primary Rule thats sufcient. Later Ace has to try to pull her best friend UnitX3Z7, dangling above the matter annihilation chamber, to safety; the GM decides thats a Difculty 3 task, against which she decides to roll her Athletic Prowess. Most of the rest of the rules consists of deciding which dice of what size to roll for various actions, and

what the results of success are, plus some handling for some of the more common unusual situations that heroes nd themselves in, such as attempting to intimidate foes into giving up without striking a blow, or interfering with their powers. This book consists of three sections: Creating a Character, Playing Zap!, and Game Mastering. The rst two sections contain all the rules of the game, on how to create and how to play characters using Zap!, while the nal part contains advice on running SF campaigns applicable to most systems.

The Primary Rule

Does this sound like something from science ction? The Primary Rule of Zap! is that actions have to make sense in an SF kind of way. It will be referred to a lot in the following rules, because its a departure from the way many RPGs handle mechanics and dice rolling. In Zap! you dont even roll the dice if the action is obviously something a character with that Power or Shtick can do. Where in most RPGs you wouldnt bother rolling to see if you could walk across a room or sit in a chair, Zap! extends that notion so that you wont bother rolling to see if your helmsman can plot an efcient course out of orbit, or your scientist can successfully research a device that will track the rampaging energy being; protagonists in SF adventures arent confronted with situations where bad luck or failure to perform up to their usual standards (a bad die-roll) prevents them from continuing the adventure...though whether they will survive is open to question. Contrariwise, where other RPGs might just leave it up to the dice to decide whether an Espers Mind Control can work against a robot (rolling damage vs. its mental resistance) or decide it based on whether the character had paid extra for the Mind Control when it was created to have it work against robots, Zap! will ask the players the consider the plausibility of the action before they commit to it and roll the dice, and the decision may turn on details of the description of the robot such as whether it has an articially intelligent positronic brain or simply carrying out the instructions of its programming. If given the particular robots description it cant plausibly be controlled by the Esper, the Espers psychic power cant work no matter how powerful it is. This means that the player will often be able to control whether an action can be taken according to the Primary Rule by the way they describe how theyre employing their Power. In fact, thats the point of the Primary Rule: to require the players to narrate their actions in a more interesting way than just announcing I use my Flame Blast, thats a d6, d6 attack by making the details of the narration matter. This also helps novice role-players, who naturally tend to do this. To further this goal, and speed things along, nal decisions as to the plausibility are placed in the hands of the player. The GM can suggest reasons that the action as described might not be all that plausible or should take into account facts about the situation such as the alien hovering fty feet in the air, but iii the GM wont override the players unless she knows something they dont that makes the action impossible (such as the characters are actually ghting a hologram).

Contents
Contents 1

Creating A Character
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1 Steps To Creating A Character for Zap! Before You Begin: Scope and Tone . . . . . Adventure Scope and Personal Scope . . . Tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quick-and-dirty player character creation Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Schrdingers Character Creation . . . . . . 2 Concept 3 Filling In The Templates The Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . Aliens in Zap! . . . . . . . . . . . . Describing Abilities . . . . . . . . . Mechanics for Abilities . . . . . . . Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advantages And Disadvantages Advantages: . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disadvantages: . . . . . . . . . . . Mishaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Spending your Boosts Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Complications Note On Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Fleshing out Your Character Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Back-story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Example Characters Ace Astra, Starship Captain . Solitaire Jones . . . . . . . . . . Parsifal Farmer . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Markov . . . . . . . . . . . . Adam Procyon, Clone Warrior Grronk, Trog Co-pilot . . . . . Spotty, uplifted dog Engineer . Tok, Menton . . . . . . . . . . . Null Pointer, Hacker . . . . . . .

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C ONTENTS 8 Alien templates 32

II

Playing Zap!

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9 Quick Summary Tropes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Dening Abilities Disagreements . . . Power Level . . . . . Regular Powers . . . Movement Powers . Shticks . . . . . . . . Active vs. Automatic 11 Using Abilities Uncontested Abilities Contested Abilities . Damage . . . . . . . Countering . . . . . . Combining Actions . Disabling Abilities . . Splitting Abilities . . . Duration Of Abilities

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12 Tropes Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Careful Aim And Pulling Your Punch Failure Is Not An Option! . . . . . . . Intimidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Second Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sheer Determination . . . . . . . . . Shoulder Roll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supreme Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . Take a Bullet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . This Ends Now! . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wild Shot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Rounds And Turns

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14 Special Situations Mobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hit Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crossing Scopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inventing Features of the Environment, How Much is Too Much?

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15 Range Movement And Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Senses And Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Investigation A Note On Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Negotiations 18 The Environment Environment Description . Buildings . . . . . . . . . . More Stuff To Break . . . . Perils and Obstacles . . .

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Contents 19 Equipment Equipment Dice . . . . . . . . . . . Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . Equipment Mishaps . . . . . . . . Reparing and Building Equipment Cybernetic Enhancemetns . . . . Example Equipment . . . . . . . . 67 67 68 68 68 68 68 70 70 71 72 72 72 74 76 76 76 77 77 78 79 79 80 80 80 80 81 82 82 82 83

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20 Ships Ship Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ship Advantages and Disadvantages Ship Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ship Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . Ship-to-Ship Combat . . . . . . . . . . . Ship Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Trekking Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Translating Distance to Scenes Cutting to the Chase . . . . . . Typical Scenes . . . . . . . . . . 22 Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

23 Experience The Pace Of Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Wealth What Money is Called . Wealth and Adventure Wealth and Experience Post-Scarcity Economies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25 Commerce Wealth and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shipping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

III

Game Mastering

85
86 86 87 89 89 89 89 90 90 91 91 92 92 93 94 94 95 95 96

26 Campaign design Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Episodic Or Epic? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Designing an Adventure What you need to design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adventure Arcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interleaving arcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Failure is always an option. Success is always an option The End of The World is not the end of the world . . . . 28 Plot Templates Altered Reality . . . . . . Back in Time . . . . . . . . Creature Feature . . . . . First Contact . . . . . . . . Great Race . . . . . . . . Marooned . . . . . . . . . Mayday . . . . . . . . . . Mirror World . . . . . . . . Negative Space Wedgie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C ONTENTS War Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A How To Be A Good Player B Tables C Equipment Index 96 97 99 111 119

Part I

Creating A Character

C ONTENTS

Chapter 1

Steps To Creating A Character for Zap!

Before you begin the GM or entire group decides certain aspects of the campaign, such as Scope, basic setting, Tone, and campaign goals before character creation. For example, the campaign could be lighthearted and set in a Space Cadet Academy, with most characters being Academy students, a serious relatively hard SF campaign about the crew of a interstellar scout ship seeking out new worlds and new civilizations, a grim post-apocalyptic setting where the characters are survivors of a devastating biological war, or even a space opera western-in-space. This campaign information affects character creation in informal ways, such as deciding that a hard bitten space bounty hunter or a member of a semi-mystical order of Star Knights is an appropriate character concept. There are also two mechanical ways the campaigns design affects player character creation. First, the Scope of the campaign will determine the personal power level of the characters, at least at the beginning. Secondly, the GM will decide on or create templates for standard creature types available as player characters. For example, templates for particular alien races means aliens PCs and NPCs will be relatively common, and species what exactly is true of those aliens in the game. if the PCs survive an adventure, or somewhere in between?

Adventure Scope and Personal Scope

Scope describes how large an area the characters typical adventures take place in and how powerful they are individually. The Adventure Scope refers to the size of the area they typically travel within and is usually tied to their available means of transportation; the Personal Scope refers to how much ability the individual characters have to affect the outcomes of things within the area of the adventure. The two are related, but not identical. For instance, it is common in science ction to have adventures take the heroes from star system to star system, while the heroes themselves are little more than average Joes and Janes who might nd themselves mugged in a back-alley of some starport if theyre not careful; on the ip side, you have stories like some Roger Zelazny novels such as Lord of Light where the characters are literally godlike in power but the entire action of the story is conned to one world. While campaigns may eventually transcend the original Scopes, you should pick a Personal Scope at the start that will be satisfactory to play for quite some time. Most of the time in science ction, characters who level up and signicantly change their Personal Scope either do so at the start, and thats what kicks off their adventures, or gain great power at the end and use it to resolve things...its relatively unusual to have a sequels at the new level of power remain as interesting. Groups that want to try different power levels as a change of pace might consider creating new characters in the same setting but at the desired Scope, and returning to the lower-powered characters when they feel like more down-to-Earth adventures, rather than ramping up the original characters with newly discovered powers, symbiotic alien tech, and the like. On the other hand, Adventure Scopes regularly increase over the course of science ction stories, as the characters nd themselves visiting far-ung places and interacting with larger and larger areas of the setting. Note that many famous SF characters, even ones who regularly win ghts, would only count as Scope 1 Normals. If you can imagine the character actually need7

Before You Begin: Scope and Tone

Before you actually start creating characters, you need to make some decisions about the kind of science ction game you want to play. The GM and the players should collectively decide on the Scope for the adventures, and the Tone that the game will take. Is the group going to be a rag-tag bunch of survivors of an apocalypse trying to hang on one more day, the crew of a starship trying to eke a living on the frontier or carry out missions assigned by Star Command, guardians of an entire galaxy ghting a war against extra-galactic invaders, or something else? Will the players be average Joes with some specialized training and gear, elite commandos with stateof-the-art equipment, futuristic supermen and women with psionic or technological powers that grant them godlike abilities? Is death and dying something that rarely happens to PCs, and can usually be xed with appropriate technology, or will it be a minor triumph

1. S TEPS TO C REATING A C HARACTER

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Z AP ! events anywhere in this area, and reliable transportation that allows you to respond quickly to these events. Examples: Warehouse 13. 8. Global You adventure throughout the world. You have ways of learning about major events anywhere in the world, and reliable transportation that allows you to respond quickly to these events. Examples: Thunderbirds, U.F.O. 9. Interplanetary Your operations frequently go beyond this world. You have ways of learning about major events on other worlds and transportation that allows you to reach other worlds within the star system in a reasonable amount of time. Examples: Firey, Flash Gordon. 10. Near Interstellar You travel throughout the local stellar system, and frequently to nearby stars. You have ways of learning about major events on other worlds and transportation that allows you to reach other worlds in a reasonable amount of time. Examples: Star Trek: Deep Space 9, Starship Troopers 11. Star Cluster You adventure over many worlds. You may represent a federation or other group of many planets. You have ways of learning about major events throughout your jurisdiction and transportation sufcient to reach them effectively. Examples: Star Trek, StarWars, Stainless Steel Rat. 12. Galactic Arm Your adventures extend into most of the known worlds. Examples: Lensmen, Perry Rhodan, Doctor Who 13. Galaxy Your adventures extend across the entire Galaxy. 14. Galactic Cluster Your adventures extend across a cluster of Galaxies. 15. Cosmic There is no bound to the scope of your operations. Examples: Star Maker

ing to surrender or ee when confronted with a reteam of four soldiers with ries leveled, that character is probably Scope 1. Note also that characters may be in command of ships or organizations well above their own in Scope. The same shoulder-rolling starship Captain that nds it wise to surrender to a re team of four soldiers may command a vessel that could ght an entire army, or even planet, on equal terms.

Adventure Scopes
1. Normal Does not go on adventures unless pressed. 2. Agent You are part of a large group that provides support, missions, and transportation. While you rarely make a crucial difference individually, your group works for larger aims. Organizations can themselves vary in Scope and power-level, but most of their operatives will still be at the agent power-level, whether they are the local police department or a world-conquering conspiracy. The differences will be in the number of agents, the equipment provided to the agents, and the number and level of higher-powered ofcers and specialists that work alongside them. 3. Street-level You do not have reliable intel or transportation, so you need to plan ahead to be in the right place to inuence events. Thus, your missions are usually chosen to suit your talents and centered on individuals, rather than responding to crises. Examples: Damnation Alley, Escape from New York. 4. Neighborhood You adventure mainly in a city district or equivalent area, such as a small to medium-sized town. You have ways of learning about major events in your district, and reliable transportation that allows you to respond quickly to these events. Examples: Eureka. 5. City You adventure mainly in a major metropolis. You have ways of learning about major events in your city, and reliable transportation that allows you to respond quickly to these events. Examples: Sliders (the city changes from episode to episode, but they never move far from the location of the vortex). 6. Regional You adventure mainly in a geographical area, such as a group of US States (e.g., New England), a large US State (e.g., California) or a moderate-sized country (e.g., the Netherlands). You have ways of learning about major events in your region, and reliable transportation that allows you to respond quickly to these events. Examples: Men in Black. 7. National You adventure throughout a large country (e.g., USA) or continent (e.g., Europe or Australia). You have ways of learning about major 8

Personal Scopes
1. Normal A normal, if trained person. Can emerge victorious from a brawl...sometimes. 2. Agent An elite combatant. Can take on 10 civilians in a barroom brawl, several squad-cars of police, or a re team of 4 soldiers. 3. Street-level Augmented. Can take on 50 civilians, or a squad of 8-12 soldiers. 4. Neighborhood Inhuman. Can take on 100 civilians, or a platoon of around 25 soldiers. 5. City Super-powered. Can take on an infantry company of 200 soldiers. 6. Regional Can take on a battalion of 1000 soldiers.

Quick-and-dirty player character creation 7. National Can take on a division of 10,000 soldiers. 8. Global Can take on an army of 100,000 soldiers. 9. Interplanetary Can take on an army group of 1,000,000 soldiers. 10. Near Interstellar Can take on an entire theater of war, 10,000,000 soldiers. 11. Far Interstellar Can take on a planet. 12. Star Cluster Can take on a solar system. 13. Galactic Arm Can take on a stellar cluster. 14. Galaxy Can take on an entire interstellar civilization. 15. Cosmic Can take on an entire galaxy. One useful way to approach this is to describe your game as similar to a source that all the players are familiar with, e.g., is it more like Firey, Robert Heinlein novels, Warhammer 40K, or StarWars? That doesnt have to mean its set in those settings, but it does set the expectations for things like levels of violence, humor, plausibility of physical stunts, just how cosmic or contrived are technological devices and superscience abilities, and so forth.

We can rebuild him...

Zap! has no hard-and-fast rules for characters meeting accidental deaths in combat. This shouldnt stop you from making the game as deadly as you and the players want it to be. Given sufcient science ctional hand-waving, characters can be repaired by advanced medical tech or restored from backup, be revived as cyborgs or AI simulations in android bodies, be replaced by a clone or parallel universe twin. Player characters should really only die permanently when the players want them to, but that doesnt mean they dont have a lot at stake. Lethality among minor characters is a matter of tone. Out can be narrated as dead for minions or bystanders, or you can have even Overkilled NPCs make it out alive. The tone of the campaign might mean that you do brutal things to player characters. But even in games that are maximally edgy and morbid, players should have long-term control over their characters paths. You should never force a player to run a character that is warped beyond recognition from their original concept. If they are not done having fun with the character, nd a plot device to allow them to revert back. Sometimes a PC will need to be retired and run as an NPC, letting the player start afresh.

Tone
Tone is probably the single most important decision about your campaign. Tone is about the way the game feels, the mood and the atmosphere of the adventures. You can and should vary the tone somewhat from session to session, and within a session, but there will be a prevailing mood to the game. SF adventure ranges from Flash Gordon to Firey to Alien, from Lost in Space through Star Trek to the rebooted Battlestar: Galactica. This tone will actually inuence game play. The lighter the tone, the less plausible justications for SF abilities have to be, and the freakier coincidences can be. Modern SF can also touch on sensitive subjects: sex, violence, and religion. Theres no right or wrong answer, but a clash of expectations can lead to incoherence between the tone the GM is trying to set and what actually happens, or players being out of sync with the others. It can even lead to players nding the game unpleasant, disturbing, or disgusting (or in the other direction, too silly, angsty or sentimental to stomach). Make sure everybody playing is on basically the same page, and give notice in advance if there will be possibly disturbing elements. Disagreements over the tone of the campaign can wreck it; when one player is aiming for goofy Saturday-morning cartoon style with a post-apocalyptic barbarian armed with a laser sword in a world of savagery, super-science and sorcery, and another wants to play an ordinary crew member aboard a space-going renery trying eke out a living, somethings got to give. Even if the players are nominally on the same page with the style of character, the Primary Rule of having to make sure that your actions sound like a science ction story places emphasis on having at least rough agreement as to what kind of story people have in mind. If one player is trying to stick to real-world science as much as possible while another takes his cue from the most over-the-top Japanese anime the result wont tend to feel like either. 9

Quick-and-dirty player character creation

Heres the shortest way to make up an Zap! character. 1. Think of what kind of character youd want to play that ts the tone and setting. 2. Pick the closest match to that character in the Example Characters. 3. Keep all the numerical values of that sample character. For each descriptive phrase on the sample character sheet, replace it with a phrase of the same general category that describes the character you have in mind.

Outline
If no sample character is a close match, or you want to have complete control over character generation, you can follow these steps instead. This is an overview, with details in subsequent sections. Steps:

1. S TEPS TO C REATING A C HARACTER

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Z AP ! there is no xed list of possibilities. They have numerical ratings that tell how effective they are when used, but its up to you to determine what they are, and how and when they can be used. Restrictions are completely binding on your character, so they are not given numerical ratings. E.g., No matter how powerful a Mara is, ultrasonics render it helpless, period. 3. Spend your Boosts. You then have a certain number of Boosts to spend on your character, usually 3. These increase your characters abilities. Each Boost can be spent for one of the following: a) Add one to one of the four Attributes: Toughness, Stamina, Will, and Actions. b) Increase one power by 1 level or give it a small Advantage. 2 Boosts give it a big Advantage. c) Increase two Shticks by 1 level each, or one Shtick by 2 levels. d) Add one new Power. The starting level is given in your template. e) Add two new Shticks at the starting level in your template, or one Shtick at one higher level. f) Get a Major Asset (companion, base, vehicle, organization, or wealth). You can then spend additional Boosts to improve these. g) Get three Minor Assets (perks, contacts, favors, rank, equipment). 4. Adjust Abilities (Powers and Shticks). You can adjust your Abilities further by reducing the effectiveness of certain aspects of the Ability in order to increase its Level or take some Advantages on it. Every Small Disadvantage you put on the Ability gives you one Boost to spend on Advantages for that Power or to raise its Level; every Big Disadvantage gives you two Boosts. Similarly, for each Level you lower the Ability you get an additional Boost to spend on that Power. You cant trade Boosts from one Ability to spend on another. Modifying an Ability this way doesnt affect how many total Boosts you have, so doesnt change how much XP you need for a new Boost. 5. Pick Complications. All protagonists have life issues that complicate their attempts to achieve their goals. If youre employed by the Space Patrol and they send you on missions, or if you suffer from fatigue if you spend more than two hours under normal Earth gravity because you were raised in space, thats a Complication. Choose Complications that will provide conict for your character, or make the conicts that much more interesting. Most characters pick one major and two minor complications; characters using the Crew template have the option of picking 4 minor complications instead. 10

1. Decide on a Concept. Pick a concept for your character. Captain of a scout ship? Xenobiologist studying alien creatures? Alien creature? Interstellar bounty hunter? This is the most important step, and one where you might want to consult the other players and the GM, so players are matching in tone and consistent with the setting. 2. Fill in a Template. Templates in Zap! reect the characters role in the game, as well as their abilities. So your concept should pretty much determine which template to use: crew (few amazing combat powers, but extraordinarily skillful and brave), bad-ass (trained combatant), scientist (invents new SF devices and has knowledge of the settings scientic principles), unique (one-of-a-kind esper or alien), or any of a number of templates that the GM has designed for standard SF creatures in her setting. For example, PCs might be Captain Ace Astra (crew); Aces best friend and ships science ofcer Tok (scientist); Solitaire Jones, a space smuggler and Aces boyfriend (bad-ass); Spotty, a genetically uplifted dog and ships engineering ofcer (unique); and Tira, a shape-changing alien (based on an alien template the GM has created for this campaign). Once youve found the right Template for your concept, ll in the blanks in the Template with descriptions of your characters particular abilities (and weaknesses). There are three kinds of things needing descriptions at this point: Powers, Restrictions, and Shticks. Each template has some slots for Powers and Shticks, and some have places for Restrictions. Powers are abilities that can be used in or out of combat, Shticks are strictly non-combat abilities, and Restrictions are biological or technological limitations on your character. The Template might have some of these pre-dened, or give broad categories they should fall into. Others will be completely up to you to decide. Unless they are pre-dened by the Template, you need to to dene what they are and how they work. For example, the Crew template has a defensive power, but you can dene this as a psychological ploy to Keep em Talking until help arrives, Dont Attract Attention where alien creatures ignore your presence, Luck, Athleticism, Danger sense, Invisibility, Force Shield, or whatever ability of that general type best suits your character concept. On the other hand, an Alien: Mara template might gives all Mara the same Shapeshift and Empathy powers. These do not need to be dened, the template already species what they do. Powers and Shticks descriptions are free-form;

Schrdingers Character Creation 6. Flesh out your character. Now add colorful details that make your character more lifelike. There are a few mechanical decisions to be made here, but mostly this is you thinking through what your characters life is really like. For example, is your character afliated with any organization or alliance of similar characters, e.g., Star Fleet or the Space Patrol? If so, what is their role in the organization? Give your character some back-story, and think about her day-to-day life. What causes her to brave dangers and the unknown, rather than holding down a safe unadventurous job? (Assuming such jobs exist in the campaign setting; in a post-apocalyptic world every day might be a struggle for survival no matter who you are.) Write down the basic motivation as a Drive. Think about your characters appearance. How does your character appear to others? What image do they project? Write down a short description. If you are artistic, you could even draw a picture of your character, or nd a suitable image on the Internet.

Schrdingers Character Creation

You can actually start play with nothing but a character concept, and defer describing abilities and assigning numbers to them until specic abilities are needed. Pick one of the Templates or one if the sample characters, so that you know what the numbers for various abilities will start at. Then, each time you want to do something that calls for a roll and that isnt covered by one of the Abilities youve already assigned, assign an ability on the spot that covers it, writing over one of the abilities of the Template or sample character. If youre using a Template, dont forget you can also assign the starting Boosts as you go if you want a number to be higher or more abilities than just the starting ones.

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Chapter 2

Concept
While there are no xed rules for picking a character concept, there are a few issues to think about when considering a possible character. A good way to generate a character concept is to modify a ctional character you enjoy. But not every character thats fun to see or read about is fun to play. Some issues to think about are: Does the character t the tone of the game? Playing a pure comic relief character is a very serious game, or a melodramatic character in a light-hearted game, can grow old quickly. Does the character have a distinctive personality? Would the other players be able to tell the difference between you playing this character and you playing other characters? Does the character play well with others? Usually, youll be playing as part of a team. Depending on the tone of the setting, characters often have dark secrets, personality aws, and secret agendas that conict with other characters. Sometimes theyre just not very nice, to each other or to the rest of the world. But you can be a nasty person and still a team player. On the Firey, characters like Jane or Book are often shown in conict with the rest of the gang. But they still function as valuable members of the group. As long as tension creates interplay between the PCs, it is good. It is only when it blocks interaction that its a problem. On the other hand, goody-goody characters that everyone likes might actually be bad for interesting team play. Will your character have interesting, distinctive relationships with the other PCs, having both friends and rivals on the team? A team player character contributes to group goals, but doesnt overwhelm everyone elses contribution. Think about typical scenes featuring your character. Where would others t in? If your character is always alone in these scenes, always the star, or always on the sidelines, you might want to revise the character. How does the character contribute to different kinds of group activities? Science Fiction will tend to have a different balance of activities than 12 many other genres such as high fantasy or superheroics. About equal time will usually be spent in investigation (including scientic research and ddling with equipment), negotiation and interacting with NPCs, and combat. Try to make sure that your character has a role to play in all of these. In SF you are often up against the totally unknown. Investigation and research is a large part of the game, uncovering what you are dealing with, whether its a being or a natural phenomenon, whether you must ght it, bypass it, or even incorporate it into your plans in order to achieve your goals and how you might do that. Zap! is very exible, and you dont have to be a scientist, detective, or telepath to help in investigations. Maybe you know a lot of people. Maybe you have good transportation or unusual senses. Maybe you just intimidate people into divulging the key information. Not every being you encounter will be a foe, nor will every foe be defeat-able. Negotiation is about identifying and agreeing on common interests with beings that are suspicious of you. This is particularly important when dealing with representatives of larger groups, such as alien races or organizations. Brute force might escalate until the whole organization is up against your group. Again, you dont have to be a trained diplomat to contribute to negotiations. Maybe you are politically connected yourself, or maybe you can offer your unique services as a bargaining chip. Finally, combat is about kicking enemy butt. Zap!s exibility means that you can contribute to your groups combat success in a host of ways, not just as Mobile Infantry or with psychic powers. Your mundane characters attitude might make more of a difference than the bad-asss big guns. If you can think of ways to combine your abilities with others, you can supplement their combat power. This can be as simple as distracting a foe while they attack. You can also help by assisting teammates to recover from attacks. How well can you portray this character? Sometimes a character that you love to watch isnt a

character that you want to play. If its important that your character is alien, can you give it alien beliefs and desires, at least from time to time so that its more than just a human with a bumpy forehead? Can you be as nasty as your PC, or are you a softy at heart? Do you really want to brood all the time, or do you burst if you cant crack wise?

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Chapter 3

Filling In The Templates

The Templates
All Templates start with 3 Boosts to spend, plus any Bonus Boosts. Bonus Boosts dont count towards the characters starting Boosts when it comes to calculating XP necessary to earn a new Boost. Scientist You are trained in the science of the setting, including the principles of super science that go beyond what is currently known. While there is little you absolutely cannot do in extending and applying the known science of the setting, you are at your strongest when you combine your scientic abilities with specic knowledge of the problems you are attempting to solve. Attributes: Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Science! power: Choose one of three possibilities: Science! power @ 5 (d6, d4), (AA) Ultraexible, (A) Power-up to 7 (d8, d6) with 3 research successes (self or others); Science! power @ 6 (d6, d6), (A) Flexible, (A) Power-up to 7 (d8, d6), and Ultra-exible with 3 research scenes. Science! power @ 7 (d8, d6), (A) Power-up to Ultra-exible with 3 research scenes. For all choices, you get the Power-up by announcing that you are researching a device for a specic circumstances. Gadget defense: A scientic gadget defense power @ 4. (A) Flexible. Choose whether Active or Automatic. Shticks: Choose 2 Shticks @ 4, plus Scientic Research @ 5. Restriction: Pick a Restriction that is tied in with your brand of Science! Do you need DNA samples to analyze? Are you a roboticist, with not even rudimentary knowledge of biology? Must you do all your research in your own lab with its specialized equipment? You should design your restriction so that it gives your approach to Science a unique avor, and makes it seem less like a magical power where anything is possible. New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4

Crew Crew have no super-science or psychic abilities or specialized combat training, just courage, skill, and subtlety. They are often the main focus of SF settings, sitting in the command chair, exploring new worlds, and generally running the show. Attributes: Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Defense Power: One defense power @ 6. Active or automatic (choose one). Examples: Keep em Talking, Force Shield, Great Reexes. Combat Skill: One power @ 4 Shticks: 6 Shticks @ 5 New Powers begin @ 4 New Shticks begin @ 5

Bad-ass The Bad-ass might have innate super science or psychic abilities, a signature piece of equipment like powered armor, or just specialized training and weapons that can threaten even powerful alien menaces. Attributes: Toughness: 3, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers: Three powers @ 5. Typically, an offensive skill or weapon, a defensive skill or device, and some other power such as a movement power. Shticks: 4 Shticks @ 4 Bonus Boost: You have one extra Boost to spend. This does not add to your base number of Boosts (for experience purposes). New powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4

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Describing Abilities

Unique You are one of a rare kind of being, possibly alien or robotic. Perhaps you are the only one. Perhaps you are a version of a standard creature, but somehow made unique by a freak event, such as an alien raised by humans and with a thoroughly human outlook on life despite looking vastly different or having bizarre powers, or a robot who unlike others of its kind has become sentient or has been freed from the Three Laws of Robotics (if those are a feature of the setting).

Alien Template
Attributes: Tough: 2 Will: 2 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: 3 Powers @ 6 (d6, d6) If suitable, you can add Advantages and Disadvantages to each power. Each small advantage decreases the level 1, big by 2, small Disadvantages increase it 1, big Disadvantages increase by 2. Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4) or 4 (d4, d4) if they t the stereotype New Powers: Start at 6 if they t the stereotype, 4 otherwise. For example, Mind Meld be an optional Space-Elf power. It wont be part of the starting template, but if the player adds it, it starts at 6 rather than 4. New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise Restrictions: Any number of restrictions. Pool similar or minor restrictions together. Power Boosts: For each restriction, add one power @ 6 to the template, increase one attribute 1, or increase one power by 1.

Attributes: Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers: 2 powers @ 6 (d6,d6). Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4, d2). Bonus Boosts: Add three bonus Boosts. These do not add to base Boosts for the purpose of experience. Restriction: Pick any restriction. New Powers begin @ 6 New Shticks begin @ 3

Aliens in Zap!
There are several different approaches you could take to playing an alien character in Zap! You could make your alien race a Shtick or a Power, use the Unique Template, or use an entirely new Template specic to that alien race in the setting. Which approach you use depends on how much your character concept focuses on being a representative member of that alien race vs. it being background avor while other aspects of your character such as chosen profession take center stage. Two players might both be members of the same alien race and take different approaches to designing their characters depending on what they want to emphasize. One might choose to be the ships security ofcer, choosing the Bad-ass Template and making his membership in his proud warrior race, the Klangons, just one of his four Shticks; the other might make his alien status central to his character concept by using the Klangon Template devised by the GM and relegating his status as captain of the ships marines to one of that Templates slots for Shticks. Heres an alien character template. Other examples of templates for typical SF creatures are found in Section 8. Before using an SF creature template ask your GM if that creature is allowed as a PC and whether the GM has altered the template for her setting. The GM may also have created new SF creature templates for the setting, so ask about other possibilities. (The rules for creating new templates are in the section on Standard SF templates, in Part III.)

Describing Abilities
Once youve picked a Template, you ll out the Template with specic Abilities (Powers and Shticks) according to your concept. You give each ability slot in the template a name, and a brief description. Although they dont change the mechanics of using the abilities this free-form description really determines what the ability is. Throughout the game youll be able to use the ability precisely when the game situation matches the description. While some abilities might seem more limited than others, the challenge is to provide creative justications for the ability being useful. So, for example, if your power is Strength it cannot be used directly at a distance. This doesnt need to be spelled out or compensated for; its implicit in the notion of physical strength. But that doesnt mean that you can never use the power in a ranged attack, just that you need to use it indirectly. You can say you are using your Strength to pick up a large object and hurl it at your foe, or to cause the building they are in to collapse by knocking away a support beam, or to intimidate them by a display of violence. In any of these ways you use your Strength you resolve your degree of success using the same mechanics and the same dice. Your free-form descriptions tell you when and how you can use your abilities. Then the mechanics indicate whether you succeed and by how much.

Powers vs. Shticks

Abilities come in two forms: Powers and Shticks. Anything that can be used to attack and defend in combat is a Power, even if it may have other uses. Anything that cant typically be used to hurt somebody or defend yourself against being hurt is a Shtick. The 15

3. F ILLING I N T HE T EMPLATES same sort of Ability might be a Power for one character and a Shtick for another, depending on how the player sees themselves using the Ability in the game. While the name Powers suggests superhuman abilities, in Zap! Powers are a generic term for any kind of Ability that can be used to attack or defend against attacks. So training with a gun is a Power, as is the Ability to lie convincingly, since it can be used to prevent an enemy from attacking you. On the other hand, maybe your Ability to empathically discern lies is a Shtick, rather than a Power, since it would almost never be used to attack or defend in combat. Even something like Computer Programming, which would normally be a Shtick that takes minutes or hours to use effectively could be a Power if you envision it being fast and effective enough to, say, seize control of robots as theyre attacking you and have them ght on your side instead. Note that sometimes the Primary Rule would imply that a Shtick could be used to defend yourself. E.g. if a creature had a Power to create illusions that it uses to lure people into danger, an Ability to Empathically Discern Lies would be a plausible defense, even if it had been characterized as a Shtick. Powers can also be used outside of combat. For example, you could have Keen Sense of Smell as a Power or a Shtick. Either way, you could use the Ability to sniff out drugs in a locker or track someone through the woods, but you can only use it directly to give you a defense against an invisible attacker if it is a Power. you cannot use it for than what you can, such as for something like Psionics, then the Ultra-Flexible Advantage applies. In addition there are two mechanical variations on Powers that are neither Advantages or Disadvantages: Movement Powers and Automatic Powers.

Movement powers
Movement Powers primarily let you move around. They may also be used to attack or defend when that makes sense, e.g., using y to ram into a foe, or super speed to dodge bullets. Movement Powers do not take an Action to use if they are used for movement; if you use them for anything else they take an Action and only get to roll one die (the larger die). Like any other power, you cannot use it more than once a round, so you cannot use a Movement power both to move and attack or defend. Without a Movement power you can still move in combat, but it will take an Action to move any signicant distance, and youll be at a disadvantage if youre trying to move while anything else is interfering with it, such as infected mutants grabbing at your ankles or the heaving of the ships deck making it difcult to walk.

Automatic powers
Automatic powers are used in response to a certain kind of action. They can be used multiple times in a round, and do not require an Action to use. On the other hand, they cannot normally be used at will, unless you can force the trigger condition to be met. What those conditions are and what the Power does (whether its an attack, a defense, or movement) should be clear from the description. An Automatic Power must be either for Attack or Defense, not both, and to have an attack be automatic is an Advantage. For instance, Armor could be an automatic Defense that would be used whenever you were physically attacked. Flame Body could be automatic Attack that would be used whenever you were grabbed. Automatic Defenses defend against every appropriate incoming attack, automatic Offenses attack everyone who meets the proper conditions. If using a Power triggers an Automatic Power, the Automatic Power Combines with the rst Power, giving it a +1. For example, if you use your Super-Strength to grab someone, your Flame Body automatic attack would always combine with it. You roll the dice for Super-Strength, but add 1 to the result for the Flame Body. If you use Super-Strength to throw something at someone, Flame Body wouldnt apply, so you would get no bonus. Automatic Defenses cannot be hindered or disabled unless they have the Can Be Hindered Disadvantage.

Customizing Abilities
You can customize your abilities with Advantages And Disadvantages, however the main thing that makes your abilities unique is the free-form description, and you dont need to spell out the consequences in terms of any mechanics. If your Power is Flame Blast, then it goes without saying that this power doesnt work in water or in a vacuum, and it might be dangerous to use in a zeppelin. On the other hand, it also goes without saying that you can also use the Power to light up a dark room or to provide warmth if the party is caught in a blizzard. If you described your Power as Psychic Flames instead of physical ames, and specify that it creates an illusion in enemies minds that convinces them theyre burning, then although it will usually work just like a Flame Blast, theres no reason it shouldnt work under water. You likely wont be able to light things on re with it, or light up a room, but physical armor would probably provide no defense. All of these advantages and disadvantages are implicit in the description, and do not need to be bought. If a Power has an especially wide range of applications, particularly if you can use it not only as an attack and defense, but also to move things around, manipulate them, inuence their actions and so forth you should take the FlexibleAdvantage on the Power. If the Power is so versatile that its easier to list what 16

What Counts as a Power?

There are often several possible ways to divide your abilities up into powers. If you can psionically cause

Mechanics for Abilities people to sleep, nd you persuasive, or become confused, do you want these to be three separate powers or one power called Telempathy? If you have a suit of Powered Armor that increases your strength, provides you protection and life support, and has mini-missiles one the shoulders and a blaster built into the chest, you could have one Power Powered Armor or ve separate Powers your armor gives you. The difference is that with the rst option you could use at most one of your armors powers each round, but with the second you could potentially use your armor in ve different ways each round (if you have enough Actions). You do not need to purchase Powers that are for color rather than for combat advantage. Your character can turn televisions or lights on and off with a glance without a special power. Only buy it as a Power instead of a Shtick if you plan to be able to use it to harm or defend against a foe, possibly by distracting them (e.g. Keep Em Talking is a perfectly viable automatic defense, though the Primary Rule would imply it could only be used against things that understand your language). If the Power you have in mind isnt actually directly useful in combat, it is probably better to treat it as color and not list it as a power. For example, a werewolf can change into a wolf, but what makes that useful is that the wolf form has claws and fangs, a superior sense of smell, and regenerates. On the other hand, you cannot go through life as a wolf, because its hard to turn doorknobs. So you dont have to list Shift into wolf form as a power; instead, Only usable in wolf form would be minor Disadvantages on some of your powers, such as Claws and Fangs. It is assumed that given enough time and resources, without distractions or opposition, a Scientist can do pretty much anything the settings science will allow. If you are not a scientist, you know one you can bribe, beguile, seduce, or intimidate. So you can accomplish all kinds of stuff in downtime without needing a separate power listed on your sheet. If the settings technology allows you to regrow somebodys full body as long as you save the head, you dont have to list that as a Power, you just have to justify how you manage to get access to the appropriate facilities to repair your injured companions. Just make sure your descriptions of your downtime activities are consistent with your character concept. Your downtime activities will also be fodder for GM plots, so abuse of this rule will often backre on you. according to the Primary Rule, e.g. you can Combine your Keen Sense of Smell Shtick with your Catlike Reexes Power to give yourself a better chance against an invisible attacker. Under unusual circumstances the Primary Rule may dictate that a Shtick actually be used directly to attack or defend; usually this is the result of the target having a Restriction or Complication that makes this possible. If a creature has the Restriction Ultrasensitive hearing, can be hurt by high pitched noises then a Shtick such as Opera Singer could be used as an attack by describing how you sing an E above high C.

Mechanics for Abilities

Each power has a numerical rating, which determines two dice to roll when using your Ability. Sometimes there is also a xed number to add in to one or both dice. When you use your Ability, you roll both kinds of dice, and add in the modier if any. You take the higher of the two as your result. If the Ability is opposing another characters Ability, they do the same, and the bigger value is the one who succeeds; the difference determines how big the success was. If someone succeeds on an attack against you, you are usually Hindered. That means that you only roll the larger die when you use a power, until you or someone else takes an action to free you from the hindering effect. The table describes what dice correspond to what power levels. You only roll an uncontested Ability if it is not absolutely clear that you could use the Ability for that purpose, or if you have reason to care whether it takes several tries or extra time and effort to succeed; if you have all the time in the world, just assume that you would get the maximum that you could roll on the dice and go from there. Roll the two dice listed and take the higher result. In Zap! you never add the dice together. PL 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Dice 1 point single d4 d4, d4 d6, d4 d6, d6 d8, d6 d8, d8 d10, d8 d10, d10 d12, d10 d12, d12 PL 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Dice d8+5, d12 d8+5, d8+5 d10+5, d8+5 d10+5, d10+5 d12+5, d10+5 d12+5, d12+5 d8+10, d12+5 d8+10, d8+10 d10+10, d8+10 d10+10, d10+10 d12+10, d10+10

What Counts as a Shtick?

Anything that cannot plausibly be used on its own for attacking or defending is a Shtick. Many Shticks are used to do research and gather information, to operate and repair equipment, to inuence other characters in social situations, or to enhance Powers in combat. Note that Shticks can be used in Combination with Powers to attack or defend, as long as it makes sense 17

Note that the Power Levels follow an easy to remember pattern up to 12. At even levels you use two dice of the same size, and that size matches the level (Power Level 4 is d4, d4; Power Level 6 is d6, d6; Power Level 8 is d8, d8...). Odd levels have one die of the

3. F ILLING I N T HE T EMPLATES next higher level and one of the next lower (Power Level 5 is a d6 and a d4, Power Level 7 is a d8 and a d6, Power Level 9 is a d10 and a d8...). It gets a tiny bit trickier once you get past d12: past d12 the dice go d8+5, d10+5, d12+5, d8+10, d10+10, and so on. However, since at any given Scope the Powers and Shticks begin at around PL 4-6, it will be quite a while before that becomes an issue. turning into a wait while the Scientist character hangs around in the ships lab until the device is ready. When you perform three successful scenes in which you are doing research (scenes where the focus is research and you score a success with your Research Shtick if necessary), your device is ready, and you announce what it does. It should be one very specic effect, such as Shrink giant insects or paralyze methane-breathing creatures. While you should be researching during this time, that doesnt mean you cant participate in scenes. You can put down your tools and zap the creature attacking you in the lab, or go out to the scene of the crime and collect scientic samples. If you decide a roll ought to be required other PCs can assist you by using their investigative abilities to perform relevant research. The difculty is set to be the base power level of the intended target.

Research
The Scientists Science! Power is slightly special, in that it starts off as a slightly weaker power and can be upgraded during the course of an adventure by doing Research into the nature of whatever the PCs are facing in order to tailor the power specically to whats currently necessary. There are three variations: Starting with an Ultra-Flexible power that can do most anything but is at low level and can Power Up through Research to a higher level; Starting with a high level Power that has one specic use and can Power Up to Ultra-Flexible; Starting with medium power and exibility that can Power Up to full power and Ultra-Flexible. In all three variations, the procedure for doing Research remains the same: you must, over the course of the adventure, engage in three separate scenes that revolve around your character and your allies doing the necessary Research into the device or scientic principle youre trying to create, using your Research Shtick. In most cases the Research Shtick should work without a roll. If a roll is required because the player is unsure whether their type of science really can accomplish what theyre aiming to do (say a neuroscientist whose powers operate on brains is trying to research a device to deactivate a robot), the GM should assign a difculty based on the power level of the target; if the roll fails, the Scientist cant try again in that scene, and will have to come up with some other approach to moving the research forward or a different sort of device. For instance, you might have a scene where you and possibly your allies are using the ships computer records to identify the creature attacking the colonists; a scene where you go to the mine where the colonists were attacked to recover alien tissues that the device requires; and a scene where you use the ships lab and that tissue to create a device capable of paralyzing the creature. The exact nature of the scenes should be determined during play, through the players and GM deciding whats plausible given whats been going on so far, rather than a cookiecutter approach: computer library, tissue, lab. Its justifying what your character is doing as an occasion to employ the Research Shtick; the requirement that there be three such scenes and that the scenes be different is just to prevent every adventure from 18

Advantages And Disadvantages

Advantages are aspects that make a Ability more useful, and Disadvantages are things that makes it less useful. For instance if a Ability is exceptionally Flexible so that almost anything can be justied according to the Primary Rule, thats an Advantage; if a Ability has a more limited use than normal, for instance it can only be used to defend against cold-based attacks, thats a Disadvantage. There are both Big and Small Advantages and Disadvantages (labeled AA and A, or DD and D), and their effects on a Ability are cumulative. A Small Advantage on a Ability costs one Boost, a Big Advantage costs 2, a Small Disadvantage gives you an extra Boost to spend on that Ability, and a Big Disadvantage gives you two extra Boosts on that Ability (you may not take a Disadvantage on a Ability in order to get Boosts to spend on some other Ability or Attribute).

Advantages:
Advantages represent some quality of the Ability that makes it more useful. You should only give the Ability an advantage if it represents a signicant increase in the Ability. Many little side effects that might be advantageous under some circumstances are already covered by the description. For instance, if you have a Sleep Gas Ability it isnt necessary to take Exotic even though its implied that something like a Shield or Tough Hide wouldnt be useful as a defense. Other fairly common Abilities like Life Support or Immunity to Poison would clearly stop the Ability altogether, while still others would depend on how they were described as being used (e.g., using Reexes to jump out of the way, or Control Wind to blow it away) and so would get to roll for defense. Exotic would be required for something like Psionic Assault, or Time stop, since its quite difcult to reason through whether its at all plausible for Reexes or Magic Shield to interfere. Note

Advantages: that this depends largely on how you choose to dene the Ability: if you dene it so that Psionic Assault would have to roll against so simple a thing as dodging with Reexes or Acrobatics, or be completely negated by Armor or Rocky Hide, then you wouldnt need to justify it with the Exotic Advantage. (AA) indicates a Big Advantage; (A) a Small Advantage. Area Effect (AA) The Ability affects all targets (friend or foe) in an area at full power, without needing to split it. Number affected is still limited by the Power Level. Area Effect, lesser (A) The Ability affects one chosen target at full power, and some additional nearby targets (friend or foe) at reduced power (one die each). Number affected is still limited by the Power Level. Bare Handed (A) The Ability doesnt require any equipment as part of its narration; it gets both dice regardless. Control (AA) a Knock Out with this Power will allow you to control the actions of the target until the Knock Out is broken, at the cost of 1 Action per Round. Merely Hindering the target with a Control Power will let you force the target to take a single Action in the targets Turn; this will use one of the targets Actions and one of the targets Abilities (if required) before the target regains control; if the target is Hindered by some previous attack, he or she will not break free of the Hindrance rst unless thats the command, instead the Action commanded will be taken while still Hindered. Delayed (A) the effect of the Ability doesnt occur until either a specied event or a certain amount of time has elapsed. You could use this Advantage to create a bomb, or set a trip-wire, or use a Power with the Control Advantage to give somebody a post-hypnotic suggestion (though in the latter case you would need the Subtle Advantage as well or the target would know about it). Exotic (AA) An Exotic attack cant be defended against by ordinary Abilities, so targets use the Default Skill instead. E.g., A mystic curse or psychic bolt cant be usually be stopped by armor or a force-eld. Exotic attacks must dene a fairly broad class of circumstances that automatically negate them (e.g., any magical defense, any unusual metabolism, Abilities being based on technology, being a non-magical creature, etc). In addition, Defenses which are Flexible or UltraFlexible should get their normal roll unless theres clearly no way they could help. Things like poison gas or blinding ashes of light are not Exotic, in and of themselves, because ordinary Powers or even Shticks (such as having Life Support built into your suit, or Lightning Reexes to close your eyes) could justify a defense roll if they dont negate the 19 Power completely. You may have only one Exotic Power, unless all your Exotic Powers are negated by the same circumstances. Flexible (A) The Ability can justify a wide range of effects (e.g., electromagnetic powers). Whether a Ability should be counted as Flexible or not is up to the player; generally a Power thats mostly used for attacking or defending, with occasional use for extra things that directly follow from its nature (such as a lightning bolt short-circuiting electronics) doesnt need the Flexible Advantage even if it can take many forms, such as a lightning bolt, a ball of lightning, grabbing someone to shock them, and so on; a Ability thats intended to be used to do many things beside simple attack and defense, such as picking up objects, holding things, fencing them off, gathering or concealing information, and the like should be given the Flexible Advantage. Larger Scope (AA) The Ability operates one Scope higher than normal; this doesnt change the Power Level, even when used versus targets at the normal Scope, it merely changes the interpretation of the Ability in terms of things like weight, speed, area, range, etc. Ultra-Flexible (AA) The Ability can justify almost any effect (e.g., Sorcery); you must still choose some things that are beyond its capabilities. UltraFlexible is like Flexible, but with even more applications. Where a Flexible Power might be one that can pick up or push things in addition to attack and defense, or can create an illusion in addition to attack and defense, an Ultra-Flexible Power is one that could do all those and more. A typical Ultra-Flexible Power is one where it is harder to think of things that it shouldnt be permitted to do rather than things that it should. Persistent (AA) The Ability will remain in effect as long as you spend your entire turn maintaining it, and no external force interferes. Power-up (A) The power level can be increased, under some circumstances, or at a cost or risk. Pick a Large Disadvantage, and a way of spending two Boosts on the Ability (e.g., +2 power level, one Large Advantage, 2 Small Advantages, or +1 level and a Small Advantage) The Ability can be used at the higher level if the character takes the Disadvantage for that use. If the Disadvantage affects future uses of the Ability, e..g, Burnout, it affects the entire Ability, not just the power-up. It must be a Disadvantage that makes sense for a single use. Subtle (A) Its not obvious that the Ability is being used, unless you have a Ability that grants you appropriate senses. Telepathy or Mind Control are typical Abilities that benet from this Advantage,

3. F ILLING I N T HE T EMPLATES but it could apply to something more prosaic, like an invisible Sleep gas. Equipment Required (D) The Ability cannot operate without equipment, e.g. Wormhole Navigation, assuming you need a computer to do the calculations. Automatic Can be Disabled (D) automatic defenses normally are only reduced to a single die when Disabled (how do you render somebodys rocky skin completely ineffective?), but this Power can be interfered with as if it were a Regular Power instead; e.g., if Captain Patriot took his Shield as a automatic Defense (so he can use it to defend without having to spend an Action), ordinarily attackers couldnt totally Disable it at all. Since that doesnt make complete sense (if they physically take it away, how would he still defend with it?) he takes as automatic Can be Disabled meaning when somebody can Disable it as if it were a Regular Power. automatics that Can Be Disabled still roll both dice to resist. Erratic (D) The Ability does nothing when you roll a Mishap. Fragile (D) The Ability is hard to repair once disabled; when an attempt is made to disable it, a Hinder counts as Out, and Out means that the Ability cant be repaired without spending hours outside of combat, possibly at a base or lab with special tools. Ultra-Fragile (DD) The Ability is so hard to repair once disabled that when an attempt is made to disable it, a Hinder counts as the Ability being unable to be repaired without spending hours outside of combat, and Out means the Ability cant be repaired except by going on an adventure to restore it, or spending 1 XP . Limited (D) The Ability can only be used when certain conditions are met, which should occur about half the time or when you cant control the circumstances. E.g., a Ability that only works when you have both hands free, or a automatic Defense that only works against impact attacks (being punched, hit with ying buildings, and so on, but not lasers, re, and the like). Very Limited (DD) The Ability can only be used when certain rare conditions are met, which should occur during the occasional adventure and not under your control. E.g., Ability only works under water in a campaign set on dry land, Ability only works during a full moon, or a automatic Defense that only works against cold-based attacks. Shots (D) The Ability has a xed amount of shots that gets expended; number of uses can be up to 8. The hero must take active steps, such as returning to base, in order to replenish it. Side Effects (D or DD) Instead of doing nothing when you roll a Mishap, something bad happens, such 20

Disadvantages:
Disadvantages represent some Disadvantage that makes the Ability less useful than the Primary Rule would otherwise allow. It is not intended that you place Disadvantages on Abilities merely to represent the Disadvantages that such a Ability would naturally have given the Primary Rule. For instance, even though re requires oxygen and can only burn ammable materials, you wouldnt take Circumstanced Limited to represent it not working without oxygen, or not harming things that arent ammable unless the intent was to make it even more vulnerable to those circumstances than you would assume such as requiring high concentrations of oxygen as from a tank of compressed oxygen, or only capable of damaging things at all if they are as easily combustible as, say, paper. (DD) indicates a Big Disadvantage; (D) is a Small Disadvantage. Absorption (D) The Ability must be used as a defense each time before it can be used for any other purposes; in other words you must use it to absorb an incoming attack in order to Power it up. Automatic Can Be Hindered (DD) automatic defenses are normally not affected by Hindering or Disabling, but this Power is. Reduce it to one die when you are Hindered. Burn Out (DD) If you roll doubles the Ability works this time but burns out and cant be used again; restoring the Ability can only be done by application of some suitable other Ability or being out of combat for three Turns (e.g., by using Gadgeteering to x Powered Armor, or by returning to your base to repair it). If the Ability is reduced to a single die for some reason, such as being Hindered, roll that single die for the result, then roll the second die to see if it burns out. Combination Difcult (D) Cannot be combined with your own Abilities. Combination Impossible (DD) Cannot be combined with any other Abilities. Delayed (D) The Ability goes off one turn after the Action is spent. Disabling Only (DD) The Power can only be used to Disable other Powers (e.g., a Power that drained mutant powers). Easily Disabled (D) The Ability is easy to disable; when targeted, it defends itself with only one die. Captain Patriots shield is easier to take away or interfere with than the Living Flames Fire Blasts, so he takes it as Easily Disabled.

Disadvantages: as hitting an ally, or yourself. The GM decides the exact effect when the roll occurs. The small version does something strange, but probably not dangerous. Single-Action Defense (D) when used as an active defense only defends against a single attack, rather than throughout the round as normal. Single Use (DD) The Ability can only be used once per combat. Replenishes automatically between combats (at least three consecutive Turns while not using any Actions). Slow (D) The Ability takes 2 Actions to use. Ultra-Slow (DD) The Ability takes 3 Actions to use. Unpredictable (DD) The effect of the Ability is up to the GM, not the player (though it still must be benecial). A Note On Flexibility Unlike some of the other Advantages, Flexible and Ultra-Flexible advantages arent very sharply dened. Even having a Power that represented a variety of equivalent attacks that differ in such minor things as whether theyre melee or ranged or the exact avor of damage, such as being armed with a sword and a bow, or having a suit that has wrist-blasters, laser eye-beams, and a chest cannon doesnt really make the Power much more Flexible as long as conceptually the powers do the same sorts of things, such as damage targets. Its when the Ability can be either be altered on the y or has a number of completely distinct uses so that it can take advantage of the Primary Rule to do a wide variety of different things that it becomes an issue. For instance, since a sword and a gun would in general both be straightforward attacks (kinetic energy, even) theres no need to apply the Flexible Advantage to a Power that represents having both. On the other hand, if your Power is a gun that can switch between ring a laser and lifting things via gravitational force or generating illusions of scary monsters, that probably should be given the Flexible Advantage to make up for being able to use the Power in an especially wide set of circumstances. Similarly if your Ability is a utility belt that contains a bunch of different things such as handcuffs, lock-picks, listening devices, a cutting torch, and a ash-bang grenade, that would be represented by the Flexible Advantage. Generally with the Flexible Advantage you should be able to dene what it does in advance, and should limit yourself to no more than the Ability Level in different aspects at once, so the aforementioned Utility Belt with ve tricks would require PL 5. That doesnt preclude using the Primary Rule to come up with new clever uses for, say, handcuffs, but it should preclude suddenly discovering a new device thats just what you need for the situation in there. If it makes sense, you are free to change the list of what your Flexible 21 Ability does (e.g. what tricks you are carrying in your utility belt) between adventures, or if you return to your base. Ultra-Flexible Abilities, on the other hand, represent those that have uses too numerous to list out in advance, or that can be recongured on the y by the hero. With a utility belt using the Ultra-Flexible advantage, you are allowed to just discover that youve packed away a can of aerosol shark-repellant for just this occasion, or (in a more serious vein) that you have the chemicals needed to whip something like that up on a moments notice. With Ultra-Flexible Abilities you should be scrupulous in dening in advance categories of things that the Ability cannot do. Generally the Ultra-Flexible Ability should have either one small restriction per PL above 6 (such as cant affect targets with a completely inhuman metabolism) or half that many large restrictions (such as cant affect inanimate objects, or targets with no mind). More powerful Ultra-Flexible Abilities thus are more restricted, but theyre much more dangerous because they can be tailored to the immediate situation. Flexibility should not be used just to have a bunch of different attacks to tailor them to bypass the targets defenses; if you wish to have a Power that is particularly hard to defend against, take the Exotic advantage instead, or in addition. Flexibility is meant to give you more options in how you describe using your Power and the tasks it can apply to, not just a straight mechanical advantage in knocking foes out. In any event, Flexibility has no bearing on whether a Power goes against Toughness, Stamina, or Will: that is determined by the Primary Rule description of how the Power is being used. A Laser Gun might be an attack against Toughness if red directly against a foe, against Stamina if it were used to rupture a nearby coolant line to release a choking cloud of gas, or even against Will if you were snapping off shots trying to force the foes to keep under cover. Whether to represent several different things that you can do as a single Power with the Flexible Advantage or take several different Powers is a matter of style. Since you can only use a Power once per Round, if you envision using it two different ways in the same Round, or it seems implausible to you that using say, your powered armors chest beam should preclude you using its life-support at the same time, you should take the powers separately.

New Advantages and Disadvantages

The list of Advantages and Disadvantages is not exhaustive, and you can consult with the GM and other players about new ones youd like to add. Before you do, though, you should consider whether it can be handled by one of the existing ones, some of which are quite broad, or by a Complication, or just by applying the Primary Rule given how you imagine the Power working. Zap! discourages min-maxing (tweaking characters to get the maximum effectiveness for

3. F ILLING I N T HE T EMPLATES the minimum drawbacks), so before you add a new Advantage or Disadvantage you should really consider whether its necessary to capture the concept of the Power and not just an excuse to be able afford an extra Power or Advantage or to make the Power useful out of all proportion to its Power Level. One quick test is if you wouldnt mind if the enemies start employing the same Advantage or Disadvantage on their Powers, its probably okay. Addiction: You need a certain unusual substance or activity to survive, or are compelled to seek it. If you are deprived of this substance, you can be distracted by its presence. This counts as being hindered until you obtain it or it is removed from your presence. Alter Ego: Under some circumstances, your body is taken over by a personality that doesnt take your wishes into account. For example, a human host of an alien symbiont might generally be the dominant personality but sometimes nd the alien in control. Aversion: You nd a common substance unpleasant to be around, e.g., a desert-world alien that hates water. You will avoid it if at all possible, and if suddenly presented with it, will cringe away. This usually takes one Action. You cannot usually be affected multiple times. Block: There is a common activity that you cannot do. For example, a cyborg might be unable to swim. Compulsion: Under some circumstance, you must do something whether you wish to or not. You lose control of your actions until this is nished. For example, a shapeshifting alien might be required to spend one hour out of 24 in a liquid state, unable to take any actions. Ritual: You need to undertake a daily ritual to keep your powers or stay healthy. If you dont get the chance to perform the ritual, your powers are hindered or disabled until you can do it. For instance, certain kinds of robots might need to recharge daily. Susceptibility: A certain substance hurts you. You are hindered while in its presence, and it may eventually be fatal. Example: a methane-breathing alien might nd oxygen poisonous. Taboo: You are not permitted to do something that most people do. If you do it, major portions of your power will be blocked until the situation is remedied. E.g. A robot might be programmed to obey the Three Laws of Robotics, and malfunction or become catatonic if it ever accidentally harmed a human Vulnerability: A certain substance or kind of attack hurts you disproportionately. E.g. an alien with really sensitive hearing that is more easily hurt by sonic attacks. Your defenses against this kind of attack count as hindered, even the automatic ones, so you only roll one die for each defense.

Mishaps
Some Disadvantages such as Erratic or Side-Effects only trigger when the hero rolls a Mishap on an attempt to use the power. Mishaps never occur outside the context of these Disadvantages, so most of the time you dont have to consider it. Mishaps dont occur if the use of the power doesnt require a roll, unless the hero has the Frequent Mishaps Disadvantage. If the power has such a Disadvantage then if a roll on the power comes up doubles, there is a chance of a Mishap. Roll a d12 to conrm whether theres a Mishap: if you roll less than or equal to the die-size of the highest die, then a Mishap has occurred and the Disadvantage takes effect. E.g. a PL 7 (d6, d4) power has Burn-Out as a Disadvantage: the player rolls 3, 3 which means theres a chance of a Mishap. She rolls a d12, and if she gets a 6 or less the power burns out. Disadvantages that have a chance of Mishap will occur 1/12 of the time (powers rolling bigger dice have less chance of doubles, but more chance that doubles are conrmed as a Mishap). If a Power that can have a Mishap has been reduced to a single die, such as when you are Hindered, instead of checking for doubles roll a d12. On a roll of 12 a Mishap occurs. Alternate Method If players nd it simpler they can roll a separate d12 Mishap die whenever they roll a power with such a Disadvantage, and the Mishap occurs on a roll of 12, regardless of what the other dice show. The odds of Mishap are the same, but it requires rolling more dice since you roll the Mishap die every time and not just when doubles come up.

Restrictions
Scientists and Uniques need to choose a Restriction. A xed set of Restrictions will be part of the templates for most alien creatures. Restrictions should be severe enough that they could be used to denite strategic advantage by a foe that knows about you, while not crippling your character for play. Below are several kinds of restriction for inspiration; this is not meant as a complete list, but suggests how severe restrictions ought to be. You can group minor restrictions together, especially of the same kind, to make a more serious restriction. 22

Chapter 4

Spending your Boosts

You have a certain number of Boosts to spend on your character, usually 3. As you gain experience, you will be able to purchase more Boosts. The number of XP you need to get an additional Boost is equal to your current number of Boosts. Each Boost can be spent for one of the following: Add one to one of the four attributes: Toughness, Stamina, Will, and Actions. Increase one power by 1 level or give it a small Advantage. 2 Boosts give it a big Advantage. Increase two Shticks by 1 level each, or one Shtick by 2 levels. Add one new power. The starting level is given in your template. Add two new Shticks at the starting level in your template, or one Shtick at one higher level. Get a companion, base, or vehicle. You can then spend additional Boosts to improve these. Get three Assets. Assets are things like Favors, Contacts You may increase an Ability by giving that Ability Disadvantages; a Small Disadvantage lets you increase it by 1 or give it a Small Advantage; a Big Disadvantage lets you: increase it by 2; add 2 Small Advantages; increase by 1 and add one Small Advantage; add a Big Advantage.

Toughness
Toughness is how physically durable you are. The higher your Toughness, the more likely you are to avoid becoming Out (of the ght) due to most types of attack.

Will
Will is how mentally prepared and determined you are. The higher your Will, the harder you are to Control or put Out with a mental attack. You also get a bigger bonus when making a Supreme Effort.

Stamina
Stamina is your endurance. It represents your ability to push beyond your normal limits, as well as your resistance to certain unusual forms of attack such as energy drains, being strangled or drowned. The higher your Stamina, the harder you are to put Out with attacks that weaken you, such as Energy Drain or Poison Gas. You can also exert yourself more often by using Supreme Effort more frequently and are less likely to be tired by invoking Failure is Not an Option!

Actions
Actions is the number of distinct actions you can take during a Round. Using an Active Power counts as an Action even if you dont end up rolling the dice, as does manipulating objects such as opening a door, pressing a big red destruct button, or calling somebody on a cell phone. For instance, if you use your Ice Mastery Power to create a slide to catch a falling child you dont need to roll for success, but it does still take one of your Actions for the Round. Think of an Action as a single panel in a comic book, or a single shot in a movie. One thing to keep in mind is that you can only use most Powers once per Round, and each use takes an Action; only Automatic Powers can be used multiple times in a Round and dont cost an Action to use. When creating your character you usually want to balance your number of Powers with your Actions. If you have many Powers but few Actions, you wont use most of your Powers in any one Round, although 23

Attributes
Boosts can be spent on increasing your Attributes. Attributes in Zap! are characteristics that everybody has. Three of the Attributes are primarily defensive, representing how much characters can resist various types of Powers: Toughness, Will, and Stamina. The remaining Attribute, Actions, is how many different things you can do in a Round. An ordinary person has a score of 1 in each, but player characters start with at least 2 in each. Having 3 in an attribute would make you one of the worlds toughest humans in that respect, and a 5 or more is denitely superhuman.

4. S PENDING

YOUR

B OOSTS in what its doing and gets no Actions. XP that you earn can be spent on improving the Avatar instead in the same way that you would improve your own character. The Avatar will interact with objects and other Avatars in cyberspace just as characters do in the game-world, though the way that cyberspace looks and behaves according to the Primary Rule may vary considerably from the way the meatspace world works; the GM and the players should take extra care to discuss how it ought to work to avoid clashing assumptions and styles.

it gives you a wide variety of Powers to pick from. If you have many Actions but few regular Powers, many of your Actions will be spent assisting teammates to recover or performing tasks that dont require Powers, such as closing doors, kicking away dropped weapons, and so on.

Assets
Boosts can also be spent on Assets. Assets are things owned by your character, such as Companions, Avatars, Vehicles, or Bases. Assets can belong to a group rather than individual. If you are the crew of a starship, the ship can belong to all of you. If a group shares an Asset, they can divide up the costs arbitrarily. Each can contribute a share of XP including the , XP needed for the rst Boost needed to purchase the Asset.

Vehicles
Some characters have special Vehicles that allow them to get to where the action is. Vehicles need not be at the same Scope as the characters. Ones at the same Scope take the characters from place to place within an adventure or can be used in combat scenes. Spaceships will generally be on a completely different Scope from the characters, and have their own Chapter on designing and using them (see Ships). Vehicles can carry teammates and cargo as well as you. You dont need a Vehicle as an Asset to have a drivers license and car. Only purchase a Vehicle if it has special abilities of its own, or you actually use it in a ght. A land-speeder is just a hovercraft that takes you to the dives in the starport. That wouldnt count as a Vehicle. But Serenity, the ship in Firey, is almost a character in its own right, and would certainly be bought as a Vehicle. Vehicle Toughness 2 Movement 4 (D) Power-up +2 if traveling out-ofcombat Defense 4 automatic defense Cost: 1 Boost. You can describe your Vehicle as tting any number of passengers, but the larger it is, the more restricted it will be in going off-road, landing, or docking as appropriate. You can give your Vehicle Boosts as you would a Companion. The rst Boost costs 1 XP then , the second 2, and so on. This does not count towards increasing your own Boosts. If you trade one of your initial Boosts for 3 XP you can thus use this to improve , your starting Vehicle by two Boosts. Vehicles start with only Toughness as an Attribute, but you can purchase Will and Actions. A Vehicle with 0 Actions can still use its Movement power to move, since that costs 0 Actions. To use any other power, or to use the Vehicles Movement to attack or defend, you would need to use one of your own Actions. If you buy your Vehicle at least one Action, it can perform independent actions. If it has zero Will, your character must have trained or programmed it explicitly for these actions. If it has a Will of at least 1, it has some kind of intelligence, and can react to circumstances without explicit input from you. You can also use a Boost to buy a spaceship, starting with one of the base Ship Templates (equivalent 24

Companions
Many characters in science ction have assistants, servants, pets, or trusted companions. Any type of creature can be a Companion, from a ying, acidspitting mini-dragon to a mindless android awaiting your instructions, to a trusted friend. One Boost gets you a Companion with all Attributes 1, three powers at 5, and two Shticks at 4. Experience points spent on Companions dont increase your heros Boosts (and hence, do not increase the XP Cost to buy future Boosts for you), but do increase Boosts a costs for the Companion. It costs 1 XP to give your Companion 1 Boost. From then on, it costs XP equal to the total number of Boosts your Companion already has to give it an additional Boost. So a second XP gives it a second Boost, then 2 more XP are required to give it a third. If you want to give your Companions extra Boosts to start, you can trade one of your Boosts for 3 XP and spend that on your Companion or other Assets. Not every friend or ally needs to be a Companion. What distinguishes a Companion from a friend is that a Companion will obey you almost unquestioningly, and are willing to place themselves in danger for you.

Avatars
Certain kinds of Science Fiction stories, notably Cyberpunk, have much of the activity take place in cyberspace or a virtual reality. If this is a once-in-a-while activity in the game, it can be handled as an ordinary Power (e.g. Hacking, Cybersystems) but if its going to be the basis of a lot of the action, the characters can have Avatars, which are complete characters in their own right that exist only in the VR/cyberspace setting. One Boost gets you an Avatar thats a complete character, using whatever Template you choose; it need not be the same Template as the real-world version of the character. When you are using your Avatar in cyberspace, your meatspace character is absorbed

Assets to 10 Wealth Points); some campaigns may be based around the players all being crew on a much more powerful Ship, in which case the GM should just design the ship using whatever budget seems sensible and the players need not spend any Boosts to have it as an Asset. creasing the Power up by one level of Scope. A City-Scope base could thus have a scanner that could monitor an entire Region, or a teleporter capable of Interplanetary jumps.

Minor Assets Bases

Characters often require a base of operations, where they can store their equipment and mementos of their past adventures, keep their labs and scientic equipment, and recharge their robotic bodies. One Boost gets you an area or structure of any description, suitable for occupation. It could be a building in an ofce park, a secret asteroid base, a research compound on a private island, or perhaps a huge warehouse in the middle of nowhere. The structure will have Toughness 4 and other Attributes 0. It will have two Shticks at 4 usable by anyone inside, such as Research Library or First-Aid Kit. XP can be spent to improve a base, just like for Companions and Vehicles. You can give a base Attributes, Powers and Shticks. Powers and Shticks are only usable inside the base, or at the perimeter, as appropriate. If you dont give it any Actions, someone inside needs to use an Action to trigger any non-Automatic Power. If you give it Actions but no Will, the powers are programmable, following simple commands, and do not require someone else to spend Actions. If you give it a positive Will, there is some computer or other intelligence that controls the bases powers, and can act independently. Base Advantages These Advantages apply only to Powers that belong to the base, and apply to a specic Power of the base; you cant, for instance, take the Advantage Remote-Controlled as an advantage on the entire base and have it apply to all the Powers in the base for free. A bases Powers may also have Advantages from the regular list, where appropriate. Remote-Controlled (A) Remote-Controlled Powers can be activated by a hero from outside the base, as long as hes still within the Scope; the Power would still take effect within the base (though for some things, like looking up records on a computer, thats not really a Disadvantage). Long-Ranged (AA) Long-Ranged Powers can be operated from within the base but targeted at things outside of the base, as long as theyre still inScope. Powers would also need the RemoteControlled advantage to be operated from outside of the base to target something outside of the base, e.g., a Teleporter that a hero could use to travel to the base. Larger Scope (AA) Larger Scope Powers can operate at a Scope above that of the base; this advantage can be taken multiple times, each time in25 Some characters have special equipment, or perks, like security clearance or law-enforcement authority, some have contacts in the underworld or with the police, some are owed a big favor by somebody with unusual resources or power, and some are well-known enough to inuence peoples reactions to them for good or ill. These arent exactly Abilities, but they are capabilities that are similar in some ways. Minor Assets come in several avors: Equipment, Perks, Contacts, Favors, Wealth and Rank. At creation a character can spend one Boost on three Minor Assets appropriate to their Personal Scope. That is, if the Personal Scope is Scope 5 (City), then their contact has Citywide information/power/authority such as the Chief of Police or Mayor, anchor of the local news, owner of a local company, while a National-Scope Contact might be the President, CEO of a nation-wide corporation, star of a nationally broadcast television program, or a Supreme Court Justice. Minor Assets can be adjusted up or down from the base Scope two-for-one. So a City Contact could be traded for two Neighborhood contacts, or four Streetlevel contacts; in the other direction two City Contacts could be traded for one Regional Contact, and four could be traded for one National Contact. When rolling for the effect of a Minor Asset, that is where its not obvious from the nature of the Minor Asset and the Primary Rule whether it would apply or be effective, roll the Assets PL vs. a Difculty commensurate with the Scope. (See Difculty for Other Tasks 11.) Minor Assets begin at PL 4 unless otherwise stated. When spending XP you can choose to purchase , new Minor Assets, and XP spent on Minor Assets doesnt increase your heros Boosts. One point of XP (not one Boost) purchases 1 Minor Asset at the current Scope; increasing the Minor Assets PL by 1 costs 1 XP for the rst increase, 2 for the second, 3 for the third, and so on. Equipment Characters can begin with equipment appropriate to their Abilities for free; the die-size of the Equipment is equal to the lower die of the appropriate Power or Shtick, so this would be helpful in narrating what they can do, but wouldnt actually increase the roll. E.g. if the character has a power Photon Sword at PL 5, then a d4 Photon Sword would be free (since PL 5 rolls a d6 and a d4); if the PL had been 6, then the Photon Sword would start at 6. Spending 1 XP increases the die-size by one, 2 XP to increase it again, and so on; thus for one Boost (3 XP), that could become a d8

4. S PENDING

YOUR

B OOSTS Wealth If the campaign is using the optional Wealth rules, characters can start with Wealth as a Minor Asset. Wealth starts at 4, and can be increased like any Minor Asset (1 XP for the rst increase, 2 for the second, etc.) but unlike most Minor Assets is likely to increase or decrease during play, and not just as a result of spending XP If Wealth decreases during play, charac. ters dont get any XP they spent back. See Wealth for a full discussion of how Wealth is used. If youre not using the Wealth rules, or even if you are, characters can be wealthy as part of their background or as a Shtick, but that doesnt translate directly into buying and selling things; instead its handled narratively as part of the Primary Rule. I.e. a character might justify trying to bribe her way to see the Emperor with her Wealthy Shtick, but shouldnt just buy everybody on her ship d10 Powered Armor by appealing to her Shtick instead of spending XP for it under the Equipment rules. Rank A character may have a rank within a particular organization; rank acts much like a Contact, but its the characters own authority thats being exercised. The rank should be commensurate with the characters Adventure Scope, rather than Personal Scope. You can be a general without being able to ght like an army. Roll the PL in Rank vs. the Difculty set by the GM to determine whether your rank grants you sufcient authority. If you roll a Mishap while pulling rank, there should be repercussions, though the order may still be carried out if the roll was a success.

Photon Sword. See Equipmentfor a full discussion of Equipment. Perks A Perk is a special dispensation or benet that comes from the role the character plays in the community or with an organization. For instance, a character might be deputized by the local police force, allowing him to make legally sanctioned arrests, but requiring him to follow the same rules as to probable cause and evidence that the police follow. Another character might have security clearance with the Federal Government, or even a far-ung stellar empire. The effects and restrictions for having a Perk are worked out through the Primary Rule, though the GM might call for a roll of the Perk against the Difculty if theres some doubt as to whether the requested use is truly sanctioned by the Perk. Contacts A Contact is somebody with access to information or authority who can prove useful to the character. A contact might be a snitch in the local underworld, a pal in the Star Knight records department, the head of Interstellar Security Service, and so on, depending on the Scope. Contacts will cooperate with the character in areas that are within their competency and authority, but wont risk their lives or their careers to help. Contacts might also call upon the character to reciprocate. The effects and restrictions for having a Contact are worked out through the Primary Rule, though the GM might call for a roll of the Contacts PL vs. the Difculty if theres some doubt as to whether the contact really has the information or authority needed. You dont need a separate roll to see if the Contact will help; the roll of the Contacts PL vs. the Difculty covers that: failure could indicate the Contact wont help or cant help, depending on the Primary Rule. A Contact that would readily risk life and career to help the character should be taken as if it were a Companion, even if the contact would almost never accompany the character on an adventure. Favors A Favor is something big that somebody owes the characterbig enough that they might actually risk their life or career to help. Favors need not be owed to the character by Contacts or friends: the local gang lord might owe the hero a debt of honor for saving the gang lords daughters life, for instance. Favors can only be called in once, and then are gone. You dont usually need to roll to see if the person who owes you the favor will cooperate, but the GM might roll as with Contacts above if theres some doubt whether the favor being asked for is actually within the debtors power to grant; if theres some reason that the person isnt actually in the position to grant the favor, the favor isnt used up. 26

Chapter 5

Complications
Every good character has things that complicate life and add drama. It might be that in the eyes of the law, you are a dangerous criminal, or maybe your uncle wants you to stay home and be a moisture farmer instead of joining Star Academy. Perhaps you are poor, and have to struggle to earn enough credits to keep your rust-bucket starship ying. You should choose Complications to highlight themes you want to be dealing with in the game. Complications are invitations to the GM to focus on a particular aspect of your character or kind of adventure youd like to have. Every Zap! character has roughly the same number and severity of Complications. You are perfectly free to change your characters Complications between adventures; if you want to stop focusing on your money problems for a while you can tell the GM that and substitute a new Complication...perhaps you become the target of a local crime lord, who wants to recruit you as a smuggler. Removing poverty as a Complication doesnt necessarily mean that youre wealthy now, only that trying to earn enough credits for day-to-day ships expenses and repairs shouldnt crop up frequently in adventures. Most characters take one Big Complication and two Small Complications. Crew have the option of having 4 Small Complications instead, since their problems may be less of a character hook. A Big Complication is something that will crop up almost all the time, and will form one of the main themes of the character. Not every adventure will incorporate it, but it will come as no great surprise if one does. A Small Complication is one that only has an occasional impact, though it might be a big deal when it does, or if it crops up frequently it does so in a minor way. Complications can be chosen to be Big or Small depending on your preference. As a Small Complication, being Wanted by the Law might mean that you cant go to the police to ask for information or assistance, and you leave your neatly-wrapped foes for them to nd, bugging out before they can arrest you too. As a Big Complication, the police might actually try to arrest you in the middle of a battle, or even aid your foe thinking that he must be one of the good guys because hes ghting you! Since Complications are a way to focus the attention on your character, you dont want to take Com27 plications that everyone in your group will have, such as Hates Evil or Takes Risks.

Note On Complications
Try to avoid thinking of Complications as part of a price you have to pay to the GM in order to play a cool alien creature or kick-ass cyborg warrior; that can lead to picking a Complication that will annoy you when it crops up...but youre not playing the game in order to be annoyed, and its not the GMs job to keep you from having too much fun. Ideally you should be looking forward to your Complications coming up in an adventure, because it throws the spotlight on your hero and gives you a chance to either have some drama or be clever and engage in lateral thinking. Kryptonite wasnt introduced into Supermans mythos in order to make it more fair, it was created to make it more interesting. Having to rescue somebody from an area strewn with Kryptonite presented a challenge that couldnt be solved by a straight application of his awesome powers. When you choose Complications you should be thinking in terms of what sort of problems would you like to be presented with during play and whether those will actually be fun for you to deal with. Dont over-think it, though; remember, in Zap! when you get tired of a Complication you can simply set it aside and replace it with a new one. Ultimately the goal of Complications is to help the GM drive the game in directions that you nd interesting.

Chapter 6

Fleshing out Your Character

Drive
Drive is a description of your characters primary motivation, what makes her go off and explore strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations. It could be curiosity, duty, vengeance, the desire for personal power, protecting the innocent, or the quest for personal enlightenment. Your Drive will help you role-play your character, and help the GM come up with adventures that are interesting to you. appearance could reect your true nature (a bad-ass who looks every bit a bad-ass), it could be adopted deliberately to hide your true nature (a bad-ass who looks like Casper Milquetoast because being underestimated is useful), or it could be an ironic contrast to or statement about your true nature (the big scarylooking alien whos poetic and sensitive). In addition, a picture or description can help you resolve issues when it comes to applying the Primary Rule. There will often come times when you need to know whether your hero wears a closed helmet, say, or gloves, or has any accessible gadgets hanging from her belt; in these situations a picture can be worth a thousand words. Working out such details in advance, incidental to designing your heros appearance, can speed play and free you from worrying about whether youre being fair. If you are more of a visual person, you might even want to draw or use a computer sketch program to create an image of your character.

Back-story
What happened before your character decided to adventure? Did you attend an Academy that trained you? Were you kidnapped from your home-world? Did you stow away on a starship, seeking adventure or just an escape from the slums where you were born? Or is it just a job to you, not an adventure at all? Who are your family and friends? What do you do for a living? Describe the characters back story in as much or as little detail as you like. This is your opportunity to esh out who your character is and what she can do other than ght. You can add details about the characters civilian life, profession and hobbies, friends and family, skills and training, notable past adventures, and whatever else you think is relevant. Your back story need not be completely determined at the start of play. Serial ction is full of revelations of previously unmentioned background details, from members of your family having been killed decades before by this episodes villain, to the big bad actually being your father and your love interest your sister. Players should feel free to Retcon their characters pasts, though they should probably clear it with the GM before they do the kind that actually contradicts prior versions of the story, just in case the GM had built it into the campaign in a way that would be hard to x.

Appearance
Think about what image your character projects. How will others see her or him? Usually, your appearance is related to your true nature in one of three ways. Your 28

Chapter 7

Example Characters
Ace Astra, Starship Captain
Template: Crew Drive: Explore the Galaxy! Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Great Reexes 6 automatic defense. Academy Training 4 Trained at hand-to-hand combat and with pistols. Starship Command 5 Shticks Starship Command 5 Charm Your Pants Off 5 Inspire 5 Ace can rally the troops or change the course of a civilization with her oration Bluff 5 Tactics 5 History 5 Complications Major: Loyal commander. If Space Fleet orders it, Ace does her duty, however personally distasteful. Minor: Cant resist the opposite sex, and vice-versa. Minor: Takes responsibility for her 435 crew seriously. New Powers begin @ 4 New Shticks begin @ 5 New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4 Vehicle: The Peregrine Hull: 4, Toughness: 2, Power: 2, Crew: 0 Powers Movement 5 (D) Power-up to 7 w/chance of BurnOut Deector Shields 4 automatic defense Gun Turrets 4 Shticks Cargo Bay A 5 Cargo Bay B 5 Power Plant 5 Sensor Dish 5 Restriction: Cranky. Each session roll a random system that has the Erratic Disadvantage for that session Complications: Mortgaged; Jones has to keep working to pay off the ship, or itll be repossessed.

Parsifal Farmer
Template: Bad-ass Toughness: 3, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Photon Blade 5 Pilot 5 Star Knight Intuition 5 Star Knight Danger Sense 5 automatic defense Shticks Dirt Farmer 4 Mechanic 4 Star Knight Traditions 4 Star Knight Psi 4 (D) Slow (requires 2 actions), (A) Flexible: telekinetically move small objects, telepathic communication, detect psi powers, mind shield Equipment Photon Blade d8 Complications Major: Easily swayed by a pretty face Minor: Orphan Minor: Sister issues New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4

Solitaire Jones
Template: Bad-ass Drive: Get rich Toughness: 3, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Gunslinger 5 - shoots rst Alertness 5 automatic defense Hotshot Pilot 6 Shticks Maintenance 4 Knows a guy 4 - knows people everywhere Charming Rogue 4 Smuggler 4 Complications Major: Wanted by the law: Jones has outstanding arrest warrants on most of the central planets. Minor: Bad at fast talk: If Jones attempts to talk his way out of a situation, he usually makes it worse. Minor: Never tell me the odds: Jones is a lousy gambler. 29

7. E XAMPLE C HARACTERS

Dr. Markov
Template: Scientist Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Science! 7 (A) Power-up to Ultra-Flexible with 3 Research scenes Force-Shield Belt 4 automatic defense (A) Flexible Shticks Scientic Research 5 Boundless Enthusiasm 4 can carry otherwise sensible people along with his crazy schemes Complications Major: His curiosity will get him killed one day. Minor: Absent-minded Minor: Can let his scientic enthusiasm cloud his better judgment when it comes to building devices on the behalf of would-be conquerors

Grronk, Trog Co-pilot

Template: Unique Toughness: 4, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Big 6 Half again as big as a human, and strong to boot Hairy 6 automatic defense thick hair is hard to penetrate, and even if something does its hard to tell where the vital spots are in there Pilot 4 Can operate most of the ships systems, but starship piloting isnt typical of Trogs Shticks Starship Maintenance 3 can x systems that go wrong, sort of Wilderness Survival 4 Trogs are at home in the jungles and forests Complications Major: human-sized gear doesnt t Minor: Cant speak Galactic, though he understands it; his voice box and lips arent shaped correctly. Minor: Fastidious. Doesnt like to do anything that will make him have to clean all that hair. New Powers begin @ 6 (or 4 if they dont t the stereo-type) New Shticks begin @ 4 (or 3 if they dont t)

Adam Procyon, Clone Warrior

Template: Bad-ass Toughness: 3, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers Instinctive Combat Training 5 All forms of combat are literally programmed into his brain. Genetically Enhanced 5 automatic defense His genes have been modied to make him quick and very tough. Power Pilot 5 From jet-packs to star-ships, if he can operate the controls, he can y it. Shticks Demolitions 4 The art of destroying big things with little bombs. Security Systems 4 From computer surveillance to mechanical locks, he can bypass them. Interrogation 4 Getting what you want by being reaaaallly scary. Mechanic 4 A good soldier can maintain his equipment, and tank, and airplane... Complications Major: Adam was decanted without a personality overlay. He has no memories of a childhood, and no learned skills or knowledge. All he has learned is what he learned from the archeology team that discovered him. His personal skills are lacking, and he knows nothing of the universe. Minor: Adams programmed skills include an inclination to follow orders from anyone seen as an authority. He sometimes has trouble thinking for himself. Minor: Adam was built by a tyrant who tried to take over the galaxy, and gave it a good shot. Anyone who ever saw one of his brothers out of their uniform will recognize him as a Clone Warrior. New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4 30

Spotty, uplifted dog Engineer

Template: Crew Drive: Keep the damn ship working Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers Dog Gone 6 automatic defense. Hes small, fast, and never where you expect him. Telekinesis 4 His uplift includes telekinetic ability, but its not very strong RuffnTumble 4 knows how to ght with his teeth, and can take a kicking Shticks Starship Engineering 5 Dogged Determination 5 once he grabs hold of a problem he never lets go Nose for Trouble 5 Scrounger 5 he can nd parts almost anywhere, sometime even legally Streetwise 5 Party Animal 5 Complications Major: Hes a dog; until he speaks most people dont even know hes been uplifted, and he still sometimes has trouble getting strangers to take him seriously. Minor: Doesnt understand human society very well. Minor: No manipulatory appendages, so he has to use his weak telekinesis for anything humans do with their hands New Powers begin @ 4 New Shticks begin @ 5

Null Pointer, Hacker

Tok, Menton
Template: Menton Drive: Understand the universe Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers Logic 6 Mentons are relentlessly logical and capable of lightning calculations of trajectories and probabilities that serves them instead of formal combat training. Science! 6 specializes in physics and astronomy Alien Metabolism 6 automatic defense. Stronger, faster, and more resilient than humans. See Menton template for details. Shticks Scientic Research 4 specialty: physics Polymath 4 (AA) Ultra-exible. Knows a little bit of everything about everything except the soft-sciences Hyper-chess 4 Painting 3 Complications Major: Doesnt understand human society or emotions, though he nds them fascinating. Minor: Secretly addicted to 20th century soap operas Minor: Semi-friendly rivalry with ships psychologist Restriction: Doesnt do the soft sciences, such as psychology or medicine. New Powers begin @ 6 if they t the stereotype, 4 otherwise New Shticks begin @ 4 if they t, 3 otherwise

Ninja Teleport 5 can vanish in a puff of smoke and re-appear elsewhere. Shticks Cyberspace Streetwise 4 Knows the ins and outs of cyberspace, and the seamy underside and subculture Tracking 4 Can follow other avatars through cyberspace Patch 4 Can heal damage to avatars, including himself, by patching in new code Cool 4 the avatar is cool and sexy, with all the dark and brooding charisma and calm self-condence that Null doesnt have in meatspace.

Null Pointer, Hacker

Template: Scientist Drive: Riches Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions: 2 Powers Hacking! 5 (A) Power-up to Ultra-Flexible with 3 Research scenes Nebbish 4 automatic defense not worth noticing Shticks Computer Research 5 Geek culture 4 knows everything there is to know about anime, video games, comic books Complications Major: Easily duped by a pretty face. Minor: Poor social skills. Minor: For someone who professes to be driven by money, hes generous at inconvenient times Nulls Avatar Nulls Avatar in cyberspace; a cyber-ninja. In cyberspace, security systems will appear as creatures that he can ght with his powers. Template: Bad-ass Toughness: 3, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers Vorpal Blades 5 Viruses that appear in cyberspace as ninja swords, capable of ghting on their own. Ninja Stealth 5 automatic defense 31

Chapter 8

Alien templates
Here are some aliens suitable for PCs reminiscent of various SF tales. Most campaigns would replace these or at least add new ones to esh out the setting. Aliens should be designed to be able to work along side of humans (possibly using high technology) or whatever the baseline sophont of the setting is, e.g. no aliens that can only survive in an atmosphere that would be poisonous to all the other player characters unless being trapped in an environment suit is part of the challenge of playing that alien.

Menton Template
Mentons are relentlessly logical beings whove purged their society of useless emotion, except for once every seven years when they binge on it. Mentons are better than humans in practically every measurable way, yet somehow always seem to nd themselves in subordinate positions to humans, who have the emotional drive to get things done. Attributes: Tough: 2 Will: 2 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Logic: 6 Mentons are relentlessly logical and capable of lightning calculations of trajectories and probabilities that serves them instead of formal combat training. Science!: 6 Mentons are universally trained as scientists, and have a Science! specialty just as if they were using the Scientist template. Alien Metabolism: 6 automatic defense. Mentons are stronger, faster, and more resilient than humans, and many things that would poison human wont work on Mentons. In addition they have a rarely-noticed nictating membrane that can protect their eyes from excessively bright lights that would be enough to blind humans permanently. Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4) or 4 (d4, d4) if they t the stereotype New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Nerve Punch (study of humanoid nervous systems lets them select targets that will disable without injury), Mind Mold (Mentons can impose their own memories on others with esh-to-esh contact) New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise Restrictions: none Power Boosts: none

Klangon Template
Klangons are a race of boney-foreheaded aliens with a proud warrior culture, a love of opera, and taste for prune juice. Attributes: Tough: 4 Will: 2 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Great Strength: 6 (d6, d6) Hardiness: 6 (d6, d6) automatic defense Combat Training: 6 Klangons are trained almost from birth in armed and unarmed combat Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4) or 4 (d4, d4) if they t the stereotype New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Armored Exoskeleton (some Klangons elect to be permanently welded into their battlegear), Berserk (Klangons can go berserk, becoming nigh unstoppable: treat as an automatic healing power that will Unhinder or work to revive the Klangon if Out, after the battle the Klangon is Out even if uninjured). Other powers unique to that particular Klangon may be taken at 4. New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise Restrictions: Psi Weakness: Klangons never defend against Psi attacks with better than their Default Skill; Today Is A Good Day To Die: Klangon culture forbids surrender or retreat, and any Klangon known to have done so (even under direct orders) will be stripped of all rank and honors and socially ostracized until he or she can make good by dying spectacularly. Power Boosts: Because Toughness was increased by 2, the Klangon template needed 2 restrictions. 32

Deltan Template
Deltans are shape-shifting telempaths. They have a reputation for being somewhat ighty and emotional, but they often serve as ships psychologists. Attributes: Tough: 2 Will: 3 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Shapeshift: 6 Deltans can assume any form theyve seen before, of roughly the same mass; if that form has special non-technological, non-psi powers such as claws, stings, or acid breath, they will have those powers while in that form. Telempathy: 6 Deltans can sense and project emotions. Regeneration: 6 automatic defense. (A) Flexible. Deltans are hard to hurt for very long. Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4) or 4 (d4, d4) if they t the stereotype New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Mind Bond (Can form a permanent telepathic bond with one other, allowing two way communication of more than just emotions) New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise. Typical Shticks: Psychology, Protocol, Diplomacy, any Cultural or Art, Disguise, Acting Restrictions: Deltans must spend 1 hour out of every 24 in a quiescent chrysalis form. Power Boosts: Deltans have one power boost, to account for the Flexible Advantage on their regeneration.

Diplomatron
Diplomatrons are protocol bots, used as translators and diplomatic aides. Attributes: Tough: 2 Will: 2 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Diplomacy: 6 Diplomatrons are adept at negotiating with things, even while theyre attempting to harm them. Fault Tolerance: 6 Diplomatrons can still function even when severely damaged (missing parts, gaping holes, having to carry their heads around). Shticks: Languages 5 Politics 5 New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Psychological/Social defenses such as Lets talk this over. New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise: Typical Shticks are any knowledge or cultural Shticks except things like intimidation or interrogation. Restrictions: Pacist (personal only, doesnt try to dissuade others from violence). Power Boosts: Diplomatrons have one boost, to raise Languages and Politics Shticks by 1.

Warbot Template
Warbots are robots equipped and programmed for combat. Attributes: Tough: 4 Will: 3 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Armored Body: 6 Warbots are heavily armored, and as robots do not need to breath or eat, and are immune to things like poison and disease. Incinerator Beam: 6 Warbots typically have one heavy-duty attack. Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4) or 4 (d4, d4) if they t the stereotype New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Jump Jet, Ships Gunner, Force Field, Riot Gas New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise. Typical Shticks are Calculation, Tactics, Computer Interface, Military History, Politics, Use Military Equipment, Repair Restrictions: Warbots have a manual off switch as a fail-safe. Power Boosts: Warbots have one power boost, to up their Toughness by 1

Servo-Unit Servo-units are trashcan-shaped robots that are adept at interfacing with, controlling and repairing the software of other machines and robots. Attributes: Tough: 2 Will: 3 Stamina: 2 Actions: 2 Powers: Interface: 6 (AA) Control. Servo-Units can control computers, machinery, and other robots, provided they can physically interface with them. Not Worth Noticing: 6 Servo-Units are small and unassuming, and are so common in any civilized high-tech facility that they generally are unnoticed as they go about their business, even during a reght. Regeneration: 6 automatic defense. (A) Flexible. Deltans are hard to hurt for very long. Shticks: Repair 6 (DD) need to be able to control something else if repair requires physical manipulation Navigation 4 New Powers: The following will start at 6 if chosen: Ships Systems such as Gunner or Pilot New Shticks: Start at 4 if they t the stereotype, 3 otherwise. Typical Shticks: any sort of engineering or mechanical knowledge. Restrictions: No manipulative limbs; can understand but not speak common languages. Power Boosts: Deltans have one power boost, to account for the Flexible Advantage on their regeneration. 33

Part II

Playing Zap!

34

Chapter 9

Quick Summary
Heres a quick summary of the mechanical options in Zap! Any option you take must be justied by describing what youre doing according to the Primary Rule. Further details on each are supplied in the following chapters, but this is the essence of the game. Attack Spend an Action. Roll 2 dice, take higher. Use Ability spend an Action. Roll vs. GM-assigned Difculty to succeed. Defend Defend with an Automatic or spend an Action to defend with a regular Power. If Attackers roll beats yours, you are Hindered; if it beats it by more than your Attribute, you are Out (vs. Toughness)/Tired (vs. Stamina)/Inuenced (vs. Will). Counter Spend Action to roll Ability against Ability to prevent it succeeding; Countered character can choose not to contest the roll but abort instead (reuse the action and Ability for something else), or can spend an extra Action to use a different Ability to contest the Counter roll. Combine Each participant spends one Action per Ability they are contributing. Roll dice based on which Abilitys Advantages you want to use, +1 per Ability involved (Max bonus = number of players, no more than +1 from any one character). Failure is Not an Option! Can opt to become Hindered to change a non-combat roll to highest possible (if this would require a larger adjustment than your Stamina, become Tired). Splitting Powers Split roll into single die at two different targets, -1 die size for each doubling of number of targets after that. (4 targets is -1, 8 is -2, etc.) Careful Aim Take half the largest die instead of rolling; no Collateral Damage. Not while Hindered. Pull Your Punch No Overkill Supreme Effort Add Will to die roll. May try Supreme Effort after roll is made if you spend an extra Action. Become Tired; Stamina drops by 1. Sheer Determination Spend 1 Will to become completely Unhindered. Chase Spend an Action to change range; may be Countered by a Move vs. Move/Search vs. Hide contest. Ranges are Combat Range, Pursuit Range, Lost Contact. Aid Spend an Action to completely Unhinder an ally. Revive/Finish Off Spend all your Actions in a Round to bring an ally back from Out, or to prevent an enemy from recovering from Out. Intimidate spend an Action to Attack vs. Best Power and Will to cow foe, (Hinder = hesitates/considers cooperating, Out = surrenders/ees); each die reduced by a die-size if vs. multiple foes at once. Jury Rig cobble together a new Ability by combining Abilities (choose one as base, +1 PL for each other contributing power), the contributed Abilities are Burned Out for the rest of the Scene; if thats not appropriate the contributor becomes Tired instead. 35

Tropes
Tropes are variations on the basic rules that provide a better t for specic things typical of the genre. Wild Shot Swap 2 matched dice for 1 die next size higher (or drop low die for +1 on high if mismatched). Disable Power vs. Ability to temporarily disable the target Ability; Hinder means its unusable until the owner spends an Action; Out is unusable until the owner spends a Turn xing it; Overkill needs out-of-combat repair. Automatic Defenses are immune, unless the attacking Power has the Disabling Only Advantage.

9. Q UICK S UMMARY This Ends Now! Both sides agree to resolve entire confrontation in straight up roll; higher side wins decisively, losers are captured or otherwise out of the picture. Boldly Go volunteer to be gaffed with the plot hook to move the adventure along; gain 1 XP .

36

Chapter 10

Dening Abilities
In Zap!, most of what a character can do is represented by Abilities; Abilities are divided into Powers and Shticks. Powers are Abilities potentially useful in combat, Shticks are all other Abilities. For instance if a character is extremely strong, the character has the Power Super Strength. Strength at ordinary levels, even for a gifted athlete, isnt recorded and only rarely has any effect on the mechanics of the game. Characters are assumed to be relatively normal in every aspect that isnt specically identied as being so exceptionally good as to amount to a Power or Shtick, or so bad as to be a Complication. You are completely free to choose what your Powers and Shticks are, their names, and descriptions of how they work. How many you get and how they interact with other Abilities are governed by the game mechanics. The most important aspect of Abilities is conceptual: what does it do? Two Abilities might be mechanically identical, but if one is Super Strength, and the other is a Laser Beam, how they are used and what they can accomplish are different. In Zap!, it is never sufcient to simply invoke the Ability and roll the dice for the mechanical effect. The Primary Rule of Does this sound like an SF story? must be obeyed. If the goal is to free a civilian trapped beneath a car, the player could use Super Strength to lift the car off, or a Laser Beam to cut the civilian free, but if the player cant come up with a plausible way for the Ability to accomplish the task (for instance trying to free somebody trapped beneath a car with an Ability that can only be used to engulf an area in ames, or that creates intangible illusions) then the action isnt permitted. Note that it only needs to be plausible in terms of SF stories; its not recommended that you really try to justify the physics in real-world terms. Worrying about whether, even given Super Strength, the character can actually nd enough leverage and the car has sufcient structural integrity to be lifted from particular hand-holds is not something that any but the most hard-core SF stories do. On the other hand, you dont want to have the game degenerate into farce when the character uses Super Strength to just reach in and lift the water out of a swimming pool, at least without somebody freezing it rst. The decision of whether a particular use of a Power 37 or Shtick is sufciently SF-plausible in Zap! should be left up to the players instead of delegated to the GM. Players continuously asking whether a particular action is permissible will slow things down and interrupt the ow. As long as all the players bear in mind that they should be limiting themselves to the kind of actions that they would like to read about or see in a movie, and avoid the sorts of things that would make them roll their eyes or snicker if they were the audience, minor disagreements over plausibility should be overlooked to keep the action owing. Remember as well that theres often more than one way to accomplish something with an Ability; reaching into a swimming pool and lifting the water out with your Super Strength is silly, but stomping the ground so hard the swimming pool cracks and the water drains out makes perfect genre sense. The corollary to the Primary Rule is that in Zap! the description is the ability. If something sounds like a SF story, it should be valid, even if there are no specic game mechanics permitting it. The mechanics, and in particular what dice you throw, are there as an aid to guring out what happens when one Power or Shtick is pitted against another, or against the circumstances, but the determining factor should be what the description of the Ability implies it ought to be able to do. How do you know if the Flame Blast can overcome the Ice Shield thrown up as a defense? You roll the dice. How do you know if the Flame Blast can set a bunch of papers on re? It just can, because thats what makes sense. Actions that are squarely within the concept of the Ability dont require justication or rolls. Actions that are clearly outside of the scope of the Ability shouldnt be attempted, no matter how high a Power Level you have. Can an Ice Shield protect you against Telepathic Assault? Seems unlikely, so dont roll for it. Again, if it seems borderline whether it should be allowed or not, go with the players interpretation. That puts a lot of power in the hands of the player, but remember: with great power comes great responsibility!

10. D EFINING A BILITIES

Ability Examples
Here are some examples: Example 1: Youve given your hero a Power called Clone, which allows him to make duplicates of himself. When you try to use this Power in combat to create a squad of yourself and all tackle the foe, you roll the dice based on the Power Level of your Power and compare that to the foes defenses, just as if you had used a Power such as Fire Blast. Bear in mind that according to the Primary Rule you might require further justication or explanation depending on the circumstance: if the enemy is ying hundreds of feet up, just tackling him outright is implausible; you would have to further justify the action by doing something like combining it with Jump-jets, or being thrown by a companion with Super Strength and then Cloning yourself in mid-air once youd hit the enemy. If you want to use your Clone Power to create a duplicate who will go converse with the guards to distract them while the other you sneaks into the warehouse, you dont need to roll anything; the description of the Power clearly implies that you ought to be able to do that, and thats all it takes. Example 2: Your hero has the Power Weather Control, and is trying to prevent the enemy space marine from kidnapping the Ambassador. Since space marines powered armor has so far been too tough for your direct attacks using Weather Control to create lightning, you decide to try to conceal the Ambassadors location by whipping up a fog bank. Assuming the space marine has no Power granting him senses that would let him penetrate the fog, hell have to beat your roll on Weather Control with his Default Skill in order to locate the Ambassador. The effect will last until the space marine uses an appropriate Power to blow the fog away, or it disperses naturally. If you had chosen to try to blind the space marine directly with your fog, you would roll against the space marines appropriate defense (again the Default Skill unless he had an appropriate heightened sense), and if successful would result in him being Hindered; it would last until he spent an Action to do something that would clear it or move himself out from under. In this case, if you had rolled well enough to score an Out, the Out result would be interpreted as the space marine stumbling around blindly, unable to take effective action. Example 3: The enemy is attempting to use his Telekinesis to lift your character into the air. Your characters Automatic Defense is Invulnerability; while that would protect you from a telekinetic blow, there doesnt seem to be any logical reason that would prevent it from lifting you, so you wouldnt get to use it to defend. If your Movement Power were, say, Flight, then it is conceivable that you could attempt to resist the Telekinesis by Flying in the opposite direction, but you would have to spend an Action to use it (unlike the Automatic Defense); also, since its a Movement Power it would only defend with a single die. Because 38

anything that makes sense according to the Primary Rule would be allowed, you could also use something like Super Strength to resist by grabbing on to a nearby object or even digging your ngers into the ground; again that would take an Action and be your one use of that Power in the Round.

Disagreements
Disagreements or uncertainty over whether the use of an Ability follows from the description should be resolved in favor of the player; the GM should feel free to point out considerations that the player might have overlooked, such as the enemy being hundreds of feet in the air, and encourage the player to consider whether the use of the Ability is in keeping with the Primary Rule and to modify or abandon it if its not. Its also legitimate for the GM to reveal information that the player might not have known that has bearing on the proposed use of the Ability, or even render it moot. For instance: Ace Astra attempts to use her Freeze Ray-gun to form an ice slide to catch a toddler plummeting towards her doom. Ordinarily that would be a perfectly valid use of the Power, but if the GM knows that its actually a hologram of a child rather than a real child, when the player announces I use my Freeze Ray-gun to create a slide and catch her before the player continues with describing what shell do once shes caught the child, the GM should inform her that the child passes right through the slide without stopping or slowing. Its possible that in some of these cases the GM should rule that the Ability just doesnt work as proposed without revealing exactly why, if there is something going on that the character cant be aware of, but the GM should make every effort to at least describe to the players what does happen or appears to happen instead rather than atly declaring That didnt work.

Power Level
All Powers and Shticks are rated as to their Power Level. Power Level determines the number of dice rolled when pitting that Ability against another Ability or to try and perform some task while under stress, as well as how much the Ability can do in real-world terms: how fast, how heavy, how big? Each level in Power Level substantially increases the effect, ranging from a 50% increase per level at Street Scope to 64 times as much per level at Cosmic Scope. Power Levels are assigned dice equivalent and when rolling for the effect of an Ability, you roll the two dice listed and take the higher result. In Zap! you never add the dice together.

Shticks PL 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Dice single d2 single d4 d4, d4 d6, d4 d6, d6 d8, d6 d8, d8 d8, d10 PL 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Dice d10, d10 d12, d10 d12, d12 d8+5, d12 d12, d8+5 d8+5, d8+5 d8+5, d10+5 d10+5, d10+5 turn; if you dont have a Movement Power, you are presumed to be using your Default Skill when moving around during your turn, and that will take an Action. Your Movement Power can open or close Range with a foe by one Range category per Round (Combat Range Pursuit Range Lost Contact). The approximate distance a range increment represents will vary by Scope. Combats will either begin at Combat Range, or at Pursuit Range if the characters rst catch sight of the enemies (or vice-verse) at a distance. Range doesnt change unless the combatants are deliberately trying to manipulate the range to their advantage. You cannot use a Movement Power to change Range categories and to attack or defend in the same Round.

Note that the Power Levels follow an easy-toremember pattern: at even levels you use two dice of the same size, and that size matches the level; odd levels have one die of the next higher level and one of the next lower. Power Levels beyond 12 are not common, generally only appearing when characters of different Scopes face one another.

Shticks
Shticks are Abilities that can only be used for things other than attack and defense, for instance to heal an ally, or search an area. They can be used during combat, as long as they arent used as an attack or defense. For example, its perfectly legitimate to use your Thievery Shtick to attempt to pick a lock while a ght rages around you; its not allowed to use your Thievery Shtick to defend yourself from somebody trying to shoot you by hiding in shadows or blocking with your lock-picksif you want to be able to do that sort of thing buy it as a Power instead. Shticks start at the level indicated in your Template (e.g. 4 for Bad-Asses, 5 for Crew). Shticks may take more than one Round to use where that would be logical, e.g. combing a library for clues is likely to take longer than a fraction of one Round. If you start to use a Shtick for something that will take several Rounds and decide you would rather do something else, you can stop at any time, though you wont regain any already spent Actions. Whether you can resume your partially completed task later or your effort so far will be lost will depend on what would be logical given what you were doing. A partially-built device will likely wait, a partially-delivered speech to rally the troops, not so much. Shticks are what Zap! has instead of such things as skills or talents that are common in other systems. If you are an extraordinarily good detective, engineer, or archaeologist, good enough that you would regularly rely on that ability in your adventures, that would be a Shtick; if being a detective or engineer was merely a day job that might crop up once in a while depending on the situation, that would just be part of your Background. Having it as part of your Background doesnt mean you are mediocre at it you might still be world-class, but it does mean that the adventures you have dont typically call on your skills in that regard. If a roll is required to employ a skill implied by your Background, roll the Default Skill (a single d4); if you have nothing in your Background that might be applicable you roll a single d2. 39

Regular Powers
Regular Powers can be used to attack or defend, as well as whatever else the description of the Power implies; just because Powers can be used in combat to attack or defend doesnt mean they cant be used for other purposes. On the other hand Shticks cannot be used to attack or defend: if it seems plausible that you could use an ability to hinder or harm somebody, or to protect yourself, you should make it a Power. If you use a Power to defend during a Round it will defend against all the subsequent attacks during the Round as long as theres a reasonable Primary Rule explanation of how it applies. E.g., once youve decided to use your Powered Armor to defend yourself that Round versus an attack with toxic gas by sealing up the vents and going to internal oxygen, you will continue to be able to defend against new attacks that same Round with your Powered Armor even if it requires a different Primary Rule explanation of how the armor ought to apply. Even defending with a Power that requires more activity than that, say using Acrobatics to jump around and dodge, would apply to all the attacks during the Round for which Acrobatics makes sense as a defense.

Movement Powers
Movement Powers primarily let you move around, whether getting to the scene of the adventure, chasing a bad-guy or in combat. They may also be used to attack or defend, where that makes sense according to the Primary Rule (e.g., using y to ram into a foe, or super speed to dodge bullets), and may be combined with other Powers. Movement Powers take an Action if you want to change Range categories or use them for attack or defense; when used to attack or defend, Movement Powers use only one of their dice. Movement with a Movement Power within a Range category doesnt take an Action, its just part of the narration of your

10. D EFINING A BILITIES Of course, Shticks also represent genuine superhuman abilities such as X-Ray vision, Telempathy, a portal to an alternate dimension, and so on. Abilities that you dont intend to use all the time should generally be in this category unless its important that they be useful to attack or defend. Shticks that can be used for movement are presumed not to be usable in combat. E.g., you could have an ordinary helicopter, or even an extraordinary satellite-based teleporter, as a Shtick to get you from mission to mission provided it was slow or cumbersome enough that you couldnt use it to it around while ghting. If you wanted to be able to ght while using it, you would take it as Movement Power or a Vehicle instead. To use a Shtick that gives you some kind of connection or in with an authority roll your Shtick against the Scope of the intended connection as the Power Level, e.g. a Famous Actor or Business leader trying to impress the mayor of a City would roll against PL 5 (since Cities are Scope 5+), so would roll the Shtick against d6, d4. The amount you beat the difculty by is your degree of success: 0. Your connection has a neutral attitude towards you 1. Co-operative attitude, 2. Friendly attitude, 3. Warm attitude, 4. Servile attitude, where they are desperate to please you. For Shticks that give information use the following interpretation: 0. Single yes/no question will be answered, 1. One-word answer, 2. Short sentence, quantity, or direction, 3. Diagram or paragraph description, 4. Sketch or series of questions, 5. Clear image or a conversation with the GM. This also holds for powers, but Shticks are more likely to be used to gain information. Shticks can be combined with powers using the combining powers rule, but not to attack or defend. In combat, Shticks take an Action to use. Out of combat they take a variable amount of time, as is appropriate to the situation. A medical knowledge Shtick might take only a glance to identify that a corpse has a missing liver, or days of study to investigate the medicinal uses of a rare compound found in an alien laboratory. 40

Active vs. Automatic

All Powers are either Active or Automatic, depending on when and whether they require an Action to use. Shticks are neither; whether a Shtick requires you to spend an Action depends on what youre doing with it. E.g. picking a lock would require an Action, while recognizing whether an alien is of a known type based on your Xenobiology Shtick would not.

Active Powers
Any Power that requires an Action to use is Active. Active Powers never trigger unless you spend an Action to activate them. Each Active Power may only be used once per Round, no matter how many Actions you have, though you may use as many different Active Powers as you have Actions. Once you spend an Action on an Active Power in order to defend, it will continue to defend you until the beginning of your next turn (when you would have to spend another Action to renew it), even against new attacks.

Automatic Powers
Automatic Powers are used automatically whenever certain conditions are met, and dont cost an Action to use. What those conditions are and what the Power does are determined when you take the Power. An Automatic Power may be used either for attack or defense, not both. For instance, Armor might be an Automatic Defense that would be used whenever you were physically attacked. Flaming Body could be Automatic Attack that would be used whenever you were grabbed. Automatic Defenses defend against every appropriate incoming attack, Automatic Attacks attack everyone, friend or foe, who meets the proper conditions. Powers that dont directly attack or defend may be chosen as Automatic, and will activate whenever is appropriate; a common example might be an Automatic sense, which would be active whenever something perceptible was within range. Automatic Powers can combine with other Powers if the conditions for triggering the Automatic Power occur at the same time as another Power. That is, if you had Flaming Body as an Automatic Attack, and Super Strength, and you grabbed somebody with your Super Strength and squeezed them, the conditions for the Flaming Body would apply and you could choose to attack by Combining your Super Strength and Flaming Body. However, whenever you Combine an Automatic Power with another, the base power is the weaker of the two powers. E.g. if your Super Strength was PL 10 and your Flaming Body was PL 6, the Combination would be an attack at PL6+1, not PL10+1. You would have to spend an Action for your Super Strength, but not for your Automatic Flaming Body. Automatic Movement moves you whenever the proper condition occurs, e.g., a enemy might have

Active vs. Automatic an Automatic Teleport that emergency teleports him back to his lair when he is Out; Automatic Movement Powers can take effect even if youve already moved that round, or even if youre Out as in the example, but they can never be used to attack or defend, nor activated except by meeting the proper conditions. to concentrate to use them, e.g. Infra-Vision or a reexive Danger Sense vs. X-Ray vision that you have to deliberately turn on. A sense thats dened as an Automatic Defense could still be used as part of a Primary Rule justication for attacking something that would otherwise be invisible, but youd still need some other Power to make the attack.

Senses as Powers or Shticks

Senses should generally be bought as a Powers, unless theres a good reason they cant be used to defend you by alerting you to danger or let you attack something that you couldnt otherwise sense. E.g. a Mind Meld where you have to touch the target and concentrate deeply could be a Shtick. Whether senses are Automatic or not depends on whether you have

41

Chapter 11

Using Abilities
The Primary Rule
The Primary Rule of Zap! is that actions have to make sense in a SF kind of way. In order to justify using an Ability, you have to describe using the Ability in a way that makes sense...at least according to the genre conventions. Decisions as to whether that particular use of a Ability ought to be allowed rest with the player, though the GM or other players are permitted to point out if they think the player is pushing it; the GM is also encouraged to point out circumstances that the player ought to take into account when deciding how to use the Ability (such as the enemy currently hovering 300 feet in the air, or holding a hostage in front of him), and its ultimately up to the GM to decide on and describe the effect of using the Ability on the environment or the foes, as long as he does so in a way that doesnt countermand the players description of the attempt. The player should stop short of describing the reaction, although saying what shes trying to do is ne: I pick up a chair and hurl it at the alien or I try to lasso the ying alien and pull it out of the air are good, while I pick up a chair and hurl it at the ying alien, knocking him out of the air and pinning him beneath it isnt as good. When describing your attempts you should leave room for either the dice or circumstances unknown to you to intervene. Another example: if the player wishes to hit the enemy using his Super Strength, even though the enemy is 300 feet in the air, he can announce that he grabs a nearby lamp-post and hurls it at the enemy. The GM can remind the player that they are currently in the desert, so maybe it should be a rock, and the GM can rule that the lamppost/rock passes through the enemy harmlessly (because unbeknown to the player at the moment, its just a hologram), but the GM shouldnt override the player to say there are no lampposts, rocks, or anything else suitable to throw or that the throw falls short without giving the player a chance to roll to see if the Super Strength Power succeeds in overcoming the enemys defense. The goal of the system it to make everything simple, fast, and exciting; negotiation every round between the players and the GM as to whats permissible and what objects are in the environment and whether any 42 die-rolls are needed to see if the character can use them just slow things down and break the ow. In SF adventures theres always an object of the right size around to pick up and chuck if thats what the character wants to do. Similarly as long as the ght is taking place in an area where there are such things as re hydrants or high-voltage lines, then they are assumed to be within reach and ready to be deployed with the appropriate Abilities. The players are entitled to make up such features of the environment as seem plausible as they go about describing their actions.

The Primary Rule And The Default Skill

If you need to make a roll and you dont have an appropriate Ability according to the Primary Rule, you roll your Default Skill instead. This happens most often when your Defenses arent applicable. In Zap! you never resist an attack with your bare Attribute, you always have some chance of mitigating the attack somehow. The Default Skill also represents using a skill implied by your Background that isnt one of your Powers, as well as using one of your Minor Powers. When using your Default Skill this way, roll PL 3 (a single d4) if theres any way of justifying it by your Background, and PL2 (a single d2) if you cant. Normal people will roll PL 3 (d4) in the areas that theyre trained in, and a PL 2 (d2) for anything else.

Uncontested Abilities
When trying to perform an uncontested feat roll the Ability and then compare the roll to the Difculty set by the GM. When you roll for the result of an uncontested Ability, the result is always interpreted relative to the Scope of the character; even if two characters have Super Strength at PL 6, if one is Neighborhood Scope and the other is Global Scope the latter is able to lift much greater weights.

When To Roll Uncontested Abilities

Remember, if its obvious that the Ability ought to succeed by the Primary Rule, rolling isnt necessary. Much of the time Zap! assumes that feats such as picking up

Contested Abilities crates, ying your ghter, or jumping from your hovertank onto the enemy hover-tank are incidental to the action. Picking up a nearby car and hurling it at the enemy with your Super Strength isnt two actions, one of attempting to pick up the car and another of hitting the enemy with it; its a single attack that happens to be narrated as using a convenient piece of scenery in accordance with the Primary Rule of sounding like an SF story. Chances are that the player taking the action invented the car being there for that purpose; it would make no mechanical difference if it had been a dumpster, mailbox, or just the characters sts, so there is no reason to interrupt and say Wait, can your character lift a car? Roll for it. The only reason to make an uncontested check is when there is both a reason to care about the outcome, and genuine doubt about whether the character is up to the task. For instance, if the enemy hurls a car and the character wants to try to catch it so that the passengers arent injured it would be reasonable to check, and roll if it would be past the limit of what the Ability is normally capable of, such as using a PL 6 Ability at Neighborhood Scope to catch a medium-sized car. to do it without any special effort if you roll well. If you dont, you can change the roll to a success by paying a penalty (See Failure is Not an Option!) Remember, though, that if its not important you shouldnt be rolling.

Difculty for Other Tasks

When in doubt about the Difculty for a task, and its not something that the character clearly ought to be able to do just through invoking the Primary Rule, use the following table a rule of thumb: Task Could be Done By Normal Expert Normal/Agent Bad-ass/Crew Squad of Agents Party of Adventurers Party using Research Jury-rigged gadget Difculty 2 3 4 6 8 10 12

Difculty
The Difculty for exerting your Abilities to accomplish specic effects appropriate to the Ability (such as using Super Strength to lift an object) is based off of the Power Levels for the Scope. The maximum die roll represents the maximum the Ability is capable of without Supreme Effort, Wild Shot, or combining with another Ability. Chart 11.1 on the next page summarizes Difculty 6 for each Scope (that is, what it would take a roll of 6 to do) to give you a quick idea, but you should see Appendix for a list of the effects for each Power Level and the real-world equivalents in weight and speed. Not every Ability or every use of a Ability will directly translate into weight or speed, and many characters will have at least some Abilities above the base but the charts give you a general feel for the order of magnitude that Abilities of a given level might represent. E.g., Difculty 6 at Regional Scope is equivalent in weight to a medium car (2 metric tons), so a character at that Scope with Ability like Super Strength or Telekinesis would roll her Ability against Difculty 6 to lift the car. Obviously, if the characters Ability was PL 8 (d8, d8) this would be easier to do than if they were using a PL 6 (d6, d6) Ability. Say your character at the Neighborhood Scope wants to lift a medium car, weight 2 tons: thats a 9 referring to the chart in the Appendix. If you have Enhanced Strength PL 6 that will require hitting Difculty 9 on his d6, d6. You would need use some combination of Wild Shot, Supreme Effort, and possibly Combining Powers or getting help from another character to achieve that. Supposing, though, that your Strength was at PL 10 (d10, d10), you would be able 43 This assumes that the task is not something thats routine for the kind of person listed, but rather its toward the outer edge of their abilities. For instance, a normal would have a PL 2 (d2), in her profession, an expert normal would have PL 3 (d4) and an agent perhaps PL 4 (d4, d4), so the difculties are set so they may well fail. Tasks that should be easier than that for them ought not to require a roll in the rst place.

Contested Abilities
When rolling a Ability contested by another Ability, such as an attack vs. a defense, both Abilities roll and the higher number wins. The amount the higher number exceeds the lower is the Damage. Zero Damage is still a success for Player Characters, but a failure for NPCs. Ties Ties go to the player, or if two NPCs are making opposed rolls, to the attacker. Your attacks merely have to match the enemys defense to have some effect, though you still need to beat their Attribute to score an Out. The enemies need to beat your defenses before youre affected. At higher Power Levels ties are relatively rare, but at low levels this edge is what separates characters from mooks.

Defending
When you attack other characters, the defenders get to announce what they are doing to Defend themselves, which can include spending Actions on Active Powers to aid in their defense. The defenders

11. U SING A BILITIES

Difculty 6 Weight example 250kg 500kg 1 ton 2 tons 16 tons 125 tons motorcycle Grand Piano small car medium car empty bus blue whale, river gunboat Godzilla largest ship

Scope 3: Street 4: Neighborhood 5: City 6: Region 7: Country 8: Global

Speed 32 kph 64 kph 128 kph 250 kph 1000 kph 2000 kph car on a city road racehorse cheetah fast train jet airplane Concorde

+1 x1 x4/3 x32/6 x2 x4 x4

9: Interplanetary 10: Interstellar

8 kilotons 512 kt

16000 kph 1million kph

11: Galactic 12: Cosmic

32 mt 2000 mt

Big Dam 1/2 tsp neutron star material

3c 200c

speed of dawn to the Moon in 3 hours 2.6 minutes to the Sun 200 x light speed

x8 x16

x32 x64

Figure 11.1: Difculty 6 by Scope

need to remember how many Actions they use and which Active Powers they employ, so that when their Turns come around they dont re-use them. Remember, you can only use an Active Power once per turn, and it costs an Action to use any Active Power to defend yourself. If the defenders Turn was earlier in the Round, she can only use Active Powers to defend herself if she has both Actions and unused Powers remaining.

Damage
Most of the time, opposed rolls take place when one character is trying to damage another. If the attack is a success, subtract the defense roll from the attack roll: the result is the Damage. You then compare the Damage to the defenders appropriate score. For most attacks, that will be their Toughness; if you have an appropriate Advantage it might be compared to Will or Stamina instead. The possible results are the opponent are Hindered, Tired, Out, Controlled, or Overkill. Attribute Toughness Stamina Will <= Attr Hindered Damage is > Attr Out Tired Inuenced > Attr + 3 Overkill Out Out

while but only as a result of the plot (as when the characters dont arrive in time to disarm a bomb), or as an additional action taken against an Out foe. For a particularly grim tone along the lines of a movie such as Alien, you could actually make Out equal to dead as long as you were prepared to keep creating new characters. When you use a Power, theres a chance that youll cause Collateral Damage. At the GMs discretion and according to the Primary Rule the lower die roll may be applied as damage to nearby people and objects.

Collateral Damage
SF battles are famous for the amount of destruction they wreak on the surroundings. At the GMs discretion attacks made can be checked to see if they cause Collateral Damage. If you hit a foe with your st, you probably wont cause Collateral Damage unless you knock him ying into something; if you hit a foe with a bus, at the very least the bus should suffer Collateral Damage and its pretty likely you hit various people and nearby objects unless your target dwarfs the bus in size. GMs shouldnt slow the game down with checks for Collateral Damage after every single attack; save it for when it would make a difference, such as when the enemy is holding a hostage, or the battle is taking place on top of something important that could explode or collapse. Trivial damage, such as hot-dog stands getting knocked over, awnings being busted or car alarms going off, can simply be narrated as a 44

Zap! has no specic mechanical provisions for death; depending on the tone youre going for you can include death of PCs and NPCs as a potential result of Overkill, or as one of the results of applying the Primary Rule, or something that happens once in a

Damage result of the Primary Rule. Save actual checks for Collateral Damage for times when somebody will care. Use the result of the lower die from the roll as an attack against whatever near-by targets seem appropriate according to the Primary Rule; those targets then roll their appropriate defense or the Default Skill if they have none. If youre rolling only one die, such as when you are Hindered or taking a Wild Shot, if the GM calls for checking Collateral Damage at that point roll the second die and use the result even if its higher than the original roll. The GM should assign Toughness to objects based on how reasonable it is for a character at that Scope to break the object; a rule-of-thumb is Toughness equal to the Scope that the object would usually appear. So a hot-dog stand would be Street Level (3), a car would be Neighborhood level (4), and so on. An Out result from a Power at or lower than the objects Scope will break the object and render it unusable until repaired; it requires Out from a Power at least one Scope higher in order to destroy the object, three higher if the the object is a building or collection of buildings. You can avoid the possibility of Collateral Damage by taking Careful Aim. ed under the Primary Rule and the result was high enough to Hinder you, you should be Hindered. Becoming Unhindered In order to become Unhindered, you should describe what youre doing according to the Primary Rule in order to get free of the Hindered effect (this could just be shaking your head to clear the grogginess if the conditions was as generic as just being stunned, melting your way out of webs, teleporting from beneath the rubble, and so on); it is this that costs an Action. Players should be more generous than usual in interpreting what is an appropriate description for freeing yourself from being Hindered. Basically, being Hindered costs you an Action, its not intended to cost you the rest of your Turn after you become Unhindered or debilitate the character for the rest of the ght; the presumption should be that somehow or other you can free yourself as long as you have Actions remaining. Using a Ability in your description of how you free yourself from being Hindered doesnt count as its single use for the Round. No matter how many Hindered tokens you have stacked on you, you can always clear them all by sacricing your Turn (all your Actions) for the Round, or by sacricing one point of Will (see Sheer Determination). Some Examples Of Ways To Describe Being Hindered Knocked down, or thrown backwards a distance Buried in Rubble Covered in some sticky or slippery substance Eyes stinging and watering from smoke or chemicals Gasping and choking from water or smoke Dazed by a hard hit Distracted by danger to a bystander Partially blinded by a bright ash Muscles cramping from electrical shock Shivering from cold Helping The Hindered You can use your Actions to help a hindered ally. If you spend a single Action you remove all of the Allys accumulated Hindered conditions, provided that you have a Primary Rule explanation of how exactly youre helping (e.g., burning them out of the webbing, lifting the concrete off of them, or slapping their face and shouting Pull yourself together!). This makes no real difference if your Ally is only Hindered once (you spend the Action instead of them doing it), 45

Hindered
When you are Hindered all your Abilities except Automatic Powers are reduced to a single (better) die. Hindered conditions accumulate if you keep getting attacked successfully, and while your abilities arent further reduced it requires a separate Action to clear each instance of Hindered. Automatic Powers arent affected by being Hindered unless they have the Can Be Hindered Disadvantage. E.g., Youre Hindered: your PL 8 Ability would roll a single d8 instead of d8,d8, but your PL 7 Automatic Defense is unchanged, still rolling d8,d6. If youre Hindered again on the same turn your Powers arent reduced further, but now you will need to spend two Actions to clear the status. It might be helpful to give the player a token, such as a poker-chip, each time the character is Hindered to help keep track. Being Hindered represents some specic thing that happened to the character as a result of the successful attack that was insufcient to put the character Out. It could be becoming trapped beneath the thrown bus, having your hands webbed together, being groggy from sleep gas, or just generically stunned by the force of the attack if no more specic thing suggests itself. The GM will generally describe what it is thats Hindering you, following from how the attack was described; go with it. If its really impossible that your character be Hindered in the way described (the GM forgot that your character doesnt need to breath, so gasping from smoke wont do) then suggest something that does seem plausible to you. One way or another if the attack was justi-

11. U SING A BILITIES but is substantially better if they have a lot of accumulated Hindered conditions such as when the enemies have attacked them over and over; as an ally you can clear off all the pesky agents with a single Action, while the character herself would have to either do it one by one, by sacricing a Turn, or through Sheer Determination. Some Examples Of Ways To Describe Being Out Knocked clear into the next block, or even County Buried under rubble, or underground Trapped in a force bubble Unconscious

Out
Damage in excess of the defenders Toughness puts the defender Out. (For attacks vs. Stamina see Tired, vs. Will see Inuenced.) Merely tying the Attribute does nothing extra, even against NPCs. Out does not have to literally mean unconscious, merely incapable of further combat until aided by another or given sufcient time to recover or work free. A character who is tangled and helpless in a web, fast asleep from gas, buried in cement, or locked in a force-bubble counts as Out for game purposes; if you are aiming for a grittier tone, Out can a heavy wound that incapacitates the character until somebody (perhaps the character herself) provides medical aid. An Out character is out of the ght until any of: 1. Another character spends a full Round (all Actions) reviving the character or otherwise reversing the effect of the Out in accordance with the Primary Rule 2. Another character spends an Action using a Shtick that by the Primary Rule is intended for situations such as this (e.g., Doctor, Medi-Kit) 3. Three of your Turns have elapsed (during which you can either be presumed to be unconscious, or conscious but too busy tending to your wounds to even take time to communicate with your allies). Example: Your ally was put Out by being teleported out of the battle. To bring him back before three turns are up you would have to not only spend a full Round, but come up with an explanation of how you were using your Powers such using as your Movement Power (Super Speed, Teleport) to retrieve him. If you had a Shtick that was specically designed for bringing him back into the ght, such as Teleport Ally Shtick of your own, then you could do it with a single Action; note that it has to be a Shtick, rather than a regular Power. (This serves as a bonus for taking such specialized Shticks.) Out characters may be further Restrained or put Down for the Count, in which case they will not come back into action until those conditions have been eliminated, even if one or more of the above are met. 46

Turned to stone Fast asleep Lost in the maze of your own mind Struggling in a web Battling phantoms Writhing in agony Bleeding heavily Exactly how you are Out and what others would have to do to revive you from being Out will depend on the description of the attack that put you Out and the Primary Rule. For your part, there is nothing you can do to hurry the process of reviving, but it is assumed that after three of your Turns even if nobody has aided you as long as the battle hasnt ended you will have found a way out of it, through sheer force of will if nothing else. Its not at all unusual to be Out, perhaps more than once, during the course of a battle. Getting Out does not mean that you lose, unless you are the last character standing, and perhaps not even then depending on whether the enemy has the time and foresight to put you Down for the Count or ee; if the enemy is otherwise occupied setting bombs, hijacking the airwaves to deliver his demands or chasing off the police then you will be back in action in three Turns. SF battles are full of reversals and comebacks from near-certain defeat. Regardless of the Primary Rule justication, Out must be reversible; you are not allowed to dene powers such that Out with the power is permanent. Even if the Out character is magically turned to stone, the result must be temporary. (Optionally in a gritty campaign, you may agree that Overkill can make Out permanent, barring some extraordinary plot event.) Optional Rule: Injury Depending on the Tone for the campaign, serious, or at least long-lasting injury may be more or less common. In some settings, wounds never last past an episode, in others, characters may nd themselves having to deal with long-term effects of injury or even lose an eye or a hand...perhaps to replace it at a later date with a cyborg implant. Upon returning from Out, whether you were helped or not, there is a chance that you suffered a more serious injury. If the Primary Rule reason you were out was

Damage such that it could have wounded you, rather than just entangled you or put you to sleep, roll the unskilled Default PL 2 (d2). On a roll of a 1, you are Tired, and gain a new Complication to reect the ongoing injury. For instance, you might decide that your left hand is useless and in a sling. You may decide for yourself whether the Complication is Major or Minor, depending on how it was acquired. Like normal Complications you may substitute a new Complication for this one when you choose to, say by replacing the hand with a prosthetic. To remove the Complication completely you must spend a Boost. Equipment such as Armor and certain Powers allow you to mitigate the chance of injury; you may substitute the Armor roll for your untrained Default if you were wearing armor that could have mitigated the damage. For instance if you were Out from a shot by a Blaster, then wearing Trooper armor would let you roll a d6 instead of a d2, and only if you rolled a 1 on the d6 would you suffer injury. On the other hand if you were Out from a Psionic attack, the same Trooper armor wouldnt be any use. If you have a Power or Shtick thats directly on point, such as Regeneration, then you may substitute the Powers larger die instead. Restraining You can automatically Counter an Out character recovering from being Out by Restraining him. Restraining requires spending an Action with an appropriate Primary Rule justication, such as tying the Out character up, burying him under some rubble, etc. A character thats being Restrained cant return to the battle without outside help: another character will have to Hinder or put the character whos Restraining him Out. As long as you are continue to spend an Action every Round to Restrain the character, nobody can bring him back from Out status, nor does the three Turn limit apply. If you stop Restraining him, whether voluntarily, or because somebody has put you Out or Hindered you, he is still Out until one of the conditions for reviving him is met. The three Turn count runs concurrently with being Restrained, so if three of his Turns or more have passed while he was Restrained, he is no longer Out and may act. Whether minions and bystanders, individually or taken together as a Mob, are capable of restraining a character whos been Out depends on the character and the Primary Rule justication theyre using. Down For The Count You can choose to spend an entire turn, all of your Actions and no Movement allowed, putting an Out character Down For the Count. If you are attacked during the turn, even if the attack fails, you do not make progress putting him Down for the Count and have to try again. You still need a Primary Rule justication for him being Down for the Count, such as 47 wrapping a steel I-beam around the character, cocooning him in webbing from head to toe, or simply winding up a hay-maker and knocking the living daylights out of him. Characters that are Down for the Count are out of action until the end of combat, no matter how many Rounds that takes, unless they are revived. As with Restraining, you cant put a character Down For The Count that you couldnt Hinder in the rst place: if the Power youre trying to use to put the Out character Down For The Count is incapable of at least Hindering the character (e.g. the maximum your Power can roll is 10 and the minimum their Automatic Defense can roll is 11), then you need to use a Power with a higher Power Level or Combine Powers with other characters. In a gritty campaign, Down For the Count may mean dead. Down for the Count is reversible, assuming the character is not dead (and in some campaigns, even if the character is dead); bringing a character back from Down For the Count requires the same effort (all Actions) as putting a character Down For the Count, as well as a Primary Rule justication, which might be harder to come by than normal. Out Is Not Defeated Note that being Out is not the same thing as being defeated. The battle isnt over until you are Down For The Count or the enemy has gotten away or otherwise accomplished his goal. Being Out is a normal part of battles in SF adventures, which thrive on dramatic reversals and come-from-behind victories, and Zap! tries to allow for this. During a typical battle, several characters on either side may get Out and come back before the nal resolution.

Tired
Damage in excess of the targets Stamina make the target Tired, as do Tropes like Supreme Effort and Failure Is Not An Option!, and suffering an Injury (see Optional Rule: Injury). Like Hindered, while you are Tired you only roll one die for your Abilities. Unlike Hindered, being Tired doesnt accumulate: you are either Tired or you are not. Tiredness does not stack with being Hindered, though you dont get your full dice back until both conditions are cleared. You cease to be Tired when: 1. In combat: you spend three Rounds resting (not actively using any Abilities). Out of Combat: you spend a scene recovering (not doing anything except explicitly resting up) 2. You or another character spend an Action using a Shtick that by the Primary Rule is intended for situations such as this (e.g., Healing, or Leadership) 3. You trigger your Overdrive. E.g., if your Drive is to protect the innocent, then when an innocent is

11. U SING A BILITIES threatened, you can trigger Overdrive to recover from being Tired If the character being Countered wishes, he can concede the contest and re-use his Power and Action to do something completely different instead; the Counterer will still have spent the Action and the Power. E.g. you try to Counter the beasts attack on your friend by distracting him with your Acrobatics, leaping and dancing about; the beast concedes the contest, but turns and uses his Action and his Bite power to try to chomp you instead; youve still spent your Action and used your Power, so youll need to defend with something else. The character being Countered also has the option of trying to bring a different power to bear to overcome your Countering; this will cost him another Action and use another Power in addition to whatever he was using for the attempt itself. Most of the time this will be because he was using his Default Skill in the attempt, rather than a Power. E.g. the Mad Genius was going to push the button, which would be an ordinary task with his Default Skill since he has no particular Button Pushing Power. If you attempt to Counter him using your Klangon Strength, youll almost certainly succeed; to prevent that he employs his Mind Control Helmet to try to divert your strength. This costs him an extra Action and uses his Power, but the Opposed Task is now between his Mind Control Helmet and your Klangon Strength, which he at least has a chance of winning. If he wins, he proceeds; if he loses, hes out both Abilities and Actions. An ally may attempt to oppose the counter for you. The classic example is covering re: Ace Astra wants to run across the deck to get to the emergency shutoff button on the docking bay force-eld; the enemy Troopers announce they are Countering by laying down heavy suppressive re with their Blaster Ries vs. her (Default) running ability; her ally Ford the bounty-hunter opposes the Countering by ring his Blaster Rie as covering re. The Troopers Counter roll is now vs. Fords Blaster Rie ability. Note that even if you use an attack power like Wrestling to Counter an Action and succeed, the Countered character isnt Hindered or damaged in any way. Your Wrestling hold lasted long enough that they couldnt press the red button this turn, but does not continue to disrupt their activities.

Inuenced
When you beat a targets Will, the Target is temporarily Inuenced; that doesnt literally mean the target is obeying your orders (though it might if youre using a Power withe the Control Advantage) but it means the target is temporarily bent to your will. If you were ring your weapon at them trying to get them to take cover, they take cover. If you were trying to Intimidate them into running, they run. If you were trying to fast talk your way past the guards, they let you through. They can still rally later, under much the same circumstances as somebody recovering from being Out from an attack on Toughness, e.g. Aid from an Ally with an appropriate Ability, or after 3 turns.

Overkill
When you do more than 3 points over a foes Toughness, thats Overkill. The exact result of Overkill will depend on the tone of the campaign. Whether it occurs or not is entirely the GMs option, and it might result in the foe being out for the remainder of combat, a serious injury, or even death. Whether Overkill can ever result in death is something that should be agreed upon by the group before the rule is ever invoked to inict it. Nothing can kill the fun of a campaign faster than when a player suddenly nds that manslaughter is possible, and she has committed it. You should always make sure the players know if Overkill can result in death, and that they can and should be using Careful Aim or Pulled Punches if they want to be sure of avoiding it.

Countering
When a character announces an Action they plan to do, other characters may decide to Counter the Action. For example, if the Mad Genius is about to press the self-destruct button for the base, your character may want to tackle him before he can do so. Or you may want to stop an alien beast from biting your friend by attracting its attention to yourself. When a character announces an Action that you wish to Counter, you can spend one of your Actions and specify a Power, Shtick or the Default Skill to use to try to prevent them from taking that Action. Whatever theyre attempting to do must now beat you in an Opposed Task rst. (Naturally you have to have Actions remaining and be using a Power that you havent already used this Round.) Combined Abilities and other rules apply to this Opposed Task as normal. If he wins, he goes ahead with his Action as planned and this contest doesnt count as his one use of that Power for the turn; if he loses then hes out the Power and the Action and his attempt failed. 48

Combining Actions
You may Combine Actions to attack or defend, move, or accomplish other tasks given appropriate descriptions according to the Primary Rule. A Combined Action might be a super-strong character throwing another character who attacks with his sts or blades (Fastball Special) or two martial artist coordinating their attacks (You go high, Ill go low) or one character grabbing a enemy to hold him long enough for another to hit. A squad of riemen might combine all their shots into a single attack. When Combining Abilities the combo becomes a single attack, and the Combined Power Level is equal to the Power Level

Splitting Abilities of one of the Combined Abilities of the attackers choice, plus 1 Point for each character Combining, to a maximum plus equal to the number of players in the ght. Thus, each player at the table involved in the ght can contribute, if they choose, but you can never get a bigger plus than that. enemies face the same limit: the number of players, not the number of enemies. (Limiting the maximum to the number of players actually involved in the ght means that characters arent penalized for having a big group of players who are off doing something else while the enemies ambush them.) The Advantages of the Combined Action will be those of the Ability thats chosen as the base for the Action; you cannot mix and match the Advantages of the different Abilities. Disadvantages are applied separately. Using a Ability as part of Combining Abilities costs an Action, even if its an Automatic Power.

Combining Your Own Abilities

Characters may also combine two of their own Abilities, for a +1 as per the standard rule, as long as they have a reasonable Primary Rule justication, such as using ight to swoop down a enemy while swinging an Electric Mace to add the speed of the dive to the impact of the mace. Each Ability contributing takes one Action. You cant combine more than two of your own Abilities, or Combine more than two of your own Abilities and somebody elses Abilities.

Disabling Abilities
Besides attacking to Out, you can attack to Disable one of the opponents Abilities. The attacker rolls normally, following the Primary Rule, and the defender rolls the Ability instead of whatever defense would normally be applicable (so its easier to Disable weaker Abilities). A Hinder result means the Ability is Disabled and cannot be used again until an Action is spent restoring it; an Out result means the Ability is Disabled and cant be used again until conditions similar to recovering from being Out are met: 1. The character or another spends a full turn repairing or restoring the Ability using another Ability in accordance with the Primary Rule 2. The character spends an Action using a Shtick that by the Primary Rule is intended specically for situations such as this (e.g., Engineering, Regeneration) 3. The character voluntarily leaves combat for 3 full Rounds to repair or restore the Ability

single die (as happens to Abilities when Hindered), unless they have the Can be Disabled Disadvantage or are targeted with Power that has the Disabling Only Advantage in which case they behave as with any other Ability. In addition, Players should take particular care that the Primary Rule justication for Disabling a Automatic Defense makes good genre sense. E.g. if somebody is made of stone, it ought to be pretty hard to justify reducing that Power or taking it away, even temporarily.

Splitting Abilities
The opposite of Combining Abilities is Splitting Abilities: you can choose to attack multiple targets at once by dividing up your Power into two dice, one at each target, or attempt two tasks at once by dividing up your Shtick. You cant Split Abilities that have been reduced to one die, such as when Hindered or Tired. As usual, you need to follow the Primary Rule by having a plausible explanation for what youre doing, whether its ring one gun with either hand at different targets, or kicking one guy while punching another. Even if your explanation of how youre splitting your power involves multiple shots, it still only counts as one Action. Similarly, you need a good explanation of how youre using your Shtick in multiple ways at once, such as trying to use your Thief Shtick to remain hidden in shadows while picking the lock: one die would go towards the hiding in shadows, the other towards picking the lock.

Optional Rule: Impromptu Area Effect Disabling Automatic Defenses

When Automatic Defenses are Disabled, they dont completely go away: instead they are reduced to a 49 If you want to allow crazier stunts, such as stomping the ground so hard it bowls over an entire squad, or running around at super speed punching a dozen

11. U SING A BILITIES guys in the face, you can use the Impromptu Area Effect Rule to break up the dice to cover even more targets. Attacking two targets uses one die each. After that each time you lower the die-size by one, you double the number of targets that die effects (e.g., d8, d8 becomes 1d8 on each, then 1d6 on 2 targets and 1d6 on another 2, then 1d4 on 4 targets and another 1d4 on a different 4 targets, etc.). You can never split a Power below d4, and you can never double up by having the two groups overlap by a single target; if that means that you cover less than the maximum (say there are 4 in one group and only 3 left over for the second group), thems the breaks. Generally, Impromptu Area Effect is intended for when somebody is spreading their Power around, such as setting your Maser on wide-angle to try to shoot an entire crowd, or when the gigantic lizard sweeps its tail through the entire party. If youre doing something like shooting a hole in a nearby coolant pipe with your blaster to try to engulf a mass of Empire Troopers, or tossing a tapestry down on a group of guards charging up the stairs at you, its quicker and easier for the GM to treat that as creating a Peril or Obstacle instead. (See Perils and Obstacles.) You can use the following table as a cheat-sheet. Table 11.1: Splitting Abilities # Targets per die Die-size 1 -0 2 -1 4 -2 8 -3

Generally, it makes more sense to treat opponents as a Mob if they would be no threat to the character except en mass, or there are too many to make it worth even counting how many individuals are Hindered or Out. A Note on Tactics If you are ghting a group of identical foes, such as agents, and you dont really care which one you put Out, it is always advantageous to at least split your Power into two attacks. E.g., if you have a d10, d10 attack, make it d10 against each of two foes. If the resulting roll is too low to affect the agents on both dice, rolling both against a single agent wouldnt have helped; if one of the dice is high enough and the other isnt, you still put an agent Out just as if youd rolled against a single agent; if both of the dice roll high enough, you manage to get two agents. Contrariwise, if you are ghting a single foe, or you have reason to care exactly which foe youre putting down (such as the one who is closest to the launch button in the underground missile silo), its better to use both dice against that single foe, and even better if you can Combine Actions to use larger dice. Wild Shot (merging two dice into a single larger die) is a toss-up: its more random, so your average roll will be lower, but the maximum roll will be higher. If you think the average is good enough to prevail you should stick to rolling two dice; if you think that youll only win if you roll close to the max then you should Wild Shot.

And the rest... When youre using Impromptu Area Effect, after youve split the dice to cover as many specic targets as you wish, you may choose to target everybody left over in the area with a single d4. Roll 1d4 for all of them, not each individual.

Quick Roll
When rolling for a bunch of identical Abilities, such as when NPCs are defending against an Area Effect Power, or Power thats been split among them with Impromptu Area Effect, instead of rolling for each individual roll the defensive Power and treat the high die as applying to half the group, and the low die as applying to the other half.

Duration Of Abilities
The duration of the effects of various Abilities should generally be determined by the Primary Rule. If you make a patch of ice with one of your Abilities, it will last until somebody else uses a Power to get rid of it, or it melts naturally. If you make a wall of stone, it will last until indenitely, or until its destroyed. On the other hand, many Power effects should be presumed to last only until theyre overcome; if you Hinder a foe by trying to encase him in ice, the icy coating only lasts until he spends an Action to free himself. 50

Speeding Combat Vs. Minions

Against a bunch of identical foes, you can treat them as a Mob. To treat them as a Mob just redene them as a single entity, increasing their Power Levels appropriately. See Mobs 14. E.g., The Indescribable Bulk throws a truck at 16 agents of H.E.L.L. As a Mob, you roll once for the Bulk at d12, d12 and then once for the entire mob of Agents at, say PL 8 (d8, d8).

Chapter 12

Tropes
Tropes are special rules that help provide a better t for things that are typical of the genre. Tropes are almost always invoked by the players, or the GM on behalf of the NPCs, so they can be used as much or as little as the players see t; they are not situational modiers, so you dont need to be constantly checking the list to see if a particular Trope applies, nor is there any chance that you played it wrong if you later realize that there was a Trope that you might have used but didnt. hits them (doing half the die-size), but cant reasonably aim so as to hit only the henchmen and not the people theyre standing among; a character with a Rain of Fire Power that has the Area Effect advantage is similarly unable to avoid Collateral Damage simply by choosing to use Careful Aim. If you wish, you may also declare that youre Pulling Your Punch and then you wont cause Overkill even if the result would normally be sufcient to Overkill; you cannot Pull your Punch unless you are taking Careful Aim. Again, Pulling Your Punch may require extra justication, particularly if youre using an Area Effect attack. Careful Aim and Pulling Punches cannot be combined with Wild Shot, since the nature of Wild Shot is giving it everything youve got instead of taking a safer more controlled shot.

Aid
Spend an Action to completely Unhinder an ally, no matter how many Hindered conditions are stacked. You should still describe how youre aiding the ally according to the Primary Rule.

Careful Aim And Pulling Your Punch

There are times when the character may want to be more cautious about using attacks, either to be surer that you hit, or to avoid doing Collateral Damage or Overkill. If you take Careful Aim then instead of rolling the dice you take half the die size of the larger die. E.g., on d6, d6 you take 3, on d10, d8 you take 5. You wont have the chance of rolling really well, but you wont roll really poorly either. You cannot use this option while you are Hindered. If you use Careful Aim, then you can choose not to do any Collateral Damage if you wish. An exception is when you are attacking a bunch of targets at once, either via a Power with the Area Effect advantage or by Splitting the Dice; in that case, whether you can avoid Collateral Damage through Careful Aim depends on the Primary Rule justication youre using to explain how you manage to hit all the targets. For instance, a character using Super Speed could say that hes just running up to each target and punching them individually in the nose, so avoiding Collateral Damage makes perfect sense; a character using Super Strength whos justifying Splitting the Dice among a number of henchmen who are standing within a crowd of bystanders by picking up a bus and throwing it at them can take Careful Aim to make sure that he 51

Failure Is Not An Option!

If you are trying an Uncontested action and you roll poorly, you can adjust the roll into the maximum roll by spending another Action and invoking Failure Is Not An Option! You should accompany this with some explanation of how you managed to pull it off. If you were in combat, you become Hindered; this represents some extra time or effort you needed to put in to change the failure to a success. If the adjustment is more than your Stamina, youre Tired in addition. If youre out of Actions, you may still invoke Failure Is Not An Option but you automatically become tired, no matter how small the adjustment was. E.g., you are attempting to lift a car off the train tracks before the oncoming train barrels into it, at Difculty 6 for your Scope; if you roll less than a 6, you can choose to still lift the car if you wish, but you narrate that it almost slipped out of your grip (the bad roll), and you had to lunge for it, as a result youre Hindered. For extended tasks outside of combat where it doesnt make much sense that you are temporarily Hindered, you may adjust still the roll to the maximum, but if the adjustment is more than your Stamina you become Tired; this represents working really hard at the task, such as might be represented in a movie or comic book by a montage: exhaustive searches at

12. T ROPES the library, late nights at the lab, pounding the streets talking to contacts, and so on, until you succeeded. You may never do this with Contested rolls; instead you would use Supreme Effort. (see 12) Failure Is Not An Option may be combined with other ways of getting bonuses to the roll, such as Combining Abilities and Supreme Effort, with suitable Primary Rule explanation. Academy Training Power between attacking and defending. Can be combined with automatic defense in the usual way (treat as +1 to the smaller power).

Supreme Effort
If the Power isnt sufciently strong, but is close, you may attempt a Supreme Effort to accomplish the task anyway. You add your Will Attribute to the roll. E.g., d6, d6 Power plus Will 3 rolls 5, 2, which is a 5, then + 3 for the Supreme Effort = 8 total. If the roll is Uncontested you may combine this with Failure is Not an Option (becoming Hindered as well, to change your roll to the highest possible). When you make a Supreme Effort, your Stamina goes down by one temporarily (until the end of the adventure or you use Overdrive), and you become Tired. Once you become Tired, you may not attempt further Supreme Effort until you recover from being Tired. You may apply Supreme Effort after you see what the die roll is by spending an additional Action. This simulates the comic book trope of realizing that youre about to fail and redoubling your effort, even when that effort is something like ring eye-beams. If instead you choose to apply Supreme Effort before the role it doesnt take an extra Action, but might well be wasted (if the roll is so bad that Supreme Effort cant possibly help, or so good that it was not needed).

Intimidation
One staple of SF stories is the characters are often able to Intimidate others through a display of their Abilities, particularly much weaker foes such as normal people or low-level thugs. Attempts to Intimidate are treated as attacks vs. Will, but instead of being a contested roll against the Power that would normally be used to defend against such an attack, the contest is vs. the defenders strongest Power. This is the You call that a knife? Now this is a knife! principle. Attempts to Intimidate dont literally require an attack on the defender, merely a demonstration of what the Power is capable of, such as against a nearby inanimate object. Creative use of the Primary Rule can justify using Powers such as movement or defenses in Intimidation, e.g. by using ight or telekinesis to dangle somebody high above the ground, or to demonstrate that the targets best weapons bounce harmlessly off your powered armor.

Second Wind
If you are Tired, you can expend 1 point of Stamina to recover from being Tired. You can only recover Stamina by spending a scene resting, at one point per scene. A rest scene really should involve a restful activity, like spending a night in a good bed, or bathing in a hot spring, not just taking a brief pause in running from the wolves to pant by the side of the road. In ction, these are the scenes where the protagonists let their hair, and their guards, down.

Take a Bullet
When attempting to Counter an attack, the you can elect to Take a Bullet: you take the brunt of the Power against your Default Skill, but the action is automatically Countered; the opponent doesnt get to abort or attempt to use a different power to avoid being Countered. Normals will sometimes do this to take an attack meant for another.

Sheer Determination
As a last resort, you can always free yourself from being Hindered without spending any Actions by using Sheer Determination: regardless of how many times Hindered has been stacked on you by previous attacks, or what Abilities you have, you can clear them all by expending 1 point of Will. This does not take an Action, but once you reach 0 Will you can take one more Action and then are Out. Will can only be recovered at the end of an adventure.

This Ends Now!

Sometimes battles drag on forever, with neither side gaining a clear advantage. To address this, either the players or the GM may suggest at any point that the remainder of the battle be resolved via This Ends Now! If you agree to resolve it via This Ends Now! Both sides describe a single assault, which can use any of the rules for Combination, Wild Swing, Supreme Effort, and Jury Rig and the highest roll wins the battle decisively. The losers are at the mercy of the winners, regardless of how the interplay of the Abilities would normally be worked out according to the Primary Rule. (E.g., even if your Automatic Defense would usually make you immune to the particular Power the enemies are employing, if you choose to use This Ends Now!, if you lose, you lose and are Out/captured with the rest.) Ties, as always, go to the players. 52

Shoulder Roll
You can split your Power into one die on the attack, and one die on the defense. E.g. You shoulder roll and come up ring your laser, letting you split your

Wild Shot

Wild Shot
Any time you use a Power, you can take a Wild Shot: you merge the two dice into a single higher die. The result is generally a slightly more erratic roll, but one with a chance of scoring larger hit (maximum value increases). Wild Shot does not in itself require a special Primary Rule justication, it just represents trying a harder, riskier shot. Two identical dice merge into a single die one size larger: d8, d8 becomes a single d10; d10, d10 becomes d12, etc. If dice dont match, roll just the larger die and add 1 to the result. E.g., Power Level 7 is d8, d6. Using Wild Shot you change that to d8+1.

Wild Shot And Combining Actions

Wild Shot may be done with Combined Actions as well. Just apply the Combining Actions rule normally, and then merge the dice of the base Ability. Example: A squad of 4 goons, each with a PL 4 (d4, d4) attack can Combine their Powers into a single (d4, d4)+4 attack; they have the option of Wild Shot as well, transforming the attack into a d6+4 attack. Example: A single character combines her own PL 8 Flight and PL 10 Electric Mace attack and takes a Wild Shot. Thats +1 PL to one of the Abilities for the Combination, likely the Mace since its higher. That makes it (d10, d10)+1. Wild Shot would merge the d10, d10 into a single d12, then +1 for Combining. Had her Mace been PL 11, and Wild Shot would merge the d12, d10 into a single d12+1 and +1 for the Combination would have her rolling d12+2.

53

Chapter 13

Rounds And Turns

The players and the NPCs take Turns, going around the table, alternating between the GM and each player. Once around the table is called a Round. Your characters Actions attribute determines the maximum number of Actions you can take in a Round, and all Abilities except defenses may only be used once per Round. This may not be strictly realistic when one character is an android capable of sorting an entire library of data chips in a matter of minutes and another is merely human in command of the ship, but science ction stories dont feature 5 minutes of scenes with the android in the engineering section for every 10 seconds of the captain on the bridge. The GM begins each Round by describing the locale as it currently stands, and particularly any conditions that have changed as a result of previous Rounds, such as radioactive goo spreading across the oor from the storage tank that was just ruptured, busloads of orphans now careening out of control, countdown timers on doomsday devices advancing, and so on. Play should then alternate between a player taking a Turn and then the GM taking the Turn of one or more NPCs, until every PC and NPC has taken a Turn. The GM should try to space out the Turns of the NPCs so they go in between each players Turn, instead of all the NPCs at once. multiple Actions to attack the same foe, you can treat them as a sequence of separate attacks or as a Combined Action, depending on how you describe them.

Not Your Turn

As long as you have Actions left: If its somebody elses Turn, you can defend yourself or others, Combine your Abilities with others to help them, or attempt to Counter an Action. In between Turns you can take any Action that doesnt involve attacking.

Cutting in Line
If you have some reason you want to take your Turn in the order before one of other players goes that Round, you can just ask them to take your turn rst. Your position at the table isnt meant to be destiny; its just an easy way to keep track of who hasnt had a chance yet. If you want to cut before an NPC, you can spend an extra Action to move your Turn up.

Interrupting
You can only Interrupt somebody elses Turn once theyve announced it if you are trying to Counter them, otherwise you should wait until their Turn is resolved. Dont spend too much time thinking about the best order to carry out Actions or take Turnsthe object is to keep the action owing, cutting back and forth between the characters and the enemies as in a movie, rather than to gain any kind of tactical advantage.

On Your Turn
On your Turn, you can do as many different things as your Actions, as long as you dont use any Ability more than once. Sequences of Actions have to make sense as happening rapidly according to the Primary Rule; you shouldnt try to reprogram a computer, wrestle an alligator, and seduce the enemy all at the same time, even if each of those makes sense individually and you have enough Actions to cover it. If your Turn comes around and you dont want to do anything yet, you can postpone your Turn for later; play then moves on to the next player. You may take your Turn later, but you may not interrupt another characters Turn except to try to Counter them. You may invite other Players to join you in Combined Actions (or they may suggest it); if they join you, you are considered to be taking your Turns simultaneously and they do not get a separate Turn later. If you use 54

Chapter 14

Special Situations
The variety of Abilities and situations that science ction characters confront, and all the ways they can combine, is vast. Most of the time, dealing with this in Zap! is straightforward: you apply the Primary Rule to see what sounds sensible in an SF story and then either it simply happens (if its unopposed and well within the Abilitys capabilities), you roll and compare to a Difculty (if its unopposed but possibly beyond the limits of the Ability), or you roll against the opposing Ability. Nevertheless, some special situations crop up frequently enough that its worth treating them slightly differently, both for greater delity to the genre and more consistency when they crop up. They are largely elaborations on the basic procedure, rather than replacements for it, and the GM should feel free to ignore them in any situations where they would make less sense than the basic procedure. Intimidation; the presumption is that the coordination or tight packing that allows the mob to be treated as a single entity for purposes of overwhelming the characters render it vulnerable to disruption or scattering without special effort on the part of the characters so long as the basics of the Primary Rule are followed. Mobs are treated the same as single characters when it comes to rules like Wild Shot, Supreme Effort, and the like, whether the mob is ghting a single character or another mob. Mobs may Combine Actions with characters, provided they are operating at the same Scope. That is, a single minion shouldnt be able to combine with the enemy leader to give him a bonus, but a mob of minions large enough to be a threat to the character should.

Hit Locations
Most of the time the exact location a blow or shot hits can be determined according to the Primary Rule, or just by picking a likely location. Sometimes you might want a way to resolve where it lands in an impartial fashion: perhaps the attack does something additional if it hits unarmored skin, or perhaps you just nd it easier if you dont have to make it up on the y. Chart 15.1 can be used to pick a location without any additional roll. Just use the least-signicant digit of the lower of the two dice rolled. The smaller the die, the larger the area the number represents: on a d4, a 3 would be anywhere on the arm or hand; on a d6 a 3 would be on the forearm or hand. If the player wants to call a shot to a particular location, the least signicant digit of the lower die (including any bonuses) has to meet or beat the number on the hit location chart. Whether that hit Hinders or puts the target Out still depends on the Damage when compared to the defenders roll.

Mobs
SF characters frequently confront mobs, even armies, of lesser foes. While the ordinary rules for combining Abilities (when it comes to the mob attacking) and splitting Abilities (when the characters attack the mob) are sufcient for small groups, it can become tedious if the mob is very large or is interacting with multiple characters at once. In these situations, its convenient to handle the mob as a single entity, or perhaps one entity per character. Simply stat the mob out as if it were a enemy, with Abilities and Attributes representing the combined values of the individual members; there is no need to calculate this according to the rules for Combining Abilities, just do it directly based on the Scope. E.g., a mob of ordinary citizens sufcient to take on a Neighborhoodlevel character can just be given a Main Power (guns and improvised weapons) at Level 6 (d6, d6), a Automatic Defense (multiple bodies) at Level 8 (d8, d8), Toughness 3, Will, Stamina and Actions 2, and then ght as a single entity. Out can represent the mob being dispersed, rather than each individual being incapacitated (though it could represent that, too, depending on the Primary Rule). When ghting a mob as a single entity, there is no need for characters to split their Abilities or use Area Effect Abilities to cover the entire mob, whether making an ordinary attack or 55

Crossing Scopes
Adventurers sometimes face opponents of different Scopes from their own, whether its lower-level alien critters or menaces from a higher Scope. Since within a Scope Power levels always have the same range from PL 2 to PL 12 (roughly), when encountering some-

14. S PECIAL S ITUATIONS will be treated as PL 13 (d8+5, d12) while at your Scope. Facing a foe 3 Scope Levels higher who has a PL 4 Power: Regional 4 = City 5 = Neighborhood 6 = Street 8. The rst two downward jumps add only 1, since the PL is less than 6, then the last adds 2. His Power at your Scope is PL 8. If you look at the Power Level charts in the Appendix youll see this is a reasonably good approximation of looking up what a Power at a given Scope ought to be able to do and then cross-indexing to what the equivalent is on the Scope chart for the appropriate lower or higher Scope.

Inventing Features of the Environment, How Much is Too Much?

Zap! leaves the players a good deal of room to just make up features of the environment as needed to employ their Abilities. If theyre in a docking bay and they want to hurl a barrel at an oncoming trooper, they can assume theres a barrel because that seems plausible. Nothing is really gained by forcing them to stop and ask the GM whether there is a barrel, and if not is there something similar enough that it would work within reach? On the other hand, it would be very dull if the players could just declare I pick up the secret documents were supposed to be searching for from where they were left in the open on the desk. Similarly, if the characters are in a starport bar, the players can just assume that there are bartenders and patrons such as a loud drunk, a prosperous-looking businessman (unless perhaps it was a very seedy bar), a tough-looking stevedore, and so on... but what about the President of the Federation, who just happens to be there? Where to draw the line? The rule of thumb is that players should refrain from inventing anything that would demand further explanation. If you were watching an SF show and there were barrels in the docking bay, it would never occur to you to wonder why they were there, but if the heroes stumbled across the secret plans just lying on a receptionists desk it would raise all kinds of questions. Players should try to never just make something up that makes the other players stop and wonder how or why its there. Even if something were perfectly plausible, the players shouldnt invent it on their own if it would raise questions about why nobody noticed it before. You dont want to have your narration cause all the other players to have to completely revise their mental image of the scene. A bar-ght may be a perfectly normal occurence, at least in the kind of bar PCs frequent... but a player ought not declare that her character is using the distraction caused by the heretofore unmentioned bar-ght going on to pick somebodys pocket since that would raise the question of why nobody noticed it until now. Better to instigate a ght, and then use it as a distraction. 56

Figure 14.1: Hit Location

thing from another Scope you have to translate its Scope to your own. You should almost always translate them into your Scope, so you dont have to do the math on all the players Abilities. To do that: For each Scope Level the opponent is higher, add 1 to its Power Level for PLs less than 6, add 2 to its PL for PLs greater than or equal to 6. For each Scope Level the opponent is lower, subtract 2 from its Power Level for PLs greater than or equal to 6, subtract 1 from its Power Level for PLs less than 6. Examples: Facing a foe 2 Scope Levels lower (such as Street Scope when you are City) who has a PL 7 Power : Street Level 7 = Neighborhood Level 5 = City Level 4. The rst jump in Scope subtracts 2, the second only 1, since at that point its already at less than 6. His Power will be treated as PL 4 when facing you. Facing a foe 3 Scope Levels higher (such as Regional Level when you are Street) who has a PL 7 Power: Regional 7 = City 9 = Neighborhood 11 = Street 13. Each downward jump add 2 levels. His PL 7 Power

Chapter 15

Range
Range and positioning in Zap! are highly abstract, and are scaled according to the Personal Scope of the Campaign. Rather than giving a range as a concrete number such as 300 meters, and then calculating that based on a movement rate of 100 meters per Round it will take three Rounds to cover the distance, in Zap! you would say that since the Scope is e.g., Neighborhood, the enemy being on the next street over puts him at Pursuit Range, and it will take one round using your Movement Power to reduce that to Combat Range. Almost all combat takes place at Combat Range for the Scope, except perhaps at the beginning when the sides are just catching sight of each other, or if one side is trying to elude the other. Range divides into Combat Range, Pursuit Range, and Lost Contact with the distances depending on the Scope. Combat Ranges for each Scope are listed below; Pursuit Range is one Scope level higher, and Lost Contact is two Scope levels higher. So a character operating at City Scope would treat everything in a single block of buildings as within Combat Range, up to a couple blocks away in any direction as being Pursuit Range, anything farther away would be Lost Contact. Note that Pursuit Range doesnt literally mean they are directly visible at all times, or that you have noticed them, merely that the Scope of your senses and movement Abilities are sufcient that you can attempt to locate them; depending on the Primary Rule that may mean you are criss-crossing the area at Super Speed rather than searching for them with X-Ray vision, but in any case they must win one more Contested Movement roll before theyve eluded you completely. At Combat Range all Abilities work normally; at Pursuit Range, the you can only roll a Contest of either movement vs. movement or sensory Abilities versus hiding or evasion; if youve Lost Contact, you cant even try to locate the target any moreyou have no idea which direction theyve gone or how far. What constitutes Combat Range does not depend on the Power in question: claws and laser-beam eyes have the exact same Combat Range for a given Scope, they simply require different descriptions of how the power is used to justify them, with claws more likely to require extra justication by including a description of how the character runs and leaps on the foe, or 57

slashes a cable holding a cargo net to make it fall on him. In any case, by the Primary Rule if you cant come up with a plausible justication given the circumstances, you should refrain from using the power until it is justied. Each Round you can try to reduce or increase the Range by one category; if the other side tries to prevent that from happening (by eeing or pursuing) make a Contested roll of Movement and sensory Abilities vs. Movement and stealth Abilities, depending on whether the quarry is trying to outdistance pursuit or hide; this takes an Action. Ranges are symmetric: no character can attack another from a range too great for the target to counter-attack. It may be that the description of certain Abilities implies a limitation on the range of that Power, e.g., a Sword implies that you generally have to be within arms length of the target. Even so, if the character chooses to throw the sword, or move

15. R ANGE to close with the foe and smack him one, the range to the foe is no different from any other Power. The Combat Range also determines the Difculty of spotting a target with a sensory power, e.g. something that would require special senses to spot would ordinarily be Difculty 6 , but for a Neighborhood Scope character to spot it several blocks away would be +2 Scope levels, therefor Difculty 8. (see Difculty for Other Tasks11.) Combat Range by Scope 1. Normal Normal large room, such as dining room or conference room 2. Agent Floor of a building, or a large room such as a club or warehouse 3. Street Large building such as an ofce or warehouse Street and storefronts on either side 4. Neighborhood Block of buildings 5. City Several blocks of buildings 6. Region Neighborhood of a city, e.g. SoHo or Chinatown 7. Country Region/several states 8. World Country 9. Solar System World 10. Star Cluster Solar System 11. Galaxy Star cluster Add 1 to Scope for Pursuit Range and 2 for Lost Contact. ing? Or spin so fast with your arms outstretched that you helicopter into the air? Or do you need to nd or build a ramp at super-speed and launch yourself off it? In real-world physics there is no speed that makes any of those except the last possible, but in comicbook physics any could be an explanation if thats how you say your Power works, pretty much regardless of the exact level of the Power and where it falls on the speed chart. Once in a while the situation might make it hard to justify using the Power: if the enemy is standing at the other side of a lava-lled crevasse and the characters Movement power is roller-skating the player might feel its implausible that the character could jump the crevasse to touch the enemy with her stun glove; according to the Primary Rule she should simply do something else, or combine her attack with another character who can supply the needed justication by carrying her over to attack with his Rocket Pack power. In general, though, given the exibility of Abilities and the leeway given to the players to invent plausible details of the environment such as vines to swing on, news copters to hitch a temporary ride from, rubble thats formed a convenient ramp to jump a motorcycle from, and so on, players should rarely nd themselves at a loss for justifying closing any distance within Combat Range even if the Powers description requires they actually touch their opponent.

Senses And Range

Difculty for spotting something with your senses is relative to how hard it would be to spot, adjusted by distance according to the area that the particular Combat Range covers. By the Primary Rule, though, you should only have to roll if what youre trying to spot might easily be missed, such as when its concealed or youre distracted. If its actively trying to hide, that would be an Opposed check vs. whatever Ability it was using to conceal itself. E.g., Something that an ordinary human could spot would be Difculty 4, something only perceptible to super-senses or equivalent instruments would be difculty 6, and so on. (See Difculty for Other Tasks 11). If an ordinary human could spot it when within the same large room (Scope 2), then spotting it from the next block over (Scope 5) would be +3 to the difculty, or Difculty 7. On the other hand, spotting it from within the area covered by small room would be -1 to the difculty, for a Difculty of 3. The amount that you make the roll by can be used to indicate how much information your senses reveal. Succeeding by 0 means you can perceive whats currently happening, which is usually sufcient, but many unusual senses that Adventurers might possess could plausibly be able to reconstruct past events or perceive minute or subtle details. See Investigation Results.

Movement And Range

Most Adventurers, except at the very lowest Personal Scopes, are capable of traveling much faster than would ever be necessary to get about in combat or reach any place within Combat Range within a relatively short amount of time. You can use the Power Level chart to gure out how fast your character can go, but most of the time the character is going to be more constrained by the need to justify the movement by the Primary Rule than the actual speed. Characters in Zap! are presumed to be within reach of each others Abilities as long as theyre at Combat Range or less, as long as they describe what theyre doing adequately. Movement is only separate action when youre attempting to change the Range or overcome an Obstacle, otherwise it takes place as part of the description of the other actions the character is taking. For instance, if your Movement Power is Super Speed, and the enemy is ying, how do you get up to him if thats what you want to do? Can you run so fast that you can run straight up a near-by build58

Chapter 16

Investigation
Frequently in Science Fiction, the characters will be facing the unknown. It could be as prosaic as trying to solve a crime, or as exotic as trying to determine why the laws of physics themselves seem to be breaking down, but Investigation will form a large part of most SF adventures, and the players will want to play out obtaining new information. Most of the time in Zap!, the information is there for the asking, while the interpretation is left up to the players. If they search a body, or a database, or perform a scientic experiment, they will nd everything that the GM thinks is a relevant clue, and perhaps some red herrings besides. In other cases, the players will want their characters to perform investigations and detective work in order to outsmart or get the jump on the enemies, for instance to gure out their enemys likely next move or sniff out the security precautions hes placed in his lair, in which case the character should roll the appropriate Ability (usually a Shtick) or the Default Skill if using something from the characters Background against the Difculty of the task (see Difculty for Other Tasks 11), and comparing the result to the following table: The number of you beat the Difculty by determines the amount of information obtained: Success 0 1 2 3 4 5 Answer yes/no one-word answer short sentence, quantity, or direction diagram or paragraph description sketch or series of questions clear image or a conversation with the GM Table 16.1: Information Gained The result is approximately how much information the GM should divulge. For instance if the detective is trying to deduce what the criminals target is as they are attacking a museum exhibition, thats something that an ordinary person could do (Difculty 4), so the detective rolls her appropriate Ability vs. Difculty 4. Suppose she gets a 6; she beat it by 2 and the GM should provide about one sentence worth of information: The most likely target is the special exhibition of gold insects on the second oor. If she had beat it by 5, then the result would be a picture; not necessarily a literal picture, but the information equivalent to looking at a photo of what they intend to steal, which means that she could ask questions if she wanted such as what kind of display case its in, whether there are guards around and so forth and the GM should try to answer if it would be evident from looking at such a photo. When the GM is conveying the results of the Investigation roll, its best if at all possible to give the actual clues that the detective spotted that lead to the conclusion couched in terms that make sense according to exactly what Ability or skill the detective is employing rather than the bare bones of the information. If a mystic character is using her Psychic Sensitivity to try to identify a suspect, then the description should be in terms of psychic impressions, and perhaps lean more heavily towards the feelings and psychology of the target; a character using Detective should be given more concrete physical description along the lines of From the angle of the blow it would have to be somebody taller than the victim, and quite strong, either a man or strong woman; the attacker was left-handed, and some from some thread that were caught on one of the victims buttons was wearing a very expensive cashmere jacket. The goal, as always with Zap!, is to make the descriptions ow satisfyingly from the Primary Rule being applied to the specic Ability used.

You can Combine Actions for Abilities that give information, with yourself and others, and that usually is an excellent strategy since each additional success more than doubles the amount of information you get. (One roll at +1 is better than two characters making rolls.) Note that how much information you get is determined by the roll, but which information you get is determined by how you narrate your actions and phrase questions to the GM. 59

A Note On Investigation
Dont overuse Investigation; in particular dont turn it into the skill system that Zap! doesnt have. Nothing of value is added to the game by substituting Investigation rolls for the Spot and Notice checks that some other games have. If its something that the charac-

16. I NVESTIGATION ter should notice or know because of their Abilities or Background, the GM should just divulge the information. Characters in SF dont usually miss clues, even really obscure ones, and the ow of the game isnt helped by the players having to play twenty questions to see if they notice something relevant. SF characters in particular often have abilities far beyond those of mortal men, and even senses that nobody has or can accurately describe. Just go ahead and tell them all the information they can glean, using whatever senses and abilities they have, and let them get on with the far more interesting part of interpreting and using that information. Reserve Investigation for when its an activity that will be interesting enough to devote play time to, preferably when the players instigate it, for instance by announcing theyre going to use their ships computer to try to analyze the signal from the surface of the planet and identify the culture that likely produced it. It can take some work for GMs used to other systems to shake the habit of asking the players to roll to see if anybody knows a certain piece of information or notices the impending ambush, but it will make for a faster-paced game and help the characters really shine. A good rule of thumb is never use an Investigation roll for something that the character would passively notice or could see at a glance, and if the player announces the character is going to perform a specic activity to try to gather information such as visit the dives around the starport to shake down punks for information, or research at the university library, consider whether the Primary Rule implies they should just be given the information theyre seeking (if it is indeed a plausible way to turn it up) without requiring a roll. Reserve rolling for situations where its unclear whether and how much information they should turn up.

60

Chapter 17

Negotiations
Negotiations are a catch-all for all inter-personal interaction that is not overtly hostile. Usually, you want something from someone else, and are trying to convince them to give it to you, whether you want a possession, information, or simply for them not to help your enemies. Negotiations are broken down into three types of sub-goals: Charm/Appease: you are trying to make them like you more or hate you less. Convince: you are trying to make them believe a matter of fact (which could be known to be true, a lie, a conjecture, or a wild speculation). Entice/Caution: you are trying to make a certain course of action more appealing or more frightening. When using a Shtick in negotiations, set the difculty level to be the Scope of the person or group you are negotiating with (for a person thats usually the size of the area they command, e.g. the Mayor of a City would be 5, since City is Scope 5). The GM will determine the most likely attitude at the start of the Scene based on your common history, alignment of interests, characters, and the roleplayed interaction. You can make a roll to Charm or Appease. Success improves their attitude by one level just during the scene; success by more than their Will makes the attitude one level higher permanently, or at least until you do something further that alters it for the worse; if you succeed by 3 more than their Will, their attitude becomes two levels higher. If you fail by more than 3, their attitude becomes one level worse. You may not attempt to Charm/Appease them more than once per Scene, nor have different characters try one after another, although you may all Combine your abilities; once youve determined their basic attitude towards you for the scene and done your best to modify it, play out the rest of the scene and any attempts to Convince or Entice/Caution them based on the resulting attitude. The numbers for each attitude are modiers to your rolls to Convince or Entice/Caution them, once youve determined their attitude. 61 Attitude 1. Hatred (-3) Harming you is one of their most important goals. They will harm you if at all possible, although they may hesitate if it is likely to cause their deaths or loss of another long-term goal. Hatred occasionally has benecial aspects, such as when your sworn enemies prevent another from killing you so as to savor your death themselves. 2. Hostility (-2): They would like to harm you, but it is not a major goal. They wont make plans to harm you at great expense or danger, but will harm you if there is a good opportunity. 3. Unfriendliness (-1) They would enjoy seeing you harmed, but it is not an active goal of theirs. 4. Neutrality (0) They do not care whether you are harmed or helped, if it doesnt affect them in some other way. 5. Friendliness (1) They wish you well, and will help you if it has little cost or danger. 6. Warmth (2) Your well-being is important to them, but not enough that they would take great risks or expenses on your behalf. 7. Devotion (3) You are central to their existence, and they would take great risks and bear great expenses for you, although it is not completely without limits. Devotion can sometimes backre, in that their obsession with you may become a nuisance or danger. They may become jealous of other allies, or sycophantic to the point of not giving you honest answers.

17. N EGOTIATIONS

The GM will rate their receptiveness to an idea, based on their nature and the role-played encounter. Using an Ability to Convince them or Entice/Caution them can increase this one level with a success, or two levels if you succeed by more than their Will; failure by more than 3 makes this one level worse. Convince 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Denial Disbelief Skepticism Neutrality Openness Belief Conviction Entice/Caution Repugnance Reluctance Disinterest Neutrality Interest Eagerness Zealousness

What an Ally will give you

It is generally cheap for a party to give you information they have, so any favorable attitude might give you information. Secondly, the other group may give you assistance. This will often be in the form of assigning an underling to help you, or a temporary Ability. They could also take charge of some aspect of a group plan, such as keeping the Imperial Troopers busy while you corner the General. Finally, if they are really committed to helping you, they could devote their entire resources to your joint endeavor. Usually, they would take charge of the major aspects and risks, and delegate some smaller role to you.

62

Chapter 18

The Environment
In science ction stories the environment provides things for Adventurers to break or use as weapons against each other, and things that are dangerous to the characters. Other aspects of the environment merely provide fodder for using the Primary Rule and plot and characterization for the adventures. mentioned it or its somehow in keeping with the enemys persona.

Environment Description
The GM should take care to describe the environment in sufcient detail to provide the players with a good sense of the ways that they can employ the Primary Rule when taking their actions. Its not necessary to be obsessively detailed, and a battle mat and miniatures are almost certainly overkill (though if you want to and have the action gures lying around, go for it), but a bit of extra time eshing out the scene slightly is well worth it. Dont just say When you blast through the door, you see a hi-tech lab and a bunch of technicians. If you can, add some salient details: Along the right side of the room are a bunch of bubbling tanks with shadowy gures suspended in them; a myriad of tubes criss-cross the ceiling and descend into the tanks. In the middle of the room a group of about seven scientists in lab coats and goggles are working at some tables with Bunsen burners, various chemical glassware, and microscopes. Along the left side of the room is a bank of computers and monitors, and three agents in armored jump-suits, with bandoleers and sidearms are working on them. At the rear of the room, on a raised platform that takes up the entire back of the room, there is some sort of metallic table with restraints and three huge ominous ray devices pointing at it. Light is coming from standard panels in the ceiling, like the rest of the base, and there is another closed Blast Door at the far end past the platform. Players are free to assume that there are features that arent explicitly mentioned, as long as they make sense given what theyre told is there, but they should exercise some restraint when it comes to unusual, too convenient, or bizarre features. A mad scientists biology lab certainly has glassware, might have rats or even monkeys in cages, but almost certainly doesnt have a pool full of hippopotamuses unless the GM has 63

Buildings
Buildings are similar to Bases, but will usually lack any Abilities except a Automatic Defense and Toughness, which will start at PL 6 and the Scope Level respectively, but can be higher for special-purpose or hardened buildings such as prisons or armories. As with Vehicles, merely getting an Out on a Building with a Power on the same Scope as the building doesnt destroy it...it breaches the buildings security and perhaps a wall. To be able to destroy a building in a single blast requires scoring an Out with a Power 3 levels higher in Scope. E.g., it takes a Power on the Cosmic scale to potentially destroy the whole world in a shot, or Power on a National scale such as a ghter jet to destroy an entire sky-scraper. You can destroy a building with lesser Power, if you keep applying it, such as a tank destroying a large sky scraper, but its up to the Primary Rule to determine how long it takes or if it can be done at all...after all a single M1 Abrams tank

18. T HE E NVIRONMENT cant expect to destroy an entire city by itself in any reasonable amount of time. couldnt destroy the building to be able to smash the vault in a single blow.

Building Levels
Buildings all start with an Automatic Defense of PL 6 (d6, d6) and a Toughness equal to their level. 1. Normal: Apartment. 2. Agent: Single family home. 3. Street: Row of houses/warehouse. 4. Neighborhood: Several blocks of homes/large sky-scraper. 5. City: Entire city. 6. Region: Region/Several states. 7. Nation: A country. 8. Global: The whole world. 9. Interplanetary: A solar system. 10. Galactic: An entire Galaxy. 11. Cosmic: The Universe.

Perils and Obstacles

The world is full of dangerous things that can injure or inconvenience the unwary character: rivers of bubbling lava, perilous crumbling cliffs, tanks containing sharks with frickin laser beams on their foreheads, and other perils too numerous to mention. Perils are treated as Automatic Attack Powers. Obstacles are treated as Automatic Powers that attempt to Counter certain actions, most often movement or senses. A patch of oil that attempted to Counter any movement across it would be a Obstacle; a patch of oil that was on re would be a Peril, and perhaps an Obstacle to sight. The GM should assign a Power Level based on a combination of how difcult to avoid or how deadly or effective it is. A rivulet of lava only 2 feet across will probably have a lower Power Level than a cloud of sleep gas that completely lls the room. A patch of loose gravel that made running difcult would have a lower Power Level than an oil slick, even if it covered a much larger area. When the characters interact with the Peril, such as when a room is lled with sleep gas or if dumped in among the sharks, treat is as an attack against their defense. The Peril should act against the character once per Round, generally on the characters Turn to make it easier to track. When characters interact with a Obstacle, the Obstacle should attempt to Counter their actions whenever they narrate something that would interact with it, such as riding their motorcycle across the oil slick; treat it as a normal attempt to Counter, where they have the usual options of aborting to save their Power and Action, rolling against it to see if they succeed anyway, or spending an Action to use some other Power to counter it (such as shooting a nearby sandbag to spill sand across the oil slick before trying to ride over it). Perils are often non-lethal. Non-lethal Perils can still potentially put characters Out, either by actually knocking them out, or by removing them from combat for three Turns. E.g., if a dam bursts and inundates the character, scoring an Out against the appropriate defense could represent the character being washed away down river and needing three Turns to return rather than being unconscious. If something cant reasonably put a character Out, only inconvenience them or block their actions, treat it as a Obstacle instead. Slippery oors, or clouds of obscuring gas are almost always Obstacles, not Perils. Some things might be treated as both: a river of lava might be a Obstacle if you attempt to cross it, and a Peril if you fail and fall in. Use the Primary Rule to decide which, given the circumstances. Such things should typically have different Power Levels as a Peril or a Obstacle: being extremely deadly does not auto-

More Stuff To Break

The world is full of stuff for adventurers to break. Most of the time this can be handled by simple application of the Primary Rule, particularly when the character is setting out to break it. If a Street Level character wants to smash through an ordinary interior door using his Abilities, the door should smash. Sometimes, though, its questionable whether the character has sufcient power, such as when a Street Level character wants to smash through a bank vault door. Power Level 6 is enough to lift a motorcycle, but to break open a bank vault? As mentioned in the Collateral Damage rules, random objects generally have Toughness equal to the minimum Scope at which a number of them tend to appear, and the Default Skill (PL 4) for resisting attacks. Hot Dog stands and re hydrants are Street Level (3), News stands and cars are Neighborhood Level (4), and so on. Attacks at the same or lesser Scope will break the object on an Out result, but not destroy it; and destroy it on Overkill. Attacks from a higher Scope character will destroy an object with an Out, though it takes three levels higher to destroy a building or similarly huge object (or collection of objects, such as a city block or ofce park). Particularly tough objects, such as bank vaults, should be given the benet of the three levels rule as if they were buildings, and possibly an actual Automatic Defense; realistically a bank vault would probably survive the complete destruction of the bank, so it would be somewhat implausible for a enemy who 64

Perils and Obstacles

matically make something nearly impossible to avoid or overcome, and vice versa. Perils and Obstacles should never use Wild Shot, or exert Supreme Effort, but simultaneous perils might Combine Actions, and clever characters might try to combine their Power with them. If the ceiling of the secret lair is caving in at the same time that the character is trying to leap to safety over the bubbling lava, treat it as a Combined Obstacle acting to Counter his leap. This works out slightly to the characters favor, but speeds things along. Note that since Perils count as Automatic Attacks theres no limit to how many times they can attack in a Round as long as the conditions that trigger the attack are met. The Peril will only attack a given character on its own initiative once per Round, but other characters can try to incorporate the Peril into a Combined Attack as many times as they like, provided they can justify it by the Primary Rule. For instance, you might combine Martial Arts with the room lled with sleep gas by saying you were punching the foe in the gut to force him to breathe some in. Re65

member that combining attacks with Automatic Powers such as Perils always use the lesser Power as the base, and add to that. E.g. Martial Arts PL 8 and Sleep Gas PL 6 would combine to a PL 6+1 attack not a PL 8+1...but since the Sleep Gas is the base, if it had any advantages like vs. Stamina those would apply to the combined attack, just as the martial artist intended. Perils and Obstacles might behave as if they had certain Advantages and Disadvantages, such as being Area Affect, or Exotic, or Single Use, just as if they were a normal Power. If the character tries to eliminate the Peril or Obstacle, say by freezing the lava in place, treat that as an attack to Disable the Power. Its possible that a Peril or a Obstacle is so dangerous or permanent it cant be eliminated, for instance a sea of lava in a Neighborhood campaign; in that case dont even assign it a number, just say its beyond the characters abilities. The GM should assign a Toughness based on how easy it is to eliminate the Peril or Obstacle. Like all Abilities, Perils and Obstacles follow the Primary Rule. It doesnt matter that the river of lava is de-

18. T HE E NVIRONMENT ned as a Obstacle, if the character has ight she can just y over it without having to roll her Flight Movement Power versus the lavas attempt to Counter. If she decides to dive in it to see if theres something at the bottom and her only defense is Acrobatics, then the lava doesnt need to rollshes going to get burned. criminate between the characters friends and foes, so an ally on the wrong side of the blast doors is just as stuck as the Troopers, and in just as much trouble when the chamber is voided into space.

Creating an Obstacle or Peril

Characters can create Obstacles or Perils with their Abilities. Generally, treat these as if they have the same Power Level as the Ability used to create it. If a character uses his PL 6 Ice Ray to create an ice slick on the oor, that becomes a PL 6 Obstacle to anybody trying to cross it. The character wont have to continue to spend Actions in subsequent Rounds; instead the Obstacle should last a reasonable amount of time, generally until the end of the scene unless somebody Disables it to eliminate it.

Out by a Peril
One important difference between a Peril and a enemy is that when it comes to being Out, in most campaigns enemies will let up rather than attempt to nish the job if for no other reason than they have bigger sh to fry than beating on a helpless character. Perils, particularly when theyre environmental factors like high radiation or poison gas, will continue as long as the character remains exposed, putting the character Down for the Count on the second Round. This can present a problem if you want a low-lethality campaign; if so the GM should give the characters companions ample opportunity to rescue the character before any permanent harm is done, if necessary helping along by narrating the Out in such a way that rescue is still plausible (e.g., falling victim to the fumes on a small outcropping surrounded by the lava rather than plunging right into it). If they fail to do so, and theres no plausible way for the character to jump back in after the usual three Turns then the character is missing, presumed dead. The player should decide whether to leave the character in that state for a while, playing a different character in the meantime, or have the character return almost immediately. In any case, in order to return, the player needs to come up with an explanation for the characters miraculous escape. Note that it is perfectly acceptable to use a Shtick to create a Peril or Obstacle; this is one way you can promote a non-combat Ability to be useful in combat. Thus, a character with a Computer Systems Shtick couldnt use it to attack a group of Empire Troopers directly, but could use the Shtick to override the blast doors separating them, thus creating an Obstacle they would have to surmount, or even open the hangar bay doors, creating a Peril that threatens to sweep them out into the void of space. The disadvantage, of course, is that Obstacles and Perils dont dis66

Chapter 19

Equipment
In most Science Fiction, equipment plays a big part in the story, whether its the smugglers trusty blaster or the science ofcers tricorder. In Zap! you should assume that Powers and Shticks that you use require equipment. and the equipment youre using should be part of your narration of what youre doing. You are reduced to one die (as if you were Hindered) in that Ability if you dont have appropriate equipment (e.g. guns or knives for a Power like Soldier, medical kit for a Shtick such as Doctor). Abilities that have taken the Advantage Bare-handed arent subject to this; a typical such Power might be Martial Arts. Abilities that have the Disadvantage Equipment Required dont even get a single die; they just cant be used. Most of the time, players can assume they have whatever equipment they need to hand...or just pick up some improvised equipment. Somebody with a Power Elite Commando caught without a rie while in a hotel dirt-side on R&R when some terrorists attack can narrate grabbing a handy mop and breaking off the head to use as a staff until she can knock one out and take his gun. The point is to encourage such narration for avor, not to enforce bookkeeping of everything the character is carrying at every moment. There should, however, be times when in all fairness it is unreasonable to assume that there is adequate equipment handy, and the player should endure the handicap until some can be procured. by one die size instead of one Power Level. E.g. a Pistol d6 with the Shots Disadvantage becomes d8; a Grenade d8 with the Area Effect Advantage becomes d6, etc.

Typical Equipment Dice

Equipment Die Small/Minor d4 Medium d6 Large/Major d8 Rare/Expensive d10 Legendary d12 * if used. SeeWealth. Cost* 2 3 4 5 6

Variations in Equipment
You should assume that there is wide variation in capabilities of the items listed, even if its not reected in a mechanical difference between the items. These differences should become fodder for the Primary Rule in play. For example, mechanically all primitive armor is just a d4 vs. muscle-powered weapons, but that doesnt mean that in play you should treat plate armor and a leather jacket as being identical; you are strongly encouraged to decide on the y that, say, according to the Primary Rule and the tone of the campaign swimming underwater in plate is forbidden, but a dagger has no chance of even Hindering somebody clad in plate except under special circumstances such as in combination with an attack that immobilizes the wearer. The GM and players are strongly encouraged to invent details about the equipment in keeping with the setting, even if the details have no game-mechanical effect, since they can provide fodder for the Primary Rule. For instance in the modern day there are many makes and models of cars, with varying features such as numbers of doors, convertible roofs, automatic or manual transmission, differences in trunk size, side of the car the gas-cap is on, and so on. Any of these things might plausibly come up in the course of play as justifying or forbidding certain actions based on the Primary Rule, even though in game terms anything from a Toyota Camry to a VW Beetle or a Ford F150 pickup truck might be described simply as Ground 67

Equipment Dice
Specic pieces of Equipment in Zap! are rated in terms of a single die; characters using the equipment can use that die in place of one of their own if it would improve the dice rolled. For instance, a pistol might be rated at d6. An untrained person who would ordinary roll a d2 for his attack would instead roll a d6. A trained police ofcer with a Power Police Training 4 would roll a d6, d4 instead of d4, d4. If he had PL 5 hed roll d6, d6 instead of d6, d4. On the other hand, an Elite Commando PL 8 would still roll d8, d8; the pistol wouldnt improve on that, though it would justify using both dice instead of being reduced to one for being unequipped. Equipment can be given the same Advantages and Disadvantages that Abilities can, raising and lowering the Equipment Rating

19. E QUIPMENT die; beating the equipments roll means it can be repaired. The number it rolled is the number of Rounds it will take to make operational in combat, or Scenes out-of-combat. This biases repair times in favor of quick repairs in combat, but that matches most of the genre ction. Failure in combat means that it needs to be repaired out of combat; failure out-of-combat means it needs to be replaced, at least in part. Building new equipment works essentially the same way, but must be done out-of-combat unless using a Scientists Science! skill. New equipment costs roughly the same as buying the equipment, unless it seems plausible that 90% of the cost of the equipment is labor (as might be the case with primitive laborintensive items such as mail armor). See Wealth for more about Wealth and costs. The advantage to building it yourself is that you can get equipment to your exact specications, or in places that it might not otherwise be available on local markets.

Cybernetic Enhancemetns
Car d6. In a SF setting, equipment is likely to be just as varied and interesting, and the GM players should try to bear that in mind, inventing details where necessary. Generally speaking cybernetic enhancements, or cyberwear, shouldnt be purchased as Equipment in Zap! Rather, since once installed it becomes an innate part of the character it would be purchased with personal Boosts. Only in a setting where cybernetic enhancements were frequently swapped in and out during the course of an adventure according to the needs of the moment would it make sense to write it up as equipment and let players purchase it for their characters with wealth. In such a setting, assume that nearly anything that could be purchased as Equipment can be installed as an enhancement, but would Cost would +1 for the Advantage Cyberwear, and possibly another +1 if it has the Advantage Concealable as well.

Maintenance
Equipment in most SF settings needs routine maintenance. Once per session, the players should spend a Scene describing how theyre performing maintenance on some single piece of equipment, either all together on something big such as a ships component or each character on her own equipment; this stands in for all the maintenance that they need to do on all their equipment to keep it in good repair. If they skip this scene, all their equipment acquires the Erratic Disadvantage (fails to operate on a Mishap) until the scene is performed.

Example Equipment
Not all of this equipment will be available in every setting, and the GM is encouraged to change the basic parameters to better match the setting. Perhaps all Laser guns must have the Burnout Disadvantage to represent the limited lifespan of the tubes that generate the laser. Even if the equipment exists in the setting, theres no guarantee that the PCs will be able to purchase it: a Portal Gun might be a top secret weapon, only available as a prototype in a sinister laboratory. AutoDoc d8 Can perform emergency medical procedures and treat many conditions. (A) Flexible (D) Bulky (D)Slow Chatty Cathy Drone d6 Sows confusion on communications channels by spoong conversations, records and plays back live trafc with learning algorithms to make it harder to sort out real from 68

Equipment Mishaps
A roll of doubles when using Equipment is a chance of a Mishap, or a 1 if youre only rolling 1 die. If theres a chance of a Mishap, roll a d12 and get higher than the Equipment Die size to prevent the Mishap. Remember you only have to check for Mishaps if you have a Disadvantage that requires it, such as the Erratic Disadvantage from not maintaining the equipment. (If you nd it simpler you can just roll a d12 when you have to check for Mishaps and a 1 is a Mishap; its just a matter of whether you prefer to have to roll an extra d12 every time or only once in a while.)

Reparing and Building Equipment

In order to repair broken equipment make an opposed roll of a suitable ability vs. the equipments

Example Equipment fake trafc.Laser Pistol d4. Typical futuristic energy weapon. (AA) Area Effect Force Shield d6 Creates a disc of force in front of the user, proof against most physical and energy weapons. Fragmentation Grenade d6 Typical WWII pineapple grenade. (AA) Area Effect. (DD) 3 Shots Gravity Grenade d8 Pulls everything in a sphere around the grenade into an untidy pile at the center and holds it there until the power runs out; doesnt directly damage objects or people unless theyre fragile, but can render them helplessly trapped. (A) Lesser Area Effect (DD) 3 Shots Hacker Deck d8 Computer with neural jacks that lets the user mentally control an avatar in cyberspace; within the virtual representation of the network the avatar can retrieve data, break into secure systems and even take them over. (AA) Control (D) Fragile (D) Side Effects (can physically damage the user) InstaWeb d6 Quad-rotor comm drones provide private encrypted network in deployed area. (AA) Area Effect. Lockpicks d6 Set of tools for opening locks and defeating security systems, depending on tech level these may be mostly dealing with electronics/computers/forceelds instead of physical locks. MindSaver d10 Implant emergency uploads patients memory to secure backup for implanting in a clone, wipes out current bodys memory. (DD) Very Slow NanoGoo d10 Given a template, and a mind saved by Mind Saver, can reconstruct a person from a saved copy. Often used for deep-space scouting so the crew can be saved and reconstituted when the ship reaches its destination, rather than having to endure and be supplied for years. (DD) Very Slow Needler d6. Shoots high-speed ceramic echettes that can deliver toxins, paralytics, truth-serum, or just damage tissue. Favored shipboard, where to the hull and machinery cant be risked. A: Flexible, D: Stopped by armor Plaskin d6 Articial skin can provide temporary repairs of cuts and burns; can be used to reduce chance of permanent injury on recovering from Out, or to substitute a longer term Complication such as requires reconstructive surgery for a short term one like unable to use arm due to wound. Programmable Clothes d4 Can morph into any ordinary-appearing clothing. (A) Subtle 69 Projectile Pistol d6 The standard six-gun. (D) 6 shots Portal Gun d8 Creates portals that you can step or re through; requires line of sight to both sides of the portal. AA: Exotic (stopped by forceelds) Rations d4 Simple rations, lasts nearly forever, chemically self-heating, wrapper can be used as a water lter. Robomule d8 Simple programmable sawhorse-style robot for carrying equipment & supplies; surefooted, relatively slow, not comfortable to ride on. Sonic Grenade d8 A grenade that produces an ultrahigh pitched sound that stuns creatures with auditory systems roughly like those of Earth creatures. (A) Lesser Area Effect (DD) 3 Shots (D) Limited: requires atmosphere, only vs. creatures with relatively human auditory systems Stasis Field d8 Stops time to preserve a cache of goods, equipment, even people indenitely against all conditions, even nuclear explosion. Device is the size of a backpack, projects a eld up to 3 meters in diameter. AA: Area Effect, A: Delayed (can activate via timer), DD: Single Use, D: Cant be deactivated except by external stasisdisruptor device Stun Pistol d6 Non-lethally disrupts creatures neural systems. Tetracorder d6 Scans environment at range; units may be further specialized to certain tasks, e.g. medicine. (A) Flexible Vacc-Suit d4 Protects vs. outer-space conditions.

Chapter 20

Ships
Ships in Zap! are treated as characters in their own right, but they have slightly different Attributes: Toughness, Hull Capacity, Power, and Crew. Ships are also rated by Scale which describes how large and effective they are compared to other ships; Scale is not an Attribute. Toughness works exactly as it does for characters. Hull Capacity is the number of slots the ship has to t Powers; a Power takes up 1 Hull Space, a Shtick takes 1/2 a Hull Space. You cant have fractional Hull Capacity values, but you can have unused space. Hull Capacity values are xed when the ship is constructed; you can upgrade everything else about a ship, but if you want a bigger hull you need a new ship. Power is how much power the ship has for running systems, primarily for purposes of pushing more power into them using such Tropes as Divert Power to... Power functions more or less as a combination of Will and Stamina. Crew is how many Actions the ship can take in a Round, not counting actions performed by the PCs. Crew 0 means that any Ability you want to use in a Turn must have a PC assigned to it. How fast ships travel between planets and stars is at a different Scope from individual characters, and is determined by the Campaign Scope for the setting. That is, if the campaign is Scope 10 Near Interstellar, then all ships in the campaign are presumed to be Scope 10 unless otherwise noted. Typical Powers for Ships include: Weapons, Shields, FTL Drive, Impulse Engines. Typical Shticks include Sensors, Life Support, Sick Bay, Cargo Bay(s), Labs, Engineering, Hydroponics, Vehicle Bay, Shuttle Bay, Life Pods, Cold Sleep Chambers, Recreation Deck, Brig, Ships Stores, Ships Library. Any Power that would be typical in the setting but that your ship is not equipped with is assumed to be present, but at minimal Power Level (Default Skill), unless that would be silly (a Brig on a one-man ghter). and FTL drive (if the setting distinguishes between FTL and STL drives), Shticks such as Engineering and Ships Library, and more. Warship Attributes: Toughness: 2, Hull: 5, Power: 2, Crew: 2 Powers: Three powers @ 5. Typically, an offensive weapon, a defensive device, and a movement power. Shticks: 4 Shticks @ 4. New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4 Cost: 2 Boosts/20 Wealth Points Merchant Ship Attributes: Toughness: 1, Hull: 5, Power: 2, Crew: 1 Defense Power: One Defense power @ 4. Active or automatic (choose one). Examples: Maneuverability, Force Shield. Movement Power @ 4 Shticks: 6 Shticks @ 5 E.g. Cargo Bay, Sick Bay, Life Pods New Powers begin @ 4 New Shticks begin @ 5 Cost: 1 Boost/10 Wealth Points Research Ship Attributes: Toughness: 2, Hull: 3, Power: 2, Crew: 2 Science! power: Choose one of three possibilities: Science! power @ 3 (d6, d4), (AA) Ultra-exible, (A) Power-up to 5 (d6, d4) with 3 research successes (self or others); Science! power @ 4 (d6, d6), (A) Flexible, (A) Power-up to 6 (d6, d6), and Ultra-exible with 3 research scenes. Science! power @ 5 (d8, d6), (A) Power-up to Ultra-exible with 3 research scenes. For all choices, it gets the Power-up by researching a device for a specic circumstances for 3 Scenes. Defense: A scientic gadget defense power @ 4. (A) Flexible. Choose whether Active or Automatic. Shticks: Choose 2 Shticks @ 4, plus Science Labs @ 5. Restriction: Pick a Restriction that is tied in with its brand of Science! New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4 Cost: 1 Boost/10 Wealth Points 70

Ship Templates
These are minimal ships of their type; larger ships will have more Hull space for more Powers like Sensors

Ship Advantages and Disadvantages

Custom Ship

sense. In addition there are certain Advantages and Disadvantages apply only to a ships Abilities.

Attributes: Toughness: 1, Hull: 2, Power: 1, Crew: 0 9 Boosts to spend on Attrs, Powers and Shticks Restriction: Pick any restriction for one extra Boost. E.g. cant land on a planet, no hard-points for weapons. Choose New Powers begin @ 5 New Shticks begin @ 4 or New Powers begin @ 4 and New Shticks begin @ 5 Cost: 1 Boost/10 Wealth Points Ships are treated like characters in their own right when it comes to increasing their Boosts: the rst additional Boost on a Ship cost 1 XP Each Boost after that . costs as many XP as the Ship has in Boosts (2, then 3, then 4, and so on). If you are using the optional Wealth rules, WP may be substituted for XP .

Ship Advantages
Small Advantages are labeled (A), Big Advantages (AA) Ablative (A) Power is reduced by 1 PL each time a successful hit is scored, but Damage is stepped down one level (Overkill becomes Out, Out becomes Hindered, Hindered becomes no effect). Automated (A) Doesnt require Crew to operate. Backup System (A) If Out, a replacement system 2 PL lower can be brought online for one Action next Round Hardened (AA) Treat Out as Hindered; Overkill as Out Long-Range (A) for this ship Combat Range has an extra section: Long Range. At long Range

Ship Advantages and Disadvantages

You can place Advantages and Disadvantages from the list for characters on Ships systems, if it makes 71

20. S HIPS you can re this Power with 2 dice while the enemy can only reply with 1 (unless they also have Long Range Powers). Movement between sections occurs as normal (that is, it requires an Action to change range). Extreme-Long-Range (AA) same as Long Range, but with an additional Combat Range section where you can re with 2 dice and they need either Long or Extreme Range weapons to return re (Long returns re with 1 die, Extreme with 2). Micro (AA) Requires no Hull space. Mini (A) Requires half as much Hull space, i.e. two Mini systems in one Hull space. Hangar Queen Systems are constantly breaking; every session roll a d12, on a 1 a random system is Hindered. If a Mishap comes up on the Repair roll, the system is Broken and needs replacement parts. No Hardpoints Incapable of mounting weapons that occupy Hull space.

Ship Complications
Just as with characters, every ship should have Complications; ships can have one Major or two Minor Complications. Again as with characters, you may freely change your ships Complications between adventures to keep things fresh. Some possible Complications are: Absentee Owner the ship is actually owned by somebody else, and you are using it only so long as you are carrying out their wishes. This could be an informal arrangement where you are merely on call if they need it, or the ship could be on active service in some organization and you are merely employees carrying out orders Famous the ship is widely known and recognized; this can make it hard to be inconspicuous. This might be a case of mistaken identity Haunted it may be a glitch in the systems, or an actual haunt, but strange things sometimes happen aboard: lights on where they shouldnt be, hatches undogged when they should be, cold spots that the ships internal sensors dont register... Mortgage you dont own the ship outright, and have to keep coming up with money to make payments on it. This should be played as a motivation to keep earning money, or occasional plot point, not as a particular amount of WP you need to fork over every session. Temperamental nothing is actually wrong with the ships systems, but every once in a while one will require more than one try to activate at inconvenient moment. Unlucky Reputation somehow things always seem to go wrong for the owners of the ship, or so the story goes. Sometimes it can be hard to nd crew, or shippers might hesitate to employ it. Wanted somebody believes they have a claim to ownership, and they want it back. Their claim might even be valid...

Self-Repairing (A) Outside of combat, the system restores itself by one level per Scene (Overkill becomes Out, Out becomes Hindered, etc.)

Ship Disadvantages
Small Disadvantages are labeled (D), Big Disadvantages (DD) Long Range Only (D) for this ship Combat Range has an extra section: Long Range. This weapon can only re at Long Range. Short-Range (D) for this ship Combat Range has an extra section: Short Range; this weapon is reduced to one die if longer than Short Range, and cant re at all at Pursuit Range. Short-Range Forbidden (D) for this ship Combat Range has an extra section: Short Range; this weapon cannot re at Short Range.

Ship Restrictions
Ships can have Restrictions, similar to those that characters have, that greatly limit their capabilities. This list isnt exhaustive, but suggests how severe a penalty a Restriction ought to be. A Restriction on a Ship grants the ship one more Boost to spend. Ship Restrictions cannot be bought off with Boosts at a later date. Cannot Land Too large or fragile to land on a planet, it will require shuttle craft or the equivalent to transport crew and cargo. Cranky Systems are chronically erratic; every session roll a random system, which is treated as having the Erratic Disadvantage for the duration of the session Exotic All repairs or upgrades require an extra 1 WP be spent because parts are hard to come by due to the ship being obsolete, alien, of foreign manufacture, etc. In addition, Exotic ships are more likely to be recognized and remembered. 72

Ship-to-Ship Combat
Ship-to-ship takes place the same way that combat between characters does, except that Damage is assigned randomly against the ships Abilities instead of

Ship-to-Ship Combat taken against the ship as a whole. Each ships system (Power or Shtick) should be assigned a number. Each time an attacker scores a success, gure out the degree of success as normal and then roll a die to see which system was hit. Systems that are Hindered are still operational, but at one die; systems that are Out are broken, but repairable, and systems that are Overkilled are destroyed. Damage Steps Operational (Undamaged) Hindered Broken (Out) Destroyed (Overkill) When rolling for damage location in ship-to-ship combat Automatic defensive abilities have no special resistance to being Hindered or Out: if the die-roll for damage location indicates they are hit, they take the damage. When systems are destroyed, do not reduce the size of the die youre using to determine the system hit; if an already destroyed system is hit again, reduce the Crew by 1, if the Crew is reduced to zero, then the ship is Out unless there are PCs left on it. If there are PCs on the ship, and the Crew is at 0, then each time the Crew is would be reduced by 1, a PC is Out; the PC should be chosen randomly from the ones working on the system, or if none were then from the remaining PCs. If an already destroyed system is hit by an an Overkill, the ship is destroyed regardless of remaining Crew. A ship is also destroyed if all of its systems are destroyed. Anything less, and the crew of the ship or PCs can still attempt to get its systemsor at least some of themworking again. This means that while ships larger hulls, more systems, and more Crew are in general harder to render helpless, a lucky shot can destroy one, and that battles dont drag out until the nal system of the ship is broken.

Repairs
Repairing systems decreases their damage by one step. You need to Repair a system more than once to bring it back up multiple steps. Hindered systems can be Repaired by characters with the appropriate Abilities by spending an entire Round and making an opposed roll against the PL of the system (more powerful systems are trickier to repair). If they beat the systems roll, the system is back up immediately; if they fail, the shortfall is the number of Rounds before the system will be back online. E.g. Spotty tries to repair the ships Engines with his Engineering 5 vs. the ships engines of 6. He rolls d6, d4 and gets a 2, the engines roll d6, d6 and get a 5: it will be 3 Rounds before theyre back online. Rolling a Mishap causes system to attack technician doing the repairs. If the characters dont like the result they can spend another Round to re-roll, but if the result is worse theyve experienced a set-back and it will indeed take longer than they originally thought. They can keep trying rolls as many Rounds as they wish, but Rounds spent this way dont count towards the Rounds until the System is repaired. During this time the Hindered system continues to remain available at a single die. If they wished to take the system ofine completely, that will reduce the amount of time it will take to repair it by 3 Rounds (to a minimum 1 Round). Broken systems can be Repaired, using the same procedure as Hindered systems, but require parts. Ships with an actual Ships Stores Ability or the equivalent may roll vs. the PL of the system that needs parts: success means the needed parts are available; failure means resorting to one of the other options. Parts not available from the stores can be obtained by cannibalizing other ships systems, or by adventuring for them. Destroyed systems cannot be repaired in combat. Out of combat, they can be Repaired with a successful roll at the cost of 1 XP; a failure means they are thoroughly destroyed and must be repurchased. If you are using the optional Wealth rules, you can obtain replacement parts by spending 1 Wealth Point. This happens immediately, even during combat, to reduce book-keeping; its assumed the parts are scrounged from non-critical parts that will need replacing. If you dont have the WP you may make , the repair, but you cannot make any future repairs except by cannibalizing until youve spent a WP on restocking parts; presumably if youre running a ship while that poor, youve been putting off resupplying and scrounging everything that was scroungeable for already just for routine maintenance. Destroyed systems may be repaired on a successful roll by spending 1 WP instead of 1 XP .

Attempts to Disable
You can attempt to Disable a specic system, as per the usual rules, but you must roll twice: rst against the ships normal defenses, and only if you beat them proceed to roll against the Power Level of the system you are targeting. You may not attempt to Disable any system that isnt represented by an Ability. E.g. if the target ship doesnt have Sensors as one of its Powers or Shticks, its assumed that they are too spread out, small, or redundant to make a legitimate identiable target. Automatic Defenses do have the usual resistance to being reduced if they are specically targeted: the damage level can never be more than Hindered unless the attacker is using a Power with the Disabling Only Advantage. 73

Cannibalizing
Any ships system thats an actual Ability can be cannibalized: cannibalizing systems increases the dam-

20. S HIPS age theyve taken by one step. Destroyed systems can be cannibalized, but it requires a roll equivalent to the Repair roll (roll vs. PL to see how many Rounds before you can recover useful parts). If a character rolls a Mishap while cannibalizing a Destroyed system, she suffers an attack as it explodes or short-circuits: roll the systems PL vs. the appropriate defense. You can cannibalize from the same system more than once, increasing its damage by one step each time, but once youve cannibalized a Destroyed system it cannot be Repaired even out of combat, and must be purchased anew. which the Power drops by one. If the Power reaches zero, the ships systems operate at one die, much as when a character is Tired. The Engines Cant Take It! A character with an Engineering Ability or the equivalent can use the equivalent of the Supreme Effort Trope to add her Will to a roll involving the engines or power plant, after which the system becomes Broken. Silent Running By powering down all systems, including life support, the ship becomes invisible or thought of as derelict to any scans at longer than Short Range (any other ship that wasnt already at Short Range per the Short Range Disadvantages would have to spend Actions to close to Short Range before they could detect the ruse). Each Round you spend in Silent Running requires a Life Support roll.

Life Support Failing...

If a ship ever loses Life Support, either because of damage to the system or because it was powered down (as in Silent Running), the crew will start to suffer. Each Round in combat or Scene outside of combat, make a Hindered (one die) Life Support roll vs. the Crew Attribute, or the Crew become Tired: all ships systems they control operate at one die. If they become Tired twice, they become Out. Another 3 times after that they are Out and they start dying. Use the Hindered Life Support roll even if the system is destroyed: better, more powerful Life Support systems take longer to degrade. Each time a Tired result comes up, PCs can elect to sacrice one point of Stamina instead. At 0 Stamina they are Out. If the ship has no Crew Attribute (the PCs are the only crew), treat it as a Tired result any time a 1 comes up on the Life Support roll.

Option: Faster Ship Combat

Standard ship-to-ship combat in Zap! takes approximately as long as a normal combat between the characters as individuals and a similar number of foes, with systems being eliminated one-by-one and the characters having time to repair them...although a lucky shot or clever tactics can end it faster; this is by design, since the elimination of the characters ship generally defeats the entire party at once. If you prefer to speed up ship-to-ship combat, one way is to have each hit on a specic system knock it down one level. Thus, a Hindered system that takes another hit would become Broken, even if the damage didnt exceed the ships Toughness. You can speed it up even more by treating the ship as a single character, and having entire ship become Hindered or Broken as a single unit. This offers a lot less leeway for individual characters to make a difference, or for manuevering and reversals of fortune, but is much more practical when more than a couple of ships are involved. You can decide which way you will handle combat on a case-by-case basis, or even distinguish between ships so that capital class ships take damage to individual systems while lesser ships are treated as a unit. You could even have only the PCs ship use the detailed approach, while all enemy ships are treated as single units.

PC Actions
When PCs are aboard a ship they may either spend their Actions using their own Abilities, such as when they are running around trying to repair things on the ship, provide medical assistance to the crew, or do research in the lab to cobble together a weapon to stop the alien attackers, or they may serve as crew manning one of the ships abilities. Each PC that takes over supervising the functions of one of the ships Abilities in effect gives the ship an extra Action during that Round, at the expense of that PCs own Actions. When PCs are using the ships Abilities, they treat it as Equipment, using the better of the Abilitys best die and their own best die or the Abilitys dice. E.g. if the ships guns are PL 6 (d6, d6), a PC who had Gunner 8 (d8, d8) would roll a d8, d6 (her great gunning improves the chances, but shes still limited by how good the guns are); a PC who had Gunner 4 (d4, d4) would roll a d6, d6 (having a PC in charge never makes the it worse).

Ship Scale
The Scale for a ship describes how large and effective that ship is compared to other ships regardless of Adventure Scope. A ship could range from a singleperson craft to a colony ship with millions of inhabitants regardless of whether the Adventure Scope is 10 (Near Interstellar) or 14 (Galactic Cluster). The Scale 74

Ship Tropes
Divert Power to the... Equivalent to the Supreme Effort Trope for characters, you can add the ships Power rating to a roll, after

Ship Scale of the Ship is the number of digits in the crew complement. A ship at Scale 1 has crew in the single digits; a ship at Scale 3 has hundreds of crew, and so on. If youre using the optional Wealth rules, thats also the Scale of ships Wealth. The Crew attribute indicates how many crew the ship has given the Scale. E.g. a smugglers ship with a handful of crew would have Ship Scale 1. If the ships Crew Attribute were 2, that would indicate 2 crew members; a deep-space exploration vessel with 435 crew would be Crew 4 at Scale 3. A battle carrier with 1,000 crew members could be Crew 10 at Scale 3 or Crew 1 at Scale 4, depending on whats more convenient for the setting: is it one of the largest ships in its class, or the smallest? A ship the size of a moon with around 300,000 crew would be Crew 3 at Scale 6, and so on. Ship Scale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 ~Crew per point 1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 100,000,000 1,000,000,000 10,000,000,000 100,000,000,000 Settings with Multiple Adventure Scopes If the campaign setting actually has multiple Adventure Scopes, say with some cultures at Scope 10 (Near Interstellar) and others at Scope 14 (Galactic Cluster), Ship Scale is subordinate to the Adventure Scope; that is, a Ship Scale 3 ship belonging to a Galactic Cluster civilization is presumably much more powerful than a Ship Scale 6 craft belonging to the Near Interstellar culture. In situations with mixed Scopes like this, if it becomes necessary to compare the ships in combat or with one trying to evade the other, rst convert the ships from Adventure Scope to Adventure Scope using the Crossing Scopes rules, then if necessary from Ship Scale to Ship Scale. E.g. if the Star-cruiser from the previous example came from a Scope 14 civilization and the Peregrine from a Scope 12, the Star-cruiser would rst be converted from Guns 5, Shields 4, and Drive 3 to Guns 8, Shields 6, Drive 5, and then to Guns 12, Shields 10, Drive 5. On the other hand, if the Star-cruiser were from a Scope 10 civilization, the Star-cruiser would rst be reduced to Guns 3, Shields 2, Drive 1 by translating two Scopes upward, and the shifted to Guns 7, Shields 6, Drive 1 to put it on the same Ship Scale as the Peregrine.

Ship Scale and Effectiveness

When ships of different Scales are in combat, their non-Movement Abilities are scaled; Movement Abilities and Attributes remain xed since its typical in Science Fiction for small ships to be able to outrun larger ones, and to be able to survive one or more hits even from a bigger ships weapons. For every Scale you move a ship, raise or lower the score on its Abilities by 2 depending on whether the ship is being shifted to a Scale where its relatively more or less powerful. Abilities never go below 1. Usually you would shift the side that has the fewest different types of ships, to minimize the work; otherwise, leave the PCs ship(s) and shift their enemies, so the players can just look at whats listed on the character sheet. E.g. the Peregrine runs across an Empire Star-cruiser, a Scale 3 ship with hundreds of crew and huge guns. At its normal Scale the Star-cruiser has Guns 5, Shields 4, and Drive 3. At Scale 1 its Guns count as 9, the Shields count as 8, and the Drive remains at 3. None of the Attributes change. If you were doing it the other way around, shifting the Peregrine to Scale 3, the Peregrines Movement 5, Deector Shields 4 and Gun Turrets 4 become Movement 5, Deector Shields 1, and Gun Turrets 1. 75

Chapter 21

Trekking
Science Fiction stories often have a good deal of fairly routine travel: not every space voyage is punctuated by pirate attack, receiving a distress call, or encountering a mysterious alien entity. But if play skips over the days, weeks, or even months of routine to get to the good stuff space can end up feeling very small, with treks halfway across the galaxy feeling like a trip down to the corner store. To combat this and give texture to the routine ship-board activities that make up a large part of genre, Zap! uses a just the highlights system called Trekking, which rates travel distances in terms of Scenes needed to complete the travel. Based on the Adventure Scope and technology of the setting, the GM should determine how much subjective time (how many Scenes) should pass to trek between the closest points for long-distance highlights-only travel. Longer distances should then be made proportional to that. For example, at a Near Interstellar Scope, the GM could decide that distances between planets in a single solar system using impulse power should take a few days, while the closest stars would be weeks away using warp drive, and the frontier a couple of months. Based on this, she decides that travel between planets takes between one and three Scenes; between close stars 6 to 12, and the frontier would be 21+ Scenes away. Note the deliberate discontinuity, so that embarking on an interstellar journey feels like a signicantly more time-consuming enterprise than hopping around insystem; also note that the number of scenes neednt be strictly proportional...if a trip that takes a day requires one Scene, a trip that takes a week doesnt necessarily require seven Scenes. A GM who wanted the players to be able to it from system to system more casually could reduce the numbers, say to 1, 3 and 6 Scenes respectively, or even skip Trekking entirely and hand-wave everything as 3 months later, you arrive.

equipment (see Maintenance), training, performing Research, or role-playing a conversation or interaction between several of the PCs or the PCs and NPCs. It can also be some incident or encounter that the GM presents: if the ship actually does encounter some pirates or a distress call, that counts as a Scene towards completion of the journey. Scenes neednt all take place shipboard; feel free to include stops along the way to refuel, trade, explore, or for some R&R, as appropriate for the setting and the PCs goals. Some of these may turn into adventures in their own right, while others might just be short interludes and an opportunity to insert some local color. Scenes can be as short or as long as you care to make them, but the point of playing out the Scenes is to give the players some interesting memories of what happened during their trek from Point A to Point B, not merely to force them to do a slow count to ten before the action can resume. This is a good opportunity to work in some of the Complications of the various characters or the ship itself, or to give some spotlight time to characters that havent been front-and-center of the action recently.

Scenes
A Scene during Trekking is exactly like a scene in a book or a movie: a single situation or incident, usually in a single location. This can be a description by one of the players some activity their character is performing during the trip, such as maintaining their 76

Translating Distance to Scenes

If the GM has worked out exact travel distances between various locales and speeds for various forms of transportation, that can be translated directly into Scenes by assigning a unit of time for a One-Scene

Typical Scenes trip. E.g. if you say travel takes one Scene per day, then a ship capable of traveling 1 light-year per day would take 12 Scenes to complete a 12 light-year trip, while a ship that can travel 6 light-years per day would take only 2 Scenes for the same trip. Fractional Scenes should be dropped. If the setting uses more abstract distance, like Jumps of a xed duration, you can peg the Scenes to Jumps, say 2 Scenes per jump. Even though the way you work out the number of Scenes supposes a certain number of scenes per unit of time, that doesnt imply that Scenes ought to take that long, or be spaced out evenly. E.g. if youre translating one weeks travel = one Scene, the individual Scenes dont have to occur one per week like clockwork; if it makes sense, you should immediately follow one Scene with another, such as a Scene where the PCs decide to land on a planet to trade followed immediately by another Scene where they hunt for bargains in the bazaar, and another where they get drunk in a local bar. If thats all the Scenes that are required to complete the journey they were on, that just means that you should make the remaining weeks pass without incident once they get underway again. The GM could also use a sliding scale, typically to make longer distance travel less tedious, such as by making Trekking take one Scene per day up to 7 Scenes, then an additional two Scene per week up to one month (another 8 Scenes), and three Scenes per months travel thereafter. This would have the advantage of making a contemplated 6 month journey still seem like it would take a signicant amount of time as measured in Scenes without forcing the players to gure out 180 Scenes to ll up the time; on the other hand, depending on the setting you might want a six month journey that crosses the entirety of known space to be a daunting prospect that will take months of playing...or at least prod the players into thinking about getting a faster ship.

Typical Scenes
The GM and players can pick from any of these, or make up their own. If the players want an encounter, they should feel free to pick it up on scanners or receive a distress signal even if the GM isnt inicting it on them. Maintenance Training Malfunction Research Personal Issues Disagreement between crew-members Family emergency Romance Dereliction of duty Application for promotion Complication Crops Up Recreation Refuel/Resupply Trading Paperwork Non-hostile Contact Encounter Hostile ship Distress call Anomaly Hazard of travel Outbreak Crime Alien Contact

Cutting to the Chase

Dont slow down the action or insist on playing out the Scenes just to prolong the process of travel. If the players are chasing some eeing bad-guys, by all means skip ahead, even if it would normally amount to a bunch more Scenes. Keep a sense of pacing, and dont fritter away any sense of urgency the players have built up. If they want to cut to the chase, oblige them. If they dont want to play out the process of traveling at all, and would rather just start each adventure orbiting a new planet, then drop the Trekking rules all together...though you should probably still try to include some time in each session for down time activities. Even action-adventure SF TV shows usually include some scenes of normal activity each episode as a change of pace or to allow for character development; non-stop action can be as tedious as no action at all. 77

Chapter 22

Research
Science and engineering form core elements of Science Fiction stories, so its not surprising that many protagonists are scientists or engineers and are constantly doing research or tinkering with devices. In Zap! characters with the Scientist Template can do Research Scenes to revise and expand their Science! Power to the needs of the adventure, but thats just one way that research into new technology, devices, and scientic knowledge can come into play. Characters may also perform Research to gain new Assets and improve upon their existing ones. Once each session, characters may perform a Research scene using any appropriate Ability (the Scientists Scientic Research Shtick, or any science or engineering Shtick that characters using other Templates may have). The characters choose an Asset (see4) that they want to improve upon with research and tinkering, or a new Asset they want to create. The Difculty for the Research is the PL of the Asset. Scoring a success grants 1 XP for improving that Asset, or towards its purchase for a new one; if the 1 XP from success isnt enough to buy the improvement or new Asset immediately, bank it as belonging to that particular Asset. When making a Research roll, always check for a Mishap even if the Power doesnt have a Disadvantage that would call for a check. If a Mishap occurs, the GM should invent something interesting that went wrong, such as: 1. Shower of sparks, some piece of equipment is broken. 2. Small explosion; treat as a single attack on the researcher(s) at the PL of the Asset. 3. Line of Research is set back, if any XP was accumulated on this Research lose 1 XP . 4. Experiment sets off an adventure. Perhaps the researcher is split into a good version and a bad version, or it attracts a mischievous or hostile entity through a spacio-temporal rift, or the ship is hurtled back in time or to a different quadrant of the galaxy. 5. Sudden insight. You can abandon this Research and put any XP already banked into a new line of Research, aiming at a new Asset. 78 6. Serendipity! Youve accidentally discovered something else entirely. GM grants you a Major Asset of her design. Interesting in this context means that it has some effect on the game besides just the description of colored lights and things blowing up, although that effect need not have mechanics attached. A new Minor Asset costs 1 XP; Major Assets that belong to the players jointly cost 3 XP; Major Assets that belong to a particular character cost as many XP as that character has Boosts. Improving Assets costs as many XP as the Asset has in Boosts. A Minor Asset is generally something like a piece of equipment: the PL is the die-size. A Major Asset is generally something thats treated almost as a character, like a Vehicle, Base, or Companion, with its own Attributes and Abilities. The GM should determine what the Attributes and Abilities of a new Major Asset are, following the description by the players of what theyre trying to Research. When playing out a Research Scene, players are strongly encouraged to describe what theyre doing in some detail, even if its just techno-babble, and try their to t the science and technology into the setting and tone, whether thats Im adjusting the baryon lters on the warp core to reverse the polarity of the tachyon ow, which if it works should let us create a short-term temporal rift so we can travel back in time or Im duct-taping a grenade launcher and a amethrower to my pulse rie. Players can combine their Abilities, and should add to the description: Ill be monitoring the efciency of the baryon lters using my Radar Vision prosthesis, to warn if the lters are becoming unstable. If the campaign is using Wealth, you can substitute WP for any expenditure of research XP; you can even use Research to generate WP by inventing new processes or gizmos that you can sell or patent. The difculty of getting a Wealth Point via Research is your current Wealth PL, with the usual results for Research Mishaps.

Chapter 23

Experience
As you play the game you earn Experience (XP). Generally adventurers earn one XP per session, plus one if they were put Out at least once during the session, plus one more if the entire group was defeated. (Defeat is an excellent teacher!) The GM may choose to award more, up to two or three, for signicant accomplishments, such as nally completing a story arc that has been taking place over a number of sessions. Characters may earn an extra XP for Going Boldly, volunteering to place their character at the mercy of the GM in order to move the plot along or get reintegrated in the main action if theyve somehow become separated. Each character starts with 3 Boosts, plus some Templates have Bonus Boosts. Every additional Boost after the start costs as much XP as the number of Boosts your character has so far. Remember Assets like Companions, Bases, and Vehicles do not count towards the characters number of Boosts, nor do Bonus Boosts for the Templates that have them. E.g., a starting BadAss character has 3 Boosts plus 1 Bonus Boost, so it takes 3 XP to get an additional Boost. Once the character spends the XP on a personal improvement the character has 4 Boosts and so the next Boost would cost 4 XP . With one Boost you can: Increase a Power by 1 Level Increase two Shticks by 1 Level each Add one Small Advantage, or change a Small Advantage to a Big Advantage Remove one Small Disadvantage, or change a Big Disadvantage to a Small Disadvantage Add 1 to one of your Attributes Take a new Power at the Level indicated in your Template (e.g. 5 for Bad-Ass, 4 for Crew) Take two new Shticks at the Level indicated in your Template (e.g. 5 for Crew, 4 for Bad-Ass) Get a Major Asset such as a Companion, Vehicle, or Base. 79 Major Assets are treated as if they were characters: you keep track of their Boosts, and increasing their Boosts costs as many XP as that Asset currently has in Boosts, or 1 if it starts with 0. E.g., a Companion starts with 0 Boosts so it costs 1 XP to give that Companion a Boost. After that its a 1 Boost Companion, and will cost 1 XP to improve again to 2 Boost Companion, then 2 XP to get a 3rd Boost and so on. You can also spend XP directly on Minor Assets, such as Favors, Perks, Reputation, or Contacts. One new Minor Asset costs 1 XP as does adding 1 level to an , existing Minor Asset.

The Pace Of Advancement

It may seem that characters will advance very slowly given this system; it can be several sessions before a starting character can increase the level of her main Power or get a new Power. This is generally in keeping with the nature of the genre. SF stories dont usually focus on the characters acquiring more and more personal power, leveling up and getting new gear; when adventurers do get new powers its a big event, and usually comes as a result of something signicant happening during the course of an adventure or the start of a new adventure, such as being captured and experimented on by a mad scientist or alien race. Instead of altering the core of the character, as a result of their adventures they widen their circle of contacts, aid people who may then owe them favors, develop a reputation, make improvements to their base of operations and all the other things that Zap! designates as Assets.

Chapter 24

Wealth
Wealth is an optional system in Zap! Many Science Fiction settings make the characters wealth irrelevant, or just part of the background: the characters are doing what they do to make money, but how much money is never really described nor do their actions seem particularly constrained by what things cost. Even if the setting doesnt suppose a post-scarcity economy, if youre on active duty and bankrolled by Star Fleet, how much it took to build your ship or to keep it running and in repair need never come up. On the other hand, a space-navy campaign might well have the captain of a ship assigned a budget that she needs to keep within, or have her personal wealth matter in terms her share of prizes awarded for the capture of enemy vessels. a character with Wealth 3 can have one, but if she loses it that might adversely affect her wealth; if she has Wealth 4, then replacing it or buying an extra for a friend is no problem; a character with Wealth 1 wont be able to afford one, and will have to try to get one in the course of adventuring.

What Money is Called

Characters in the setting may be dealing in credits, quatloos, double-dollars, cubits, and it may vary from place to place in the setting; all that Zap! tracks is the number of digits of wealth you have.

Wealth and Adventure

Wealth Levels
Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Amount 1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000 100,000,000 1,000,000,000 10,000,000,000 100,000,000,000 The GM should adjust your current Wealth level according to your fortunes while adventuring, using the orders of magnitude as a guide. Generally its assumed that the character is making ends meet and the characters income and expenses are in balance at the current Wealth level, including normal rewards for adventures (bounties collected, pay for services, and so on). If the character wants to increase Wealth through adventuring, the player should tell the GM shes looking for riskier, higher paying missions. If an employer offers the character substantially more than the usual, such as 30,000 for a mission when the characters Wealth Level is 2, after the mission the Wealth Level becomes 5....assuming the character survives and the employer pays up. Once at Wealth Level 5, missions and expenses will be assumed to be roughly on that scale. On the other hand, if your Wealth Level is 7 and you have to abandon ship and nd yourself stranded on a semi-settled planet in nothing more than your enviro-suit, your Wealth Level may be reduced to 2 or even 1.

Each level of Wealth represents an order of magnitude of Wealth thats available to your character; it doesnt represent a specic amount of money, rather its assumed that anything that cost less than that order of magnitude (1,000s when your Wealth is measured in 10,000s) is basically free as long as you dont try to stock up on a dozen at a time. Things that are on the same order of magnitude (1,000s when your Wealth is in the 1,000s) are signicant investments for you, and if you lose or expend them during play theres a chance that your Wealth level is reduced. Wealth is not given a concrete name: that is up to your setting. E.g. If the GM decides that a Laser Pistol costs somewhere in the hundreds in the setting, then 80

Wealth and Experience

Another way to increase your Wealth is simply to pay XP for it. Wealth is treated as a Minor Asset: pay 1 XP to begin at Level 4, 2 more XP to get to Level 5, etc. A starting character can thus start at Wealth 5 by spending 1 Boost. If you lose your Wealth as a result of

Post-Scarcity Economies

an adventure, you dont get XP back. If your Wealth is increased as a result of adventuring, you dont have to pay for that, but if you want to increase it further, you have to pay the XP to the next Level cost just as if youd bought it up that far to begin with. Level 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 XP to next Level 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total 1 3 6 10 15 21 28 35 44

E.g. to go from 7 to 8 Wealth costs 5 XP regardless of , whether you got to 7 Wealth by adventuring, earning it through commerce, or spending XP .

Post-Scarcity Economies
Some SF posits a setting with a post-scarcity economy, that is one in which energy and matter are so abundant and so efciently processed that all material wealth is free for all practical purposes. Except in the more outre or possibly within virtual environments, this is almost never literally true...there will be 81

some things such as star ships, space colonies, habitable planets, that the citizens cant have as many as they want just for the taking. Nevertheless, in terms of day-to-day needs, the citizens may live in such abundance that theres no need to track their resources or expenses even on the abstract level of orders of magnitude. Mechanically, nothing could be easier than playing in a post-scarcity economy: dont track wealth, let the characters have or create whatever gear they want by means of replicators or whatever the setting uses, though there should still be some limit according to the tech of the setting as to what even the nest equipment is capable of. The tricky bit is making sure that characters motivations and actions still make sense, and adventures can still happen. If youre not paying close attention, it can be easy to let some of the assumptions and concerns of normal economies sneak in through the back door. You cant just assume that there are mines, factories, hospitals, warehouses, unless theyre fully automated. If people dont engage in commerce, what do they do all day? Is there such a thing as robbery? Gambling? What would the stakes be? If there are still jobs that require humans, what induces them to take the jobs?

Chapter 25

Commerce
Commerce is a large part of certain Science Fiction stories, and nearly ignored in others, so like Wealth its an optional system. Commerce can be used independently of the Wealth system; just treat WP as being XP in a setting that has Commerce without Wealth. Using Commerce system, Wealth has its own experience points called Wealth Points (WP). In order to increase your Wealth, you accumulate WP through adventure or Commerce. It takes 10 WP to increase your Wealth by one Level, regardless of your current level. ship, its likely to make them late on payments; in any case it may make the ship low on spare parts or having gone without proper maintenance. The abstract measure of Wealth in Zap! assumes that at any given level expenses and income are roughly in balance and are tied up in maintaining that balance: Wealth Points are earnings towards increasing that Wealth, but generally shouldnt be thought of as idle piles of money. If the players start using them for other things, it should be used as fodder for in-game happenings and complications.

Wealth and Scope

Individuals should generally use the Wealth Levels chart, regardless of their Personal Scope. Ships use Wealth at the Ship Scale of the ship, where each level increase in Scope increases the amount of wealth by a factor of 10. Thus, Wealth 4 for a Scope 3 ship is on the order of 100,000 instead of 1,000. This affects the cost of repairs, as well as the prots to be made if youre using the Commerce system (e.g., cargo for a Scope 3 ship earns wealth on a scale 100 times larger than cargo for a Scope 1 ship). If the players want to convert Wealth Points back and forth from the ships Scope to their own, convert it using the implied amount just as if they had earned (or spent) wealth on an adventure. That is, if the Ship Scope is 3 and it has Wealth 4, each WP its earning is approximately 100,000. If the players at Personal Scope 1 decide to use one of those WP themselves that would immediately bump their own Wealth to 6 (the level where their wealth is measured in the 100,000s); if their Wealth was already 6, it would just go into their personal pool of WP; if their Wealth was higher than 6, it wouldnt have any effect. If the players in the example wanted to spend their own Wealth Points to repair or improve the ship, they would likewise need either to be Wealth 6 so that their WP were on the order of 100,000, or higher than 6 in which case giving the ship one of their WP would raise its Wealth score. Note, however, that unless they own the ship free and clear, there should probably be repercussions from them taking the Wealth the ship has for their own use; if they are employees of the ships owners, its embezzlement; if they are paying off a mortgage on the 82

Shipping
One standard way for characters in SF settings to earn wealth is by hiring out delivering goods and passengers. Usually this involves having a ship, but sometimes the characters are themselves passengers and are carrying or babysitting a smaller item or escorting a person. Even in a campaign without Commerce, many adventures will t this rough structure; the Shipping rules dont replace actually playing out such adventures, rather they give the characters who wish to engage in commerce a simple, low risk, way to engage in some shipping in the background and receive some WP rewards. Players just announce they want to take on some cargo, and make a roll of the relevant Movement Ability compared to difculty equal to the Movement PL + 3. The result is how many travel Scenes later theyll arrive at their destination and drop off the cargo for 1 WP Shipping doesnt require setting a destination . and actually getting there; the presumption is that characters are only taking on side-jobs carrying stuff to places they intend to go anyway. Naturally, you should pay attention to the Primary Rule to avoid making this ridiculous: if the characters need to do two travel Scenes to make the delivery and two travel Scenes later theyre back in the same bar wait until they actually travel somewhere else before awarding the WP . The WP for shipping is on the same Scope as the Movement Ability that was used; transporting stuff with a ship will usually yield WP on a higher scale than the character walking under her own power.

Trade

Trade
Trade consists of characters purchasing goods with their own wealth, for resale later, hopefully at a prot. Trade is riskier than simply agreeing to transport cargo for a fee, but can yield much greater rewards. Players who wish to purchase goods for later resale describe what Ability they are using via the Primary Rule to acquire or transport the cargo; for a ship, the Ability will generally be something like Cargo Bays, Passenger Cabins, Smugglers Hidey-hole, Cryostasis Chambers, or the like. Players can Combine other Abilities such as Merchant or Streetwise Shticks to improve the roll, though they need to narrate how thats plausible (Streetwise, for instance, suggests theyre engaged in transporting something shady). As with Shipping, the WP for Trade will be on the same Scope as the Ability thats used to justify engaging in Trade. Once a particular Ability is used for Trade, its treated as Hindered for that purpose if you wish to use it again before selling the goods; once its been used twice, its no longer available. Essentially, each time you take on some cargo, that Cargo Bay (or whatever is being used) is roughly half-full; subsequent cargoes will have to t in the remaining space, and once its approximately full, you have to get rid of some cargo before you can take on more. The players then decide how valuable a cargo they want to acquire, by choosing the PL of the cargo. They roll their chosen Ability, plus any help from Combining, vs. the PL of the cargo; if they beat the cargos PL, then some is available for sale. The asking price is the lower of the cargos two die rolls: i.e. if the cargo is rolling d6 and d4, and the d6 comes up 3 and the d4 comes up 4, the asking price is 3. If the players nd that acceptable, theyve taken on the cargo, and they record the cargo and the price they paid. Whether the succeed, fail, or they dont like the asking price, the presumption is that theyve explored their options and there are no better deals to be had; they must either travel elsewhere or spend 3 Scenes on unrelated matters before they can try again. The characters must always sell cargoes some place other than where they picked them up. When they want to sell, they roll the cargos Power Level vs. the roll of the Wealth Level of the locale set by the GM. If they beat that Wealth roll, then they nd a buyer for that cargo, and the Wealth roll is the best offer theyve gotten. If that is acceptable to them, they unload the cargo, and the prot (or loss) is WP equal to the difference between that sale price and their previously recorded purchase price. If they dont have WP to cover the loss and still want the trade, for instance because theyve been trying to unload it forever without success and they really need the space back, their Wealth Level is knocked down by 1. Again, the presumption is thats the best deal they have for selling any of their cargo in that location, and they will have to travel elsewhere or spend 3 Scenes on unrelated matters before attempting to sell another cargo, or 83

that cargo again if they didnt like the offer. What this boils down to is that really valuable (high PL) cargoes are easy to nd buyers for, but poor locations (low WL) wont be able to offer very much wealth for them. Wealthy locations will tend to purchase cargo at a much higher price, but because theyre wealthy it will be harder to sell them cheap (low PL) goods.

Example
Star Trader Falk wants to see if he can pick up some cargo on Ytter. He has a trade-ship with Cargo Bays 7. Hed like to get something he can sell quickly, so he doesnt want to try for too expensive a cargo, both because it might not be available and it might be too hard to unload at a good price in this relatively poor section of the frontier, so he announces he wants to pick up a cargo of PL 4 Ytterian otterlusk furs, using his Cargo Bay and aiding it with his Merchant Shtick. (He just made up otterlusks and the value of their fur, as part of the Primary Rule.) He rolls a d8, d6 and gets a 3 +1 for Merchant, totaling 4. The otterlusk furs roll a d4, d4 and get a 4 and a 4, so he can pick them up at price 4. Thats higher than ideal, since hell need the purchaser to roll higher than 4 to make a prot, so he passes. He spends the next 3 Scenes making repairs on the ships sensors, getting in a poker match in a saloon, and training with his crew, and decides to try one more deal before giving up and leaving the planet with empty holds. He tries for a cargo of exotic hardwood PL 5 this time, using the same powers and shticks, and rolls a 2, +1 for 3. Fortunately the hardwood cargo rolls a 2 and a 1, so he gets it for a bargain price. After traveling to nearby Klopor for reasons having to do with the adventure theyre on, he tries to unload the cargo. The GM rules that Klopor is a Wealth 4 planet. He rolls the cargos PL of 5, and gets a 5, +1 for Merchant, for a total of 6. The Kloporians will definitely want that cargo (since they cant possibly roll higher than that), but how much will they offer? The GM rolls a 2 for the Kloporians. That would be only 1 WP prot (selling price of 2 - purchase price back on Ytter of 1), so Falk refuses the deal. Having purchased it for 1, hes sure he can do better. Since he still has room in the Cargo Bay, he decides to try to take on another cargo. He announces hes trying to get some Kloporian machine parts at PL 6. Since the ships Cargo Bay power is Hindered by being partially full of hardwood, it will only roll a single d6, plus +1 for Falks Merchant Shtick. He gets Xark, the ships engineer, to Combine his Engineering Power with the roll, since Engineers understand machines. They roll a 4 +1 +1, for a total of 6. The machine parts cargo will denitely be available, but for how much? The GM rolls a 6 and a 2... just barely available, but at a decent price. Falk takes on the cargo, and now the Cargo Bays are full; if he wants to do more Trad-

25. C OMMERCE ing hell have to use a different ships Power or unload one of the cargos rst. Next stop on the adventure is the wealthy planet Hopalong (Wealth 8). Itll be harder for their PL 5 cargo to beat that, so another players character, Vira, offers to aid using her Streetwise Shtick for another +1, saying the importation of hardwoods faces a high tariff so they try the black market. Falk rolls a 5 for the cargo, +1 for Merchant, +1 for Viras Streetwise, totaling 7. The GM rolls a d8, d8, and gets a 6 for the Hopalong buyers. Falk takes the deal, and makes a prot of 5 WP halfway to the next Wealth Level! The WP are at , the ships Scope, since its the ships Cargo Bay power that was being used. He wants to unload the Machine Parts, too, so they spend another 3 Scenes on Hopalong, but using the Machine Parts cargo PL 6 only rolls a 1 +1 +1 (using his Merchant and Xarks Engineering to help again) for a 3; Hopalong rolls a 6, and the wealthy residents turn up their noses at the cargo. Falk and co. will have to try again somewhere else...

84

Part III

Game Mastering

85

Chapter 26

Campaign design
Unless you are running a one-shot, you need to think a little bit about the overall structure of the campaign you want to run. Many things can be lled in as you go along, but some decisions have to be made before you begin. of impossibilities and often to disguise the ones it has by at least cloaking it in not-yet-absolutely-disproved speculative science. Sometimes that the whole point of the story: what would it be like if everything we knew for a fact was still the same, but easy and cheap teleportation was possible? To make the SF in Zap! harder you want to rein in a bit on whats regarded as plausible according to the Primary Rule. This has to be a joint effort by all the players and the GM if you want to run a Hard SF setting. You want to aim for verisimilitude, not strict scientic accuracy, but quickly x any spots that the any of the players notice strain that verisimilitude. Strive to make the explanations of the abilities and gadgets consistent with each other and over time, and obey the principle There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch so there are drawbacks and limitations to every power. Make liberal use of Disadvantages such as Shots, Erratic, Limited, and Side Effects. Be particularly generous interpreting abilities that are used to understand science and engineering when they are applied to new phenomena and alien technology, to emphasize the universality of science and the ability of intelligent creatures to understand the basic principles of the universe. Reversing the Polarity What if you dont want the SF to feel harder, but instead want to make your game wilder, wackier, and more like Science Fantasy? Simple: you just reverse all the above advice. Try to break verisimilitude by emphasizing things we know arent true, like air in space, space being lled with ether, perhaps even re being caused by phlogiston; if players notice any inconsistency or contradiction, dont correct it, elaborate on it and invent some esoteric explanation for it (which may become a feature of the setting); make the rules that govern the setting arbitrary and vary from place to place or character to character; make the technology and science deliver free lunches to all, with equipment that inexplicably has no apparent trade off between power and weight and never needs maintenance, medicine that has no side-effects, generators that create unlimited clean energy cheaply, perpetual motion machines, 86

Setting
SF can cover a mind-boggling array of settings. Here are some of the common ones: Near-future Earth Alternate Earth Far Past Earth Post-Apocalyptic Earth Far Future Earth Virtual Reality Solar System Local Stellar Neighborhood Star Cluster Galaxy Universe Multiverse

Hard vs Soft SF
Hard SF is science ction that makes a conscious effort to make the science and technology in the story stick to what we know, or at least surmise, and tries to be modest in its extrapolations. The resulting hardness of the SF falls on a continuum: the less extrapolation and the more established the science, the harder. . . the farther out and more speculative, the softer, until at the far end of the spectrum you get science fantasy, which is essentially magic in technological drag. Allowance is often made for implausible science needed to make the story work, such as faster-than-light travel or time travel, but even there harder SF deliberately tries to reduce the number

Episodic Or Epic? new elements with mysterious properties such as antigravity; make the science and technology unfamiliar, even it its just renaming things to seem exotic such as calling radio waves etheric vibrations or telescopes panopticons. race, escape from the cataclysm, carry off the robbery) accomplished even if their ultimate motivation for going on adventures hasnt been resolved. Emphasis on episodes can mesh well with players often hectic schedules, particularly if the episodes are short, one or two sessions each, since a particular characters absence from the current adventure doesnt tend to need much explanation or leave a huge hole in the plot. This makes episodic games ideal backups for when you dont have a quorum of your regular players, for when you have a guest player or two, or just a pick up game. On the other hand, if players prefer an epic style campaign, where there is a single over-arching plot or antagonist and everything builds to a big climax dealing with that, its certainly possible. One thing to watch out for, besides the usual issues of players feeling rail-roaded and unable to affect the plot except in minor details, is making sure that the epic wont be short-circuited by the players defeating the Big Bad or otherwise resolving the driving issue of the campaign prematurely. Unless youre cheating, if its possible for the players to defeat the Big Bad or solve the problem without using a Plot Device, then its possible that can happen any time they encounter him or work on a solution, including the rst time in what was intended to be the prelude. If you want an epic campaign without cheating in favor of whatever is driving the plot you should make sure that the players cant come to grips with the main enemy or issue until the climax, for instance by arranging that it can only be nally resolved with a Plot Device, that the resolution require visiting various sites, or that the plot can roll merrily along even without the main driver to guide it. Examples: The villain can reconstitute himself given time unless the virus has been uploaded into the Master System. The expanding singularity that will engulf the galaxy can only be halted by detonating a device from within it, which the heroes have to embark on an epic quest to deliver. Driving back the invaders will require diplomatic missions to all of the rival factions to get them on board, and they may have demands in return for cooperation that will in turn lead to adventures. The enemy has set something in motion that his capture wont stop (You may have defeated me, but the Sun Eater shall continue on a straight path through the inhabited galaxy regardless! Bwa ha ha ha!). There is a lieutenant or secondary bad guy waiting in the wings to step in when the original instigator is dealt with. 87

Standard SF templates
One way you can shape the setting for your game is to decide which kind of SF creatures are common enough to warrant a template for player characters. As mentioned earlier, usually the templates are geared for playable creature types, those that can at least interact with humans and have recognizable goals and concerns. However, even creatures normally alien beyond comprehension, such as hyper-intelligent shades of blue, can have that aspect deemphasized to allow them as player characters. Start with this bare bones template, lling in the power descriptions: Attributes: Toughness: 2, Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions: 2 Powers 3 powers @ 6 (d6,d6). If suitable, you can add Advantages and Disadvantages to each power. Each minor advantage decreases the level 1, major by 2, minor Disadvantages increase it 1, major Disadvantages increase by 2. Shticks 2 Shticks @ 3 (d4, d2), or 4 (d4,d4) if they meet the stereotype. New Power Levels start @ 6, if they t the stereotype, 4 otherwise. You can give players a list of optional powers that many but not all of these creatures have. For example, Teleportation might be an optional power for an Esper in the campaign. It wont be part of the starting template, but if the player adds it, it starts at 6 rather than 4. A power that isnt normally part of the Esper stereotype, such as a cybernetic limb, would start at 4. New Shtick Levels start @ 4 if they t the stereotypes, 3 otherwise. Restrictions: Any number of restrictions. Pool similar or minor restrictions together. Power boosts: For each restriction, add one power @ 6 to the template, increase one attribute 1, or increase one power by 1.

The Campaign Episodic Or Epic?

Each session can be a self-contained adventure, or the whole campaign can be a single megaadventure, or something in between. In an episodic style of campaign, each adventure has a clear beginning, middle and end. There may be ongoing plot threads and themes from episode to episode, but the major focus of the episode comes to a denite conclusion, with the PCs immediate goal (explore the planet, establish contact with the alien

26. CAMPAIGN

DESIGN

The clever plan by which the heroes halted the initial problem has generated side-effects that need to be dealt with before the campaign is truly over. Or, you could just deal with the anticlimax, allow the players to have their triumph, and move on to the next arc. Many, perhaps even most, players would prefer to have an unexpectedly short and successful epic than be railroaded to a predetermined conclusion; just because theyd love to blow up the Death Star doesnt necessarily mean that theyll love it if you arbitrarily thwart their every attempt to prevent its construction along the way in order to get to that nal scene. It is also possible to combine the episodic and epic: have an epic campaign in the big picture, leavened with one or two-session adventures that relate tangentially or not at all to the over-arching plot. This is the Buffy the Vampire Slayer model of story arcs: over the course of a season of twelve or even more sessions there is a major enemy working towards a nal Earth-shattering scheme, but aside from a bit of foreshadowing in each episode the big scheme proceeds in ts and starts while most of the adventures deal with largely unrelated schemes by different bad guys. In ction, the heroes may be completely unaware of the presence of the chief bad guy of the arc until its time for the climax, with only the audience seeing how step-by-step he gets closer to his goal; in an RPG that doesnt work as well, unless the players are unusually open to having cut scenes of out-ofcharacter knowledge just for avor. A better model is for the heroes to be slowly acquiring the clues needed to gure out the plot or pieces of the Plot Device to defeat the main threat.

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Chapter 27

Designing an Adventure
What you need to design
An adventure is a problem that confronts the PCs. The problem might be specic, concrete, and demand that something be done immediately (there is an alien loose on the ship, and if its not captured or killed it will eat everybodys heads), or it might be vague and long-range (the PCs need more information about what the factions are in Gamma Quadrant before they can make any decision about alliances), but if the PCs have no problems to solve, theres nothing to game and you might as well advance the action until there is a problem that needs their attention. It is usually better not to plan out a detailed sequence of scenes to be played out in linear fashion, but instead to invent a set of elements (aliens, people to talk to, clues, events, special objects, secrets) that might be inserted when needed. The rest of the section are guidelines with suggestions about which elements to design. Feel free to use or ignore these as you feel t. meeting with your arch-rival, the head of the Argus Conglomerate, and the chief scientist of your wormhole project has reported they are ready for a smallscale test. Once the PCs have a goal, either invented, handed to them, or forced on them by circumstances the Investigation stage begins. In this stage they use their skills and resources to try to learn more about the parameters of the problem or resources that might help them reach their goal. In SF, investigation will often involve Research, either as part of the scenes needed for a Scientist building a gadget to address the problem, or to advance the PCs other goals. Finally, there is the Confrontation stage, where it all comes together and their immediate plans are resolved one way or the other. This doesnt necessarily mean they reach their ultimate goal: in some campaigns it may be impossible to reach that goal by design such as when the campaign is about the veyear mission to explore strange new worlds, or a ragtag eet of ships eeing disaster and seeking the lost home of humanity. Nevertheless, the intermediate goals, whether they are episodes or campaign arcs, need to get resolved so the players have some sense of forward momentum. Things might not always work out as the PCs wanted. Depending on how things play out they might be resolved with a set-back or disaster, a partial victory that leads to further goals and adventures, or even a complete triumph for the good guys. Part of the point of Zap! is let the players and GM be surprised by exactly how things turn out. If the GM knows in advance both what the climactic scene is going to look like and how it turns out, its too tightly plotted; its important to leave plenty of freedom for the players actions to matter to the outcome.

Adventure Arcs
Adventures are usually problems that need to be solved. Most adventures will go through three stages: Exposition, Investigation, and Confrontation. In the Exposition stage the PCs learn of a problem, and hopefully decide to do something with that information, even if they dont know exactly what yet. This is when the basic premise of the adventure is laid out. In a television episode, this is typically the stuff that happens before the opening credits, where we learn our intrepid crew is on their way to Canopis IV carrying medical supplies to stop an outbreak of the Denebian Plague. In a campaign that is designed more around the PCs goals rather than a series of specic adventures, the exposition stage might consist of nothing more than a brief list of things the PCs activities have turned up that sound like they might be of use towards those goals, or problems that have cropped up that might interfere with them, allowing the players to decide which they want to pursue rst or if they care at all. Production is down at your robotic mining facility in Delta Sector, but the foreman cant explain why; meanwhile the ambassador from the Outer Planets is 89

Interleaving arcs
This sequence of exposition, investigation, and confrontation, which well call an arc, can be a single session or multiple sessions. Not every event needs to be related to the current arc. In addition, you can have multiple arcs in play in a single session. One way to do this is to weave the arcs together, with some of the exposition of the next arc happening during the investigation of the previous arc. You can also link

27. D ESIGNING

AN

A DVENTURE

The End of The World is not the end of the world

Allowing for the possibility of failure does not mean the stakes cannot be high. What is a complete disaster from the player characters point of view can be an invigorating change of pace for the campaign. In a science ction game even death is often reversible, either literally or with the possibility of returning as a clone, VR personality, or alternate universe version. If the explorers succeed at opening the Precursor site and reactivating the Cyborgmen, the next few arcs can be the players gathering information and completing a weapon capable of deactivating the Cyborgmen, pursued by them and their ever-growing army of creatures theyve cyborged. Even if the whole world is converted to Cyborgmen colony, this opens up new drama as the players become part of a resistance movement, ghting the new order. Failure should have consequences, but the aftermath of failure should be a new adventure, not just instant obliteration.

some or all of the arcs together into a seasonal arc, with a whole adventure serving the same purpose of one scene in the master arc for the season. For example, suppose the master arc is about an expedition of unscrupulous explorers planning to excavate a Precusor site. The rst adventure could be the PCs crossing paths with the explorers who are attempting to steal data from a PC or ally of the PCs that they need to located the site. Thus, the whole adventure serves as the exposition segment of the master arc, with the purpose that the PCs learn of the explorers and their theft of data, but not the purpose of the intended theft.

Failure is always an option. Success is always an option

Whenever you plan for an encounter, never assume that the players will succeed or that they will fail. For example, dont plan an adventure with the assumption that the explorers will steal the data from the players, because they might succeed at stopping the theft. On the other hand, dont make the adventure contingent on the players capturing a thief, because they may not succeed at capturing her, or they may decide to kill her, or make a deal with her. Better is to say, The explorers will attempt to steal the data from the players and make a plan for further encounters whether or not the theft succeeds. If you really need the data stolen, it is better to have it be stolen before the adventure even begins. It is unfair, but at least youre not trying to fool your players into thinking it was their fault.

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Chapter 28

Plot Templates
While theres a variety of creatures, local color, and fantastic features in science ction, many of the basic plots are in standardized patterns. The following sample plots are meant to provide some structure that you can incorporate your creative ideas onto, not as a substitute for your creativity. Each standard plot outlines some possibilities for Introduction scenes, sub-goals that both the players and enemies will pursue in Investigation, and how nal Confrontations might play out depending on whether the player or their foes seem to have the upper hand during the investigation phase, some Twists that can be added to the standard plots to make them less predictable or more meaningful to the players and the Aftermath, suggesting what happens after the Confrontation, especially if the player characters lose. or NPCs, e.g., the altered history on Buffy where Willow had become a vampire and turned many of the Scooby gang. In any case, give XP to the player, not the character. Introductory scenes: Skip ahead beyond the change. Start with slice of life scenes under the new regime. How are the PCs adapting, how are they altered? The PCs then meet and get reacquainted (or perhaps meet for the rst time.) Finally, they start getting clues that it might be possible to reverse the change. (This may require them to realize theres been a change.) Sub-goals and confrontation scenes: Once the PCs decide to reverse the change (if they do), the rest of the arc consists of the PCs rst guring out what is necessary to reverse the change, which may involve investigating what caused it in the rst place. The PCs may need to compile the equipment for a device or experiment to revert to the original status quo, while the enemy is trying to stop them. The confrontation scene happens just before or after they complete the set-up. Player-advantage confrontation: The players have gured out what they need to do to restore reality and have completed the necessary preparations; all that remains is to go through the process, and their foes have a limited window of opportunity to stop them. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The players are still missing a crucial component or piece of information needed to ensure success, but theyre out of time and the foes are in a position to attempt to stop them for good. The PCs may have to go ahead with the awed uncertain process or risk being unable to ever restore reality, or perhaps will only be able to do so at greatly increased cost to themselves. Twists: The status quo the players are familiar with is actually the result of a previous reality alteration. What if Rome only fell in the rst place because of intervention by a time traveler? Ought the PCs oppose or aid in attempts to restore the prior reality? How much do they know about what it 91

Altered Reality
Basic premise: The status quo has been dramatically changed. Maybe a time traveler has stopped Julius Caesars assassination, and the Roman Empire continues to the current day. Special: An altered reality arc can be a minicampaign within the campaign. It is best to have some time to think and prepare before starting. If a world-changing event happens unexpectedly in a session, it is good to end the session then and let both players and GM think through the consequences. The campaign and PCs may require a total redesign. New standard creature templates may be called for, either to replace existing ones (e.g., robots may have a very different template in a world without technology) or to reect new possibilities (e..g, every normal human may have gained a distinct superpower). The scope of the campaign may change in the new reality, usually increasing. For example, the PCs may become godlike beings, or have one-time access to a powerful creature. One possibility is to issue new guidelines and allow total redesign of player characters for the arc. Players may choose to play a new character or almost unrecognizable version of their existing character. Existing villains may become the PCs and the existing PCs villains

28. P LOT T EMPLATES was like before, and what duty do they owe the people in the current reality who might nd themselves worse off or cease to exist if the time-line is restored? Aftermath: If the PCs succeed, the change is reversed. The world returns to the status quo ante. Perhaps it is retroactive; the change never happened as far as most are concerned. Or perhaps the memory of the change leads to permanent changes in the status quo, shifting of alliances, or creation of laws and enforcement organizations to prevent such changes in the future (e.g. Time Police). If the PCs fail, they or other characters can try again, with a different approach. decide they like it better and not return. Relativistic time dilation and cryogenics are also common one-way tickets to the future in SF.

Creature Feature
Basic premise: A creature is rampaging. While the creature could be a mindless hulk or a superintelligent alien, it has a overwhelming need that drives it to repetitive violence. The creature will strike again and again until it is stopped, presumably by the PCs. Introductory scenes: Viewing carnage from the creatures rampage; hearing about same on the news; helping a victim escape; being called in as experts by authorities. PC sub-goals: Identify creature. Interview experts on creatures of that type. Discover their weaknesses and drives. Rescue hostages and potential victims. Recruit allies equipped to handle these creatures. Track creature to lair. Enemy SUB - GOALS: Rampage. As the creature escalates the violence, it forces the PCs to confront it before they are ready, or be responsible for its destruction continuing. Capture hostages. Feed and grow stronger. Player-advantage confrontation: The players know about this creature, what urges cause it to rampage, what it wants, and what its vulnerabilities are. They free the hostages, then use their knowledge to lure the creature into a trap. Enemy-advantage confrontation: At its strongest, the creature strikes in a way the PCs cannot ignore, perhaps threatening their families, friends, or homes. The PCs ght the creature, but are distracted by the need to help the innocent victims being threatened. Aftermath: If the PCs win, the creature is usually destroyed or neutralized, and the next session will start a new, unrelated arc. If the PCs lose, the creature may get stronger and attack again, so the next session would be a continuation, perhaps with more twists, as potential allies are recruited to help and enemies try to take advantage of the chaos caused by the creature. Twists: Scooby-doo: Creature is a ruse, to cover a more mundane scheme. Creature is sympathetic, e.g, the Hulk. Creature has a sympathetic alter ego, e.g., the Lizard from Spider-man. Creature targets unsympathetic victims, e.g., is driven by justied vengeance. Creature targets PCs, or those connected to PCs. Creature gains strength from successful feedings. Creature is sophisticated, and lures victims with psychological 92

Back in Time
Basic premise: The PCs travel back in time, voluntarily or not, and have to nd a way to return to their own time. If voluntary, they may have a mission to perform rst. Introductory scenes: The PCs uncover the means to travel back in time, a reason to do so, or are just thrust willy-nilly back by some phenomenon, alien artifact, or device gone awry. PC sub-goals: Uncover the means to return to their own time; accomplish their mission if they must do that rst; reverse whatever disruption to the timeline they may have caused upon arrival. Enemy sub-goals: If this was a plot by enemies, prevent the PCs from accomplishing their mission or returning; otherwise they may encounter new enemies in the past who are trying to capture or stop them for reasons of their own, perhaps not even knowing they are time travelers. Player-advantage confrontation: The PCs have accomplished their mission or gathered the information/built the equipment necessary to return. Now they need the right conditions or the right time to activate it. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The PCs have failed in their primary mission, but to stay to accomplish it is to risk being trapped or having the secret of time travel fall into the wrong hands. Aftermath: If the PCs succeed, they are back when they came from and the time line is as intended (including any changes they went back to accomplish); if they failed then either theyre back but the time-line is not as they wished, or even worse than when they set out, or they remain trapped in the past. Twists: The PCs travel forward in time; there they may nd out information about the future that makes it imperative they return to their original time and prevent that future from happening, or they may

traps rather than brute strength. Creature hypnotizes or transmutes victims into monstrous accomplices.

First Contact
Basic premise: Initial contact with an alien, or an entire alien culture. This could be the rst such contact ever, or part of the PCs job as xeno-contact specialists; if the the latter, there should be some complication or difculty that makes it an adventure rather than a day at the ofce. Special: First contact can for the basis for an entire campaign, either as one overarching set of adventures dealing with coming into contact with the aliens, guring out how to communicate with them, overcoming misunderstandings or physical difculties in sharing space, nding common ground and establishing ongoing relations. In this kind of campaign, the GM should probably work out a lot of details about the aliens and their goals 93

in advance, even though none of this information will be apparent to the PCs for a long time, if ever. Alternatively, a rst contact campaign can deal with a new contact each week, allowing the players to continue to meet new and different alien cultures and solve a variety of problems as they seek out new life and new civilizations, in which case the GM merely has to make up enough for the next episode. Introductory scenes: Receiving an alien signal, getting called in to investigate mysterious phenomena which turn out to be caused by aliens, nding evidence of ancient aliens that gives a clue into establishing or re-establishing contact. PC sub-goals: Discover more about the aliens, determine whether they are hostile, establish relations, prevent the PCs enemies from taking advantage of the aliens. Enemy sub-goals: if the aliens are hostile discover more about the PCs and their weaknesses, if the

28. P LOT T EMPLATES aliens are friendly the PCs enemies might be trying to exploit them or recruit them as allies against the PCs. Player-advantage confrontation: The players know what the aliens are and how to communicate with them, or what their weaknesses are if theyre hostile. Enemy-advantage confrontation: Hostile aliens know about the PCs and what their weaknesses are; friendly aliens have been duped into regarding the PCs as hostile. Aftermath: If the PCs win hostile aliens have been destroyed, neutralized or made friends with, or the PCs enemies machinations have been exposed for what they are. If the PCs lose the aliens have gained the upper hand, and perhaps invaded; the PCs enemies have made an alliance with the aliens and the PCs will have to face them as a combined force in the future. Twists: The PCs are the aliens, isolated from their own culture and allies. The aliens are actually a hoax. Apparently friendly aliens are actually hostile, or vice-versa. Aftermath: The players can enjoy their prize and notoriety, if it was a sporting event, and it can be a stepping-stone to further such events. If the race was for higher stakes, such as recovery and mastery of some unique alien technology, further adventures can revolve around the PCs using that technology and others trying to wrest it from them. If the PCs lose, they can plot their come-back, if it was a sporting event, or deal with the repercussions of their enemies having whatever it is they were racing for. Twists: What appears to be a sporting event turns out to have a deeper signicance, which only begins to be revealed to the PCs when their opponents are going to greater lengths to win than the prize would warrant. The race is to stay ahead of some cataclysmic event or invading alien horde.

Marooned
Basic premise: The PCs are stranded somewhere, cut off from civilization and without their normal means of transportation. They need to somehow get new means of transportation, get to somewhere where they can re-establish contact, or even in extreme scenarios nd some way to settle in and build an new life in the new locale. Marooned can form the basis of an entire campaign if the PCs are marooned on a backwater planet or hiding from powerful enemies, or in a new dimension or time. E.T., Lost, Sliders and Quantum Leap all follow this format. Special: because the PCs may spend a lot of time in the new location, it probably needs more detail than a typical planet-side stop. In addition, the GM should probably consider and perhaps consult with the players whether theyre actually interested in the scenario; if the players chief enjoyment is hopping from place to place encountering new settings every session, wrecking their ship and sticking them on a primitive backwater may feel like a punishment instead of an adventure. The GM should be prepared to wrap things up quickly, and get the PCs back to doing what theyre interested in. Introductory scenes: A disaster strikes, and the PCs are forced into the new locale and possibly stripped of the vehicle and much of the standard gear. PC sub-goals: Discover information about where they are and what resources they have to escape or restore contact. Survive, establish relationships with locals who might be able to help. Enemy sub-goals: There may not be actual enemies; if there are and theyre responsible for the PCs being marooned, they may be trying to nd the PCs 94

Great Race
Basic premise: The characters become involved in a race, often against multiple other competitors. Sometimes this is purely a sporting proposition, at other times there is something larger at stake, possibly up to and including the fate of the universe. Special: A great race scenario can be a good way to visit a lot of different locales in the setting, without spending a lot of time in each, so the GM should probably have enough interesting places and incidents work out in advance so that the PCs can visit more than one a session without having to stop or wing it. Introductory scenes: A race is announced, with a prize sufcient to tempt the PCs, or they come across some information that means they need to outrun a bunch of competitors. PC sub-goals: Gain an advantage in the race by discovering information leading to shortcuts, improving their vehicle, avoiding obstacles and hostile forces. Unscrupulous PCs may try to sabotage the competitors or throw obstacles in their way. Enemy sub-goals: Same as the PCs. Player-advantage confrontation: The players are in a superior position as it comes to the end of the race and need to hold on to their lead. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The enemies are in a superior position and the players must come up with some way to overtake them.

to nish the job. The PCs might also make enemies among the locals. Player-advantage confrontation: The PCs have survived, gured out where they are and how to get away, and have a shot at doing so. Enemy-advantage confrontation: If there are enemies responsible for the PCs predicament, they have located the PCs and are poised to deliver a set-back, such as capturing them or ruining their current rescue plan. Aftermath: The PCs succeed in getting rescued or back to their usual haunts; if there were enemies responsible, they can decide to take action against them, otherwise they might just return to their normal adventures. If they lost their ship, they might have to work to get a new one. If the enemies succeeded the PCs may need to escape from captivity or come up with another plan, or resign themselves to their new home. Twists: The location where the PCs are Marooned is not what they thought it was (e.g. actually a resort area, and they were close to rescue all along, or they are unwitting contestants in a game of some sort).

recover from losses, or to track down and pursue the enemies who have accomplished their objective. Special: A MacGufn that either caused or was the target of whatever caused the distress signal can be a springboard for further adventures. Twists: Its a trap, or the distress signal is extremely old, and when the PCs arrive the situation is not what they expected. This could be everybody is dead but theres some horrible monster (Alien), but it could also be the descendants of the survivors have settled the locale and arent in direct need of rescue...or they are, but its logistically difcult because of their numbers or the fact that theyve regressed to savagery and dont understand whats at stake (e.g. their colony ship is heading for the sun).

Mirror World
Basic premise: The PCs are projected into an alternate universe where things are backwards; usually the morality of the organizations and people are reversed, though there may be additional reversals such as the sex or personalities of some or all of the characters (e.g. a cold, logical being might have a hot-tempered and excitable mirror twin). Introductory scenes: The accident or experiment where the PCs enter the mirror world; rst meeting the mirror world counterparts and guring out thats what they are. PC sub-goals: Learn enough to be able to pass for mirror world inhabitants while they gure out how to get home; gure out how to get home. Enemy sub-goals: Learn that the PCs arent the people theyre pretending to be, learn where they came from and how, gure out how to exploit that. Player-advantage confrontation: The PCs learn enough to return to their own world, and accomplish their goals if any in the mirror world. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The PCs are exposed and the enemies are prepared to capture them or exploit the fact theyre not their counterparts, or the enemies are ready to enter the PCs world. Aftermath: If the PCs succeed, they get back home. One or more of the PCs may be accompanied or replaced by a mirror world double. If the PCs failed, they are either stuck in the mirror world and need to try again or make do, or they may be back in their own world but have to hunt down and deal with mirror world enemies whove also 95

Mayday
Basic premise: The PCs receive a distress signal, and have to deal with it. Introductory scenes: They receive the distress signal, and decide what to do about it. PC sub-goals: Gain information about the sender and the situation, establish contact with any survivors, rescue the survivors, avoid whatever it was that caused the situation in the rst place. Enemy sub-goals: If theres an actual enemy, complete the piracy, kidnap, robbery or invasion that prompted the distress signal, get information about the PCs, their plans and resources. Player-advantage confrontation: The players have enough information that they can attempt the rescue or to defeat the enemy. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The enemy are about to nish their work and get away, e.g. theyve located the executive they sabotaged the ship so they could board and kidnap. They have identied the PCs and where they are well enough to plan an ambush. Aftermath: If successful, the PCs could have the gratitude of those theyve rescued, leading to offers of work; they might have salvaged some valuable gear or even an adventure-triggering MacGufn. If not, the PCs may need to repair their ship and

28. P LOT T EMPLATES come over; these may be duplicates of the PCs, or their allies, or important NPCs in the PCs world. Twists: Its the mirror universe twins who come visiting the PCs universe.

War Zone
Basic premise: Open hostilities have broken out between two or more factions in the setting. The PCs are caught in the middle. They may be recruited as allies by one or more sides, or just seek to minimize the collateral damage. Introductory scenes: PCs hear word of tension between the factions. The PCs encounter a battleeld, either during or after the ght. The sides either court the PCs or warn them against siding against them. PC sub-goals: The PCs may decide to root for one side to win, they may decide to try to end the conict, or they might just try to keep it out of the way of innocents. In any case, the PCs will investigate the causes of the conict, try to determine what each side wants and what they will settle for, and try to talk neutral factions into co-operating with the PCs goals. Enemy sub-goals: If the PCs take sides, the other faction will try to neutralize or eliminate them. If they stay neutral, the two sides may try to recruit them or scare them away. Both sides will try to weaken their adversaries, gain special weapons, and recruit powerful allies. Player-advantage confrontation: Having assembled an alliance against the aggressor, the PCs lure them into a battle in a remote location. Alternatively, the PCs manage to address both sides concerns and stop the nal battle before it begins. Enemy-advantage confrontation: The PCs have joined the losing side. A vast alliance is assembled against them and their weakened faction. They make a desperate last stand, outnumbered. Or their attempts to bring peace have back-red, and the two factions unite against the PCs. Aftermath: The losing faction may be weakened or eliminated. The winners may be strengthened or they may also be weakened. Third party factions may try to take advantage of a power vacuum. Twists: PCs have mixed loyalties, with some rooting for one side and others the other. A third party is responsible for stirring up tension between the warring factions, and will use the war as a distraction covering its own plans.

Negative Space Wedgie

Basic premise: The PCs encounter a strange anomaly (in the parlance of TV Tropes, a Negative Space Wedgie, from a scene in the parody Star Drek) that creates a crisis they must deal with. Often the anomaly does something completely bizarre and magical, even in settings which otherwise adhere to relatively plausible science. PCs might encounter future selves, age incredibly quickly, or be de-aged, be transported to a far quadrant of the galaxy, etc. Introductory scenes: The PCs detect the anomaly; they may decide to investigate, or be suddenly subjected to it. PC sub-goals: Determine the exact nature of the anomaly, or at least how to avoid or reverse its effects. Discover a way to use the anomaly to address some other problem they have been having. Simply deal with or survive the more extreme effects. Enemy sub-goals: Anomalies dont usually involve overt enemies. If they do, they are the backdrop against which the enemy is confronted: e.g. the PCs and an enemy warship both get sucked into an anomaly and shot across the galaxy: in order to return to their own sector they must come to an accommodation of some sort. Player-advantage confrontation: The PCs learn enough to ameliorate or reverse the anomaly and safely escape. Otherwise escape might occur without them being able to reverse the effects. Aftermath: If the PCs are successful there usually arent any long term consequences, though if the anomaly is stable and they understand it, they might nd a use for it in the future; if they werent successful in dealing with the anomaly they might have to live with or seek a cure for whatever effects the anomaly visited upon them. Special: Negative Space Wedgies might kick off a campaign, for instance leading to a marooned scenario, or granting the PCs strange powers that sets up the campaign. Twists: Almost anything goes. 96

Appendix A

How To Be A Good Player

Give your character a personality It neednt be anything elaborate, and you dont have to put on an accent, change your speech patterns, or even speak in the rst person (though all those can add something), but its more fun for everybody at the table when the characters are memorable, and people can derive a lot of satisfaction out of recognizing when a character is doing something that typies the characters established personality (Oh, thats sooo Merath!) and even more when they manage to predict and take advantage of that (I knew Merath would go along with that plan, because she gets to dress up as the princess and boss everybody around). Dont make your character a jerk unless youre absolutely sure of your ability to entertain the other players and GM with the characters jerkiness. Its OK to be the character that everybody loves to hate, but its not cool for anybody to actually hate it when you play that character. When youre gaming with friends theyll probably put up with your character making everything less fun for everybody but you, at least for a while, but thats no excuse. Even if you are sure that its entertaining and not too disruptive, it would be wise to limit the jerk aspect to specic situations (the character goes on a bender after successful adventures) and not just be all-around unpleasant. Make your character a team-player unless youre playing solo. Loners arent necessarily jerks, but in Zap! your character is going to be part of a team, even if its not a formal team, and it screws up the game if the character keeps going off away from everybody else and makes the GM split attention between what the loner is doing and then what the rest of the party is doing. Every team needs a Han Solo, but the thing is even though he might have groused, or even quit, when it came time to act he was there and pulling his weight. If your character needs some alone time to be true to the character, see if your GM is amenable to doing that between play sessions. That might be brief play-by-email, or it might just be a couple of sentences at the start of the session In the six months between the end of the last adven97 ture and now, Dr. Venn went back to his labs and worked on his experiments, Korista has been operating solo, mining the asteroids of the local system, or even just My engineer has been tuning the drives. Make the character a self-starter and give her a clear Drive. Everything is easier for the GM if the character can be counted on to have certain buttons that can be pushed. On the ip side, dont give the character Drives that are incompatible with the plot or tone of the game, at least without consulting the GM and other players rst, unless youre quite prepared to play out how the characters goals are frustrated. If the campaign is about providing emergency medical assistance to the varied sophonts of the local star cluster, its perfectly ne if your characters Background is exiled ruler of a distant Star Kingdom, but if your Drive is to get restored to the throne it can amount to an attempted hijacking of the campaign if you dig in your heels and ignore the plight of the local cluster residents while trying to turn every adventure into a quest to return to your realm. Dont be a afraid to retire a character. If youre a design-in-play player who cant really set out to make a character with a given personality or approach, some of the above advice might seem hard to carry out. You might not have set out to create a jerk or a loner, but as play progressed you found thats what the character has become. If that happens, and you cant see a way to nudge the character youve envisioned into something the other players can enjoy playing with, its time to let that character go. The loner can go off and be alone, and you can create a new character and try again. And even if youre not design-in-play, and had the character all gured out with a ten-page back-story before you sat down at the rst session, if youre at all into thinking about the inner life of the character there may come a point where events in the game mean that what the character would do is leave the group. Characters quitting and eventually returning (or not) is a staple of the science ction

A. H OW TO B E A G OOD P LAYER genre. So let the character leave, and maybe youll pick it up again if in-game events bring the characters goals or location and the partys back in sync. Sometimes this will require some outof-game nagling with the GM and other players (too many plots are written that make the party a sealed group with a common origin or the only ones in the world who can accomplish the overarching campaign goal), but it beats making yourself and everybody else miserable with your square peg in the round hole character. Stick to genre and tone Science ction can cover a vast variety of themes and settings, so its necessary for any specic campaign to make certain assumptions as to what the game is about, and what sort of things its appropriate to do and what things arent, and what characters t the setting and what dont. Dont push the boundaries, at least until youre used to playing in that setting and with that group. Yeah, ne, a enemy whos just pretending to be a hero until he can betray the team might be a cool idea, but save it for when youre sure you can carry it off without wrecking what everybody else is hoping to get out of the game. Similarly for a hero who would just as soon execute the hostages himself to prevent them from turning into undead when its established that in this campaign heroes almost always manage to save the victims before they are irrevocably harmed. It can be amusing for everyone if your hero sometimes grumbles about taking a harder stance...but if you just start decapitating the hostages over the protests of the other players, youve crossed the line. Play the system appropriately Zap! is designed to promote a certain style of play, which gives a large amount of freedom to the players to help dene game-world reality; this can be difcult to get used to at rst if youre accustomed to just announcing your bonuses and rolling the dice, or searching for the tiniest ambiguity to turn into a tactical advantage. Contribute to the game in the spirit that everybody else is playing, even if its not your preferred style. If you have a real problem with the style that everybody else is enjoying you can bring it up for discussion, but maybe you should be playing a different game. Dont hog the spotlight, but dont shun it either. The only real limitation in the game is not how powerful or effective the characters are, but how much time they get to strut their stuff and be the center of attention. Thats the real currency of the game: how much time do you get to show your character doing her stuff. If you suck up all the available time, thats bad, but its also bad if your sole contribution to the groups enjoyment is getting your turn out of the way as expediently as possible, whether out of shyness or boredom. If youre not 98 doing anything more than saying I attack every time somebody points out its your turn, youre not contributing as much to the entertainment as you could be. If you feel like your character is ending up with too much spotlight time, you can often share the spotlight with other characters by engaging them in-characterparticularly if you know something about their Complications. If youre feeling starved for attention to your characters doings, make sure that you offer the GM good character and plot hooks through your Complications...and remember that in Zap! you can change your Complications if you wish. Discuss your preferences with the other players If your preferences arent being met, discuss that with the other players. Be open about what you want, theyre there to entertain you as much as youre there to entertain them, but dont try to unilaterally change things more to your liking. If you want more combat you can tell the other players that, or you can have your character grouse about inaction and lust for battle, but dont just have him attack when theyre trying to negotiate to force their hand. If you cant come to an accommodation, you cant play their way or come up with a character that youll have a good time playing and they cant enjoy your preferred style, then nd a game that will satisfy you, dont subvert theirs. Ultimately, most of this advice boils down to a principle of courtesy. Keep in mind that everybody at the table shares the responsibility of making the game fun and entertaining for everybody involved. Be willing to make sacrices as far as what would be your ideal ultimate solo gaming experience in order to keep everybody involved and having a good time. Be exible in what and how you play, and dont play if youre not having fun.

Appendix B

Tables
Personal Scopes
1. Normal A normal, if trained person. Can emerge victorious from a brawl...sometimes. 2. Agent An elite combatant. Can take on 10 civilians in a barroom brawl, several squad-cars of police, or a re team of 4 soldiers. 3. Street-level Augmented. Can take on 50 civilians, or a squad of 8-12 soldiers. 4. Neighborhood a section of a city 4. Neighborhood Inhuman. Can take on 100 civilians, or a platoon of around 25 soldiers. 5. City Super-powered. Can take on an infantry company of 200 soldiers. 6. Regional Can take on a battalion of 1000 soldiers. 7. National a nation or contint of a planet 7. National Can take on a division of 10,000 soldiers. 8. Global Can take on an army of 100,000 soldiers. 9. Interplanetary Can take on an army group of 1,000,000 soldiers. 10. Near Interstellar Can take on an entire theater of war, 10,000,000 soldiers. 11. Far Interstellar Can take on a planet. 12. Star Cluster Can take on a solar system. 13. Galactic Arm Can take on a stellar cluster. 13. Galaxy 14. Galaxy Can take on an entire interstellar civilization. 14. Galactic Cluster 15. Cosmic Can take on an entire galaxy. 15. Cosmic 99 8. Global A Planet

Adventure Scopes
1. Normal an ofce, apartment, or dwelling

2. Agent a large building, mall

3. Street-level several blocks in a neighborhood

5. City a single city on a Planet or an orbital habitat

6. Regional a sub-national/continental of a planet

9. Interplanetary Several Planets

10. Near Interstellar Several near-by star systems

11. Star Cluster

12. Galactic Arm

B. TABLES Combat Range by Scope 1. Normal Normal large room, such as dining room or conference room 2. Agent Floor of a building, or a large room such as a club or warehouse 3. Street Large building such as an ofce or warehouse Street and storefronts on either side 4. Neighborhood Block of buildings 5. City Several blocks of buildings 6. Region Neighborhood of a city, e.g. SoHo or Chinatown 7. Country Region/several states 8. World Country 9. Solar System World 10. Star Cluster Solar System 11. Galaxy Star cluster Add 1 to Scope for Pursuit Range and 2 for Lost Contact. E.g. A Biblical Scope character would regard a section of a city such as the Foreign Quarter or the Acropolis as being within Combat Range, with the entire City as being Pursuit Range. A Mythic being would regard an entire country as being within Combat Range, something at the far end of the world as Pursuit Range, and anything beyond that as Lost Contact.

100

Tropes
Aid: Spend an Action to completely Unhinder an ally, no matter how many Hindered conditions are stacked. Boldly Go: volunteer to be smacked with the plothammer by GM, get 1 extra XP for the session. Careful Aim: take the larger die size instead of rolling (e.g. d6, d4 = 3); no Collateral Damage Pull Punch: No Overkill, must use Careful Aim Collateral Damage: GM may use lower die as damage against nearby objects and characters Battle Cry: once per session, shout battle cry and get highest roll possible. Disable: Power v power to render it useless. Hinder requires 1 Action to repair; Out requires 3 turns Failure is Not an Option: change failed uncontested roll to success; become Hindered (in combat) or Tired (out of combat). Intimidation: roll power v. best power (instead of defense) to cow opponents. Jury Rig: build new power out of contributed powers, which burn out or are Tired Second Wind: Recover from Tired at the cost of 1 Stamina Sheer Determination: Clear all Hindered at the cost of 1 Will Shoulder Roll: use one die each for offense/defense Supreme Effort: add Will to roll, become Tired (tired works like Hindered, but lasts until rest) Split Attack: use one die against each against 2 targets Take A Bullet: automatically counter, but only defend with Default This Ends Now! both sides describe a single assault, and the highest roll wins the battle decisively. Wild Shot: combine dice into 1 die 1 size higher. Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Task Could be Done By Normal Man-at-Arms Hero/Adventurer Squad of Men-at-Arms Party of Adventurers Party using Research All For One and One for All! Table B.1: Difculty Attitude Hatred (-3) Hostility (-2) Unfriendliness (-1) Neutrality (0) Friendliness (1) Warmth (2) Devotion (3) Table B.3: Attitude Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Convice/Entice Denial/Repugnance Disbelief/Reluctance Skepticism/Disinterest Neutrality/Neutrality Openness/Interest Belief/Eagerness Conviction/Zealousness

Difculty 2 3 4 6 8 10 12

GM picks starting level, adjusted by Attitude; success or failure on a Shtick trying to Convince/Entice can adjust up or down by one (two if success or failure by over 3) Table B.4: Convince/Entice

Success 0 1 2 3 4 5

Answer yes/no one-word answer short sentence, quantity, or direction diagram or paragraph description sketch or series of questions clear image or a conversation Table B.2: Information Gained 101

Scope 3 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Street
Weight 44 kg 63 kg 88 kg 125 kg 177 kg 250 kg 354 kg 500 kg 700 kg 1 ton 1.4 t 2t Example child Woman Man Hotdog cart Lion Motorcycle Max bench-press Grand piano Cow Small car sports car Medium car +50% Speed 6 kph 8 kph 11 kph 16 kph 23 kph 32 kph 45 kph 64 kph 91 kph 128 kph 181 kph 256 kph Example Walking (brisk) Swimming (record) Jogging Bicycle (typical) Marathon (record) Sprinting, Bicycle (fast) Sprinting (record), suburban speed limit Racehorse Car (major rd), Cheetah Local train Autobahn Bullet train +50%

Scope 4 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Neighborhood
Weight 50 kg 80 kg 125 kg 200 kg 320 kg 500 kg 800 kg 1 ton 2t 3t 5t 8t Example Small woman Man Hotdog cart Motorcycle Max bench-press Grand piano Cow Small car Medium car Small elephant Elephant Pickup truck +60% Speed 6 kph 10 kph 16 kph 25 kph 40 kph 64 kph 100 kph 160 kph 200 kph 300 kph 500 kph 800 kph Example Walking (brisk) Jogging Bicycle (typical) Marathon (record) Sprinting (record), suburban speed limit Racehorse Car (major rd) Autobahn Bullet train Sports-car, tornado Fastest train Passenger Jet +60%

Scope 5 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

City
Weight 55 kg 100 kg 175 kg 320 kg 560 kg 1 ton 2t 3t 5t 10 t 18 t 32 t Example Med woman Lg Man Hotdog cart Max bench-press Fattest human Small car Medium car Small elephant Lg car Jumbo, Hubble Telescope Airbus 310, Big Ben Empty Semi trailer +75% Speed 7 kph 12 kph 22 kph 40 kph 70 kph 125 kph 223 kph 300 kph 500 kph 1000 kph 1800 kph 3200 kph Example Walking (fast) Running Marathon Sprinting (record), suburban speed limit Racehorse Cheetah Bullet train Sports-car, tornado Fastest train Speed of sound Concorde SR-71 Blackbird, speeding bullet +75%

Scope 6 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Regional
Weight 64 kg 125 kg 250 kg 500 kg 1 ton 2t 4t 8t 16 t 32 t 64 t 125 t Example Med woman Lg Man Hotdog cart Max bench-press Fattest human Small car Medium car Small elephant Lg car Jumbo, Hubble Telescope Airbus 310, Big Ben Empty Semi trailer x2 Speed 8 kph 16 kph 32 kph 64 kph 125 kph 250 kph 1000 kph 2000 kph 4000 kph 8000 kph 16000 kph 32000 kph Example world record swim Bicycle (typical) Sprinting (record), suburban speed limit Racehorse Cheetah Bullet train Jet airline Concorde SR-71 Blackbird, speeding bullet Rocket ICBM reentry Shuttle re-entry, satellite (LEO) x2

Scope 7 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

National
Weight 90 kg 250 kg 700 kg 2 kg 6 tons 16 t 45 t 125 t 360 t 1000 t 3000 t 8000 t Example Man Motorcycle Cow Med car Lg car Empty bus Semi Trailer (full) River gunboat, Blue whale Boeing 747 WWII destroyer Space Shuttle, 12-story office building (5) Largest tree, Godzilla x4 Speed 6 kph 16 kph 64 kph 125 kph 354 kph 1000 kph 3000 kph 8000 kph 22k kph 64k kph 181k kph 512k kph Example Walking Bicycle (typical) Racehorse Cheetah Sports car, tornado Jet airplane Concorde Around Earth in 5 hours Around Earth in 2 hours Escape velocity Moon in 1.3 hours Solar probe, around Earth in 5 minutes x3

Scope 8 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Default) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Global
Weight 125 kg 500 kg 2 tons 8t 32 t 125 t 512 t 2000 t 8000 t 32000 t 125000 t 500000 t Example Hotdog cart Fattest human Med car Pickup truck Loaded bus Blue whale, river gunboat Largest aircraft Space Shuttle Largest tree, Godzilla Titanic Empire State building Largest ship, World Trade Center x8 Speed 16 kph 64 kph 250 kph 1000 kph 4000 kph 16000 kph 64k kph 256k kph 1 million kph 4 million kph 16 million kph 65 million kph Example Bicycle (typical) Racehorse Fast Train Jet airline SR-71 Blackbird, speeding bullet ICBM reentry Escape velocity Around Earth in 10 minutes Around Earth in 2 minutes, Solar wind Around Earth in 30 seconds, 2 times escape velocity from the Sun Around Earth in 9 seconds, Earth to Moon in 1.4 hours Around Earth in 2 seconds, Earth to Moon in 21 minutes x3

Scope 9 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Base) 5 6

Interplanetary
Weight 250 kg 2 kg 16 tons 125 t 1000 t 8 kt Example Motorcycle Med car Empty bus Blue whale, gunboat WWII destroyer Godzilla Starship Enterprise, USS Missouri, transoceanic cable World Trade Center Md dam Largest dam Great Wall of China Small mountain x8 Speed 32 kph 244 kph 2000 kph 16000 kph 125k kph 1 million kph Example Sprinting (record), suburban speed limit Fast Train Concorde ICBM reentry SR-71 Blackbird, speeding bullet Around Earth in 2 minutes, Solar wind Around Earth in 15 seconds, Earth to Moon in 3 minutes Around Earth in 2 seconds, to Moon in 21 seconds Earth to Moon in 3 seconds, to Mars in 6 to 46 minutes Earth to Mars in 6 minutes, to Jupiter in 9 to 13 minutes, to Sun in 2 minutes Earth to Sun in 17 seconds, to Pluto in 8 minutes Sun to Pluto in 3 minutes, Proxima Centauri in 6 days x8

7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

64 kt 500 kt 4 mt 32 mt 250 mt 2 billion t

8 mkph 64 mkph 512 mkph 4c 32 c 256 c

Scope 10 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Base) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Near Interstellar
Weight 500 kg Example
Fattest human

Speed 64 million kph 1c 8c 64 c 512 c 4096 c 32 kc

Example
Around Earth in 2 seconds, to Moon in 21 seconds Earth to Mars in 24 minutes, to Jupiter in 36 to 52 minutes, to Sun in 8 minutes Earth to Sun in 1 minute, to Pluto in 32 minutes Earth to Mars in 12 minutes, to Jupiter in 18 to 26 minutes, to Sun in 4 minutes 6 months to nearest solar twin HIP 56948 22 days to solar twin 2 days to solar twin

8 tons Pickup truck 125 tons Gunboat, blue whale 2 kt 32 kt 512 kt 8 million t 125 million t 2 billion t 32 billion t 500 billion t 8 billion kt
Space Shuttle Titanic Largest ship Great Pyramid 16 Great Pyramids Small mountain Solar ejection Lg Mountain 12 km asteroid

256 kc cross the milky way in 5 months 2 million c sR-71 Blackbird, speeding bullet 16 mc 1.5 months to Andromeda Galaxy 128 mc 1024 mc x8

x16

Scope 11 Power Level 1 2 (Normal) 3 4 (Base) 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 +1

Star Cluster
Weight 1 ton 32 tons 1000000 kg 3E+007 kg 1E+009 kg 3E+010 kg 1E+012 kg 3E+013 kg 1E+015 kg 3E+016 kg 1E+018 kg 4E+019 kg Example Small car Loaded bus WWII destroyer Titanic Golden Gate Bridge Big Dam tsp neutron star material, 400 m asteroid volcanic eruption 1 km asteroid 10 km asteroid 50 km radius asteroid 100-200 km asteroid x32 Speed 60 kph 1c 12 c 192 c 3072 c 49152 c Example
4 years to Proxima Centauri 4 months to Proxima Centauri 1 year to nearest solar twin HIP 56948 22 days to solar twin 1 day to solar twin

1 million c cross the milky way in 1.2 months 12 million c 1.5 months to Andromeda Galaxy 192 million c recent supernova 3072 million c Cross the Sloan Wall of galaxies in 1 year 49152 million c 786432 million c x12
3 days to Andromeda Galaxy, 1 year to nearest

Appendix C

Equipment
The rule-of-thumb for equipment costs is that the cost is 2 for d4, +1 per die-size, +1 per any Advantage without a balancing Disadvantage. Scope is relative to the Personal Scope for the campaign. E.g. at City Scope, Hardcase Armor is d6 vs. City Scope weapons, and would be scaled up or down vs. lower or higher Scopes. Similarly weapons, comm gear and the like all operate on a commensurate scale: a Vibro Knife at City Scope might well be able to slice through an ordinary automobile, while at Street scope its a danger to pedestrians but not vehicles. mean that in play you should treat plate armor and a leather jacket as being identical; you are strongly encouraged to decide on the y that, say, according to the Primary Rule and the tone of the campaign swimming underwater in plate is forbidden, but a dagger has no chance of even Hindering somebody clad in plate except under special circumstances such as in combination with an attack that immobilizes the wearer.

Costs
Costs are listed in WP that is they are orders of magni, tude: something that has a Cost of 2 has a price in the tens of monetary units (credits, double-dollars, quatloos, what-have-you); a cost of 3 would be in the hundreds, and 4 would be in the thousands. Items that might Cost 1 arent listed; they are free for practical purposes under most circumstances. Exact prices of items are assumed to vary according to quality and local circumstances; some might not even be available in a setting. Die Size Base Cost d4 2 d6 3 d8 4 d10 5 d12 6

If you need to know the exact price of an item (for instance, youre not using the optional Wealth rules), then roll a 1d6+1d4 (adding them together) for the rst digit, and 1d10 for each successive digit until youve either accounted for them all or reached a point where youre willing to round. The result is the cost on the local market. E.g. a Cost 4 Chamelion Suit rolls a 3 on a d6 plus a 2 on a d4, for a total of 5 in the 1,000s place, then a 6, 2, and 3 for a total of 5,623 credits.

Variations in Equipment
You should assume that there is wide variation in the items listed, even if its not reected in a mechanical difference between the items. These differences should become fodder for the Primary Rule in play. For example, mechanically all primitive armor is just a d4 vs. muscle-powered weapons, but that doesnt 111

C. E QUIPMENT

Name Ballistic Cloth Bubblegum Suit Buzzkill

Die 4 8 6

Cost 2 5 3

Description Protects vs. kinetic impact/puncture. A: can pass for ordinary clothing Tight-tting suit, becomes hard-suit when powered on. A: can pass for ordinary clothing until deployed Light, exible anti-energy armor. A: can pass for ordinary clothing until hood/gauntlets deploy, D: only protects vs. energy (EMP stun, electric, , laser, etc), Active cammo blends in with the background in the visible & UV spectrum (still stands out in infra-red) Military-grade hard suit. A: provides the wearer +1 Toughness Force-eld in the shape of a shield, usually from an emitter on the forearm. May be used to attack or defend. Active cammo with heat-sinks to hide IR signature, radar-absorbent, noise-cancelling surface. A: Flexible Non-powered hard suit. A: provides the wearer +1 Toughness Allows user to breathe in hostile environments. Depending on the tech there might be a limited duration or it might operate indenitely (or indenitely if theres free oxygen present, limited otherwise). Bulkier armor meant to protect vs. improvised weapons and small arms D: Bulky Hi-tech shield. Can be used to attack or defend. D: Single-action Defense Alerts the wearer to impending peril; earlier models that turned completely black were discontinued after all the customers were run over at zebra crossings. Vanilla version, with enough servos to handle the extra weight but no hardpoints. Fancier versions with built-in armament and extra systems would be bought as Vehicles or Companions. Any form of low-tech armor, from leather to plate; use the Primary Rule to differentiate effectiveness against various primitive weapons. D: only protects v. muscle-powered weapons Creates a statis-eld around the wearer at the instant of an attack, almost completely impervious to damage. DD: User completely immobilized while under attack, loses 1 Action per attack Protects vs. desert environments, recycles moisture Protects vs. outer-space (vacuum, cold).

Chamelion Suit Field Armor Force Shield Ghost Suit Hardcase Rebreather

6 8 6 6 6 4

3 5 3 4 3 2

Riot Gear Riot Shield Peril-sensitive Specs

6 6 4

2 2 2

Powered Armor

10

Primitive Armor

Stasis Suit

12

Still Suit Vac-Suit Vac-Armor

4 4 6

2 2 3

protects vs. outer-space A: Flexible (includes extreme conditions, e.g. high rad, methane atmosphere, micrometeorites) Note: Armor provides an automatic defense to the wearer, and reduces the chance of serious injury on recovering from Out from 1 in 2 to 1 in die-size. Serious injury adds a Complication to the injured until healed through medical tech. Shields are not automatic. Table C.1: Armor/Protective Gear

112

Name Clothing Designer Clothing Fancy Dress Programmable Clothes

Die* 4 8 6 4

Cost 2 3 2 2

Description Ordinary civvies or uniform Recognizably fashionable or high-ranked Impressive clothing that commands respect Can morph into any ordinary-appearing clothing. A: Subtle

Slightly Psychic ID 6 3 Can morph into any ordinary-appearing ID papers. A: Subtle * applies to social Abilities, not combat Table C.2: Clothing Name Basic Comm Earbud FTL Radio Satellite Radio InstaWeb GhostWeb Chatty Cathy Die 4 4 4 6 6 6 6 Cost 2 3 2+n 3 5 6 4 Description Cell phone or similar, requires infrastructure Concealed, private encrypted comm. A: Subtle. AA: Larger Scope, n is number of levels that Scope would have to be increased to reach interstellar distances A: Requires ship in orbit or satellite, but not planet-girdling infrastructure Quad-rotor comm drones provide private encrypted network in deployed area. AA: Area Effect As InstaWeb, but stealthed, and using point-to-point lasers to prevent detection or interruption of communications. AA: Area Effect, A: Subtle Drone sows confusion on communications channels by spoong conversations, records and plays back live trafc with learning algorithms to make it harder to sort out real from fake trafc. A: Area Effect, +1 Cost for A: Enhanced (can attack encrypted trafc by cracking encryption and spoong entire packets where thats not possible). Jams communications on all frequencies, including point-to-point via aerosol chaff. AA: Area Effect, DD: Disabling Only. Allows communication via Telepathy; may be actual telepathy, or mind-mind interface mediated by computers and ordinary EM signals Table C.3: Communication Name Data Goggles Data Pad Encyclopedia Galactica Giant Electronic Brain Hacker Deck Hitchers Guide Die 4 4 8 12 8 6 Cost 3 2 3 6 4 2 Description Wearable computer. A: Subtle Ubiquitous interface to the larger computer network and personal workstation Data covers everything that is public knowledge. DD: Data retrieval only, A: Flexible Extremely powerful computer, the largest of its kind for the Scope AA: Control, D: Fragile, D: Side Effects (can physically damage the user) Data covers much that is public knowledge, with an emphasis on material practical for the traveler. A: Large friendly letters on the cover, DD: Data retrieval only Grants a single Shtick at PL 6, can be customized between adventures or by spending a Scene implanting a new chip. A: Customizable Translates from any language to the language the user speaks; takes no more than a few phrases before it can begin working with a previously unknown alien language. Powered by Plotonium. Table C.4: Computer 113

Screaming Mimi Telepathy Helm

10 6

5 3

Modder Universal Translator

6 4

4 2

C. E QUIPMENT

Name Autodoc Bodybag Fuggedaboutit

Die 8 4 6

Cost 3 2 2

Description Can perform emergency medical procedures and treat many conditions. A: Flexible, D: Bulky, D: Slow Stabilize patient zipped into it, as long as they arent brain-dead. Drug that erases up to 24 hours of a patients memory (depending on dose). Usually used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress, has more sinister applications. D: Shots Can perform surgery in the eld, with the scalpel allowing microscopic incisions, cauterizing blood-vessels , and laser range-nding to produce a scan of the interior areas. Basic medical gear. Implant emergency uploads patients memory to secure backup for implanting in a clone, wipes out current bodys memory. DD: Very Slow Given a template, and a mind saved by MindSaver, can reconstruct a person from a saved copy. Often used for deep-space scouting so the crew can be saved and reconstituted when the ship reaches its destination, rather than having to endure and be supplied for years. DD: Very Slow Articial skin can provide temporary repairs of cuts and burns; can be used to reduce chance of permanent injury on recovering from Out, or to substitute a longer term Complication such as requires reconstructive surgery for a short term one like unable to use arm due to wound. Alters users perception of time enormously, so that long star voyages seem to take place in less subjective time, D: Actions have the Erratic Disadvantage for 1d4 days after stop taking it. Sooths the patient, removing pain, fear, and stress; higher doses may knock the patient out completely. D: Shots Compels the patient to tell the truth (as the patient understands it) for a limited duration; legitimate uses are generally psychiatric. D: Shots Table C.5: Medical

Laser Scalpel

Med-kit MindSaver NanoGoo

4 10 10

2 4 4

Plaskin

Quicktime

Tranquilizer Truth Serum

6 6

2 2

Name Food Pills Rations Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster Soylent Green

Die 4 4 6 6

Cost 2 2 2 1

Description A meal in a pill. Do not exceed the recommended dosage. Simple rations, lasts nearly forever, chemically self-heating, wrapper can be used as a water lter. Like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon, wrapped round a large gold brick. D: Side-Effects Simple, cheap, nutritious. DD: Soylent Green is People Table C.6: Food/Drink

114

Name Bugs

Die 4

Cost 2

Description Can transmit sounds to remote listeners; SF versions may be able to travel and place themselves in advantagious positions, or transmit images as well User can see into the Infra-Red spectrum: heat sources such as living creatures usually stand out clearly. Enhances available light, allowing the user to see almost as well as daylight D: Sudden bright light can blind the user (treat as attack by the device to blind the wearer) Scans environment at range; units may be further specialized to certain tasks, e.g. medicine. A: Flexible User can see into the Ultra-Violet spectrum; passive UV grants limited night vision, active UV can light up an area like a searchlight without creatures not sensitive to UV being aware of the illumination, but pinpointing the user if they are. Table C.7: Sensors

IR Goggles Night Vision Goggles

4 6

2 2

Tetracorder UV Goggles

6 4

4 2

Name Cloak Cooler Gravsled Robomule Shelter

Die 4 4 6 8 6

Cost 2 2 3 4 2

Description Memory-plastic inserts can be energized to form pup-tent; insulated vs. heat & cold, solar cell surface can recharge small electronics. Chest or locker cools interior to preserve perishables. Sled for hauling pallets of goods around; may come with impellers or require a tractor Simple programmable sawhorse-style robot for carrying equipment & supplies; surefooted, relatively slow, not comfortable to ride on. Memory-plastic shelter for up to 4 people, collapses to back-pack size, can be sealed and pressurized on planets with poison or no atmosphere, and serve as a makeshift lifepod. Solar cell surface can recharge electronics, and allow it to recycle air and water for up to six months. Without sunlight, limited to one week on internal batteries, or longer with external power source. Stops time to preserve a cache of goods, equipment, even people indenitely against all conditions, even nuclear explosion. Device is the size of a backpack, projects a eld up to 3 meters in diameter. AA: Area Effect, A: Delayed (can activate via timer), DD: Single Use, D: Cant be deactivated except by external stasis-disruptor device Chest or locker applies a stasis eld to the contents, to preserve them perfectly. Shelter for up to six people; collapses to fanny-pack size. Table C.8: Storage/Carrying/Shelter

Stasis Field

Stasis Pod Tent

6 4

3 2

115

C. E QUIPMENT

Name Bio Kit Chemistry Kit Disguise Kit

Die 4 4 4

Cost 2 2 2

Description Small pack of items used for analyzing biological samples, producing antidotes to poisons, etc.; larger jobs would require a base or ship Small pack of items used for mixing and analyzing chemicals; larger jobs would require a base or ship Prosthesis and makeup for disguises. Depending on tech may allow precise reconstruction of a specic persons appearance, or just generally alter an appearance to avoid recognition. Assumed to contain whatever counter-measures might be necessary to thwart routine scans at that tech level (i.e. could pass airport security, but not necessarily super-secret spy HQ.) Small pack of items used for repairing or building electronic gear; larger jobs would require a base or ship. Set of tools for opening locks and defeating security systems, depending on tech level these may be mostly dealing with electronics/computers/forceelds instead of physical locks. Small pack of items used in repairing mechanical gear such as vehicles; larger jobs would require a base or ship. Recongurable tool useful for many engineering tasks. A: Flexible, D: Limited to applying small amounts of force (e.g. not suitable as a pry-bar or jack). Larger cousin of the Multitool, can be used for heavier tasks A: Flexible Tool that can use sound waves to remotely manipulate objects on a very ne level. A: Flexible, AA: Exotic Tool for deactivating statis elds; without this tool, stasis elds last indenitely, stopping time for everything within them Generates a eld that can lift or pull large objects A: Larger Scope. Larger, more expensive generators can manipulate entire ships Table C.9: Tools

Electronics Kit Lockpicks

4 6

2 3

Mechanics Kit Multitool

4 6

2 3

Omni-wrench Sonic Spanner Stasis Disruptor Tractor Beam

6 6 4 6

4 6 2 5

116

Table C.10: Weapons Blaster 6 3 Generic SF energy weapon, for when you dont want to worry about the difference between lasers, plasma, electric arcs, etc. Typically runs indenitely on whatever charges it. Encases target in a exible bubble that is difcult to get out of without special chemicals. Staff made of a super-heat-sink drains the target of heat until its frozen solid. AA: Exotic (defense is force eld or being proof against near-absolute zero temperatures) Emits a cloud of inert nanoscale particles, disrupting EM radiation above Infra-Red AA: Area Effect, D: Shots Kills living things without harming inanimate objects. Forces target backwards along its ancestraly evolutionary path, with somewhat unpredictable results. AA: Exotic Disrupts living tissue, causing massive damage on a cellular level. Disrupts non-hardened electronics (most military gear is hardened) A: Lesser Area Effect, DD: One Shot Shoots a powerful bolt of electricity over an ionized path to a target. AA: Exotic, stopped by shielded armor D: Shots A: Lesser Area Effect, DD: One Shot Shoots a fan of ame. A: Limited Area Effect, D: Shots Shoots immobilizing goo that can restrain targets; the glop can only be removed with special chemicals, but it is programmed to move away from eyes and breathing outlets so as not to accidentally blind or smother targets. AA: Area Effect, D: Shots, D: Slow, takes an extra Round for it to actually engulf the target after it hits. Attracts targets to the location of the grenade. AA: Area Effect, AA: Exotic (defense is anti-grav or fast movement), DD: One Shot Crushes targets by establishing an area of high gravitational pull within the target. AA: Exotic (defense is anti-grav) Heats targets, melting metal and setting ammable substances alight. Tiny remote-guided assassination weapon. AA: Exotic (defense is any armor), DD: One Shot Rigiplast glove allows delivery of maximum force in hand-to-hand combat without risking injury to your hands, particularly when ghting armored foes. Fires a beam of coherent light, capable of burning holes in or cutting through objects. Reected by shiny surfaces, dispersed by particulate matter in the air, such as heavy smoke. D: Burn Out Keyed to owners DNA, res a variety of rounds: Standard, Heat Seeker, Ricochet, Incendiary, Armour Piercing, High-Explosive. A: Flexible Single-molecule thick strand of material in the form of a whip or garrote, can slice through most solid materials with ease. AA: Exotic, DD: Side-Effects, careless can easily hurt the wielder. Stuns targets in melee range. D: SideEffects, can hit allies Shoots high-speed ceramic echettes that can deliver toxins, paralytics, truth-serum, or just damage tissue. Favored shipboard, where to the hull and machinery cant be risked. A: Flexible, D: Stopped by armor Table C.10: Weapons 117

Bubble Gun Chiller

4 4

2 4

Dark Bomb Death Ray Devolver Disruptor EMP Grenade Electric Rie Frag Grenade Flamer Goo Gun

6 6 6 8 6 6 6 6 6

4 3 5 4 2 4 2 3 3

Gravity Grenade Gravity Gun Heat Ray Hunter-Seeker Karatand

6 6 6 8 6

5 5 3 4 3

Laser

Lawmaker Monomolecular Filament

8 8

5 4

Neural Whip Needler

4 6

1 3

C. E QUIPMENT Name Nuclear Grenade Orbital Lance Die 12 12 Cost 5 6 Description AA: Area Effect, A: Increased Scope, DD: delivery range is less than blast radius, even with grenade launcher, DD: One Shot High Energy lance from orbit; requires a spotter on the surface to select targets, who uses a carbine to target: the spotter res the gun and it uses a combination of laser-range nding, optical sensors and GPS to transmit data to the Orbital Lance, which will re in the next round. A: Lesser Area Effect, D: Slow Paralyses targets with nervous systems. A: Lesser Area Effect, D: Shots Renders targets with nervous systems helpless due to pain. AA: Exotic (defense is shielded armor or not being sensitive to pain), D: Shots Forces target out of phase with the space-time continuum, with varying effects (stun, kill, cut, disintegrate) A: Flexible Blade is a xed-length beam of light, that can cut through most anything but is stopped by other Photon Blades or force-elds. It is also capable of deecting Blaster re. Favored Weapon of the Star Knights. D: Exotic Fires a stream of super-heated plasma that can cut through most anything. D: Side Effects, collateral damage against targets near the gun when it res. Creates portals that you can step through. Fire once to create the entrance, again to create the exit. AA: Exotic (stopped by forceelds) Fires electromagnetically accelerated pellets at high velocity. Fires rockets that can be directed against targets not in Line Of Sight (e.g. around corners). D: Shots Creates a hologram pattern than induces seizures in the viewer, including any sufciently hi-def remote viewing. AA: Exotic (only works on one particular lifeform, such as humans), AA: Area Effect, DD: One Shot Non-lethal damage to most life-forms. D: Shots Non-lethal melee damage to most life-forms. D: Limited to unarmored targets Slug-thrower powered by steam; easy to maintain in primitive conditions: pour water in the chamber, heat the gun in a re, and it will charge for 8 shots. Can re any slugs that t in barrel (typically lead or smooth stones). D: Shots Non-lethal damage to living targets. AA: Area Effect, DD: One Shot Stuns targets and knocks them down with high-pressure shockwave (only works in atmospheres around Earth pressures), can kill and destroy property at close range. A: Lesser Area Effect Swarm of semi-autonomous micro-drones that employ energy beams and echettes to attack targets directed by the user or to defend the user against incoming re. A: Lesser Area Effect Blast of eponymous energy, comes in three settings: Stun (non-lethal, living), Kill (lethal, living), Destroy (lethal, any). A: Flexible, D: Shots Table C.10: Weapons

Paralyser Pain Ray Phase Pistol Photon Blade

8 8 8 8

4 5 5 3

Plasma Gun

10

Portal Gun Railgun Rocket Gun Seizure Grenade

8 8 6 8

6 4 2 6

Stunner Stun Baton Steam Gun

6 6 6

2 2 2

Stun Grenade Thundergun

6 8

3 5

Wasps

Zap Gun

118

Index
Abilities Advantages, 18 Combining Actions, 48 Disadvantages, 20 When to roll uncontested, 42 Ability Descriptions, 15 Action, 40 Actions, 23 Active Powers, 23 Automatic Powers, 23 Active Power Actions, 23 Active Powers, 40 Advantages, 18 Flexible, 16 Ultra-Flexible, 16 Advantages and Disadvantages, 18 Agent, 8 Attack Automatic Powers and, 16 Attributes, 23 Ordinary People, 23 Automatic, 16 Actions and, 16 Automatic Powers, 40 Combinations and, 16 Background, 42, 59, 60, 97 City, 8 Combinations Automatic Powers and, 16 Combining Actions, 48 Complications Note On, 27 Cosmic, 8, 9 Defense Automatic Powers and, 16 Difculty, 43 Uncontested Abilities, 42 Disadvantages, 20 Example, 17 Disagreements, 38 Flexible, 16 Galactic Arm, 8, 9 Galactic Cluster, 8 Galaxy, 8, 9 119 Global, 8, 9 Hindered, 38, 44, 45 Becoming Unhindered, 45 Can Be Hindered Disadvantage, 20 Control Advantage, 19 Disabling Abilities, 49 Down for the Count, 47 Fragile Disadvantage, 20 Helping the Hindered, 45 Restraining, 47 Sheer Determination, 52 Tired, 47 Ultra-Fragile Disadvantage, 20 Information Gained, 59, 101 Interplanetary, 8, 9 Interstellar, 9 Intimidation, 52 Mishaps, 22 Movement, 16 National, 8, 9 Near Interstellar, 8, 9 Neighborhood, 8 Normal, 8 Power Categories, 40 Power Level, 17, 39 Difculty, 43 Power Up Research and, 18 Powers, 37 Active, 40 Automatic, 40 Categories, 40 Disagreements, 38 Examples, 38 Power Levels, 38 Primary Rule, iii Combining Abilities, 48 Disagreements, 38 Powers, 37 Uncontested Abilities, 42 Regional, 8 Research, 18 When to roll, 18 Rounds Actions and, 23

I NDEX Science Power, 18 Ultra-Flexible, 18 Science Research Shtick, 18 Scopes, 8 Second Wind, 52 Shoulder Roll, 52 Shticks, 39 Actions and, 40 Combining, 40 Information and, 40 Interpreting Success, 40 Out of combat, 40 Powers, 40 Research, 18 Skills, 39 Stamina, 23 Star Cluster, 8, 9 Street-level, 8 Supreme Effort, 43, 52 Tired, 47 Tone, 9 Toughness, 23 Ultra-Flexible, 16 Uncontested Abilities, 42 Will, 23

120