How To Play
So you've never played a Table Top Role Playing Game before or you have but its been awhile. Get ready for a great group story telling adventure! My favorite part of the game is playing with my friends and sharing in a group imagining where we get to travel to strange and exciting places together in our minds. I've been playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons since I was 12 (so for 45 years, yikes!) and I still get transported into a shared group story experience that I cannot get from television, movies, or books. Every minute changes as we interact with the Game Engineer's world and each other and roll the dice to see the fruits of our actions. Each player character has special skills that they bring to the adventure and each gets to use these skills to help the party survive and flourish with the harsh conditions of the fantasy world.
Potential things to do during a Table Top Role Playing Game
1) Get a table and chairs and sit around catching up on each other's lives. Take out your character sheets and, for the Game Engineer, their notes about and maps of the world you are about to enter.
2) Have your dice ready to roll!
How the Story might unfold:
Game Engineer (GE): ...so Maga, your Hacker, managed to hack into the security system of this odd Ancestor outpost. As the door swishes open, make your surprise roll!
Trevis, the Engineer: The party rolls a 5.
GE: The things inside roll a 7. So no surprise occurs. Roll your initiative dice.
Trevis, the Engineer: Party rolls an 8.
GE: The things roll a 6. Party gets first response.
Bula, the Soldier: What do I see with my infra-red goggles?
GE: 6 creatures with 8 legs connected to a bulbous midsection. They have human-like torsos and a foul head with dripping fangs. Each has a weapon (shows image if they have one).
Bula, The Soldier: Arachnataurs! I whip out my plasma rifle and fire at the biggest one. 17 to hit, 5 luck dice (so no exceptional hit. Exceptional Hits only occur on a 20 on the luck dice)
GE: What damage does your rifle do again?
Bula, the Soldier: 10 to 40 damage points.
GE: Whew! How many shots do you have left on that thing? (Rolls damage done. It exceeds the Arachnataur's Life Force points, killing it).
Bula, the Soldier: Three. Then I have to find two more uranium power cells because those aren't rechargeable.
GE: The plasma pulse slams into the body of the giant Arachnataur. It stumbles back spewing guts and spidersilk. It slams into the wall and falls dead.
Trevis, the Engineer: Way to go!
Maga, the Hacker: I pull out my stun pistol. 14 to hit, 19 luck dice.
GE: Missed.
Maga, the Hacker: Damn!
Chloron, the Elemental: I start prepping my mental manipulation, Cold/Fire Blast. It will take 3 increments to activate.
Herata, the Warrior: I wade in, both blades swinging. 17 and a 12. 15 and a 20!
GE: (Rolls the damage done by both hits plus rolls on the Exceptional Hit table producing a broken leg result) Two hits! The Arachnataur you hit stumbles back with the force of your blows. You hear a SNAP as you break one of its legs that now hangs limply from its body. Ichor and other fluids seep from your other wound. It appears badly damaged but is still in the fight. Now it is the Arahnataur's turn. There are five left and six of you, but only the warriors, Bula and Herata, are exposed as the rest of you hung back so they recieve the bulk of their attacks. Two blast the doorway with webbing from their spinnerets. Bula, Herata, make your resistance rolls.
Herata: 16
Bula: 9
GE: (Checks the Resistance Roll Table) Herata you manage to dodge out of the way but Bula, you are stuck fast and facing a nasty biting Arachnataur.
GE: What's your Armor Defense Rating again?
Bula: I'm wearing my Powered Recon Armor and with my Agility of 16 I get +2 so 12.
GE: Sorry, your Agility can't help you as you are stuck, so 10. (Rolls arachnataur's attack). It snaps at your exposed flesh but your armor's deflector shield manages to keep the bite at bay. Herata, the Arachnataur you hurt bites you! Make your resistance roll vs. toxin.
Herata: 7
GE: Herata slumps to the floor, convulsing and frothing at the mouth. Must be a real potent toxic bite!
The above is an example of how a combat interval plays out. Each side gets two increments to attack (See Game Engineer's Technical Manual for Time and Combat explanation). The side that wins the initiative gets a one increment attack (sword blow, gunshot, mental manipulation, etc.) at the beginning. The side that loses the initiative roll gets both their increment attacks in the middle. The winning side gets their final increment attack then the initiative roll is completed again for each side to determine the next interval of attacks. This continues until one side is victorious (all opponents slain or driven off, or a parlay reaches a truce). The Psypath (in the above scenario, Chloron) may take several intervals to complete a mental Manipulation, in the case of Chloron, 3 increments for Cold/Fire Blast) as each individual manipulation has a certain amount of time it takes to activate.
A non-combat situation may go something like this:
GE: Ok, so you managed to annihilate the arachnataurs and Judith, the Empath, managed to stall Herata's toxin-related death with her mental powers so now you have the time to take in the room you are in. It looks like some sort of bio-lab. You see 40, 400 centimeters tall canisters looking things lining three of the walls with a door directly opposite the one you entered from. One of the canisters is glowing slightly while the others all appear dark and dead. What do you do?
Judith: I use the Mental Manipulation, Sense Life, and direct the sensor at the glowing canister.
GE: Yes, you feel a slight sensation of life pulsing within the canister.
Judith: I tell the rest of the party that I sense life from the canister.
Bula: Lets go investigate!
GE: As you pass the other canisters you see human sized skeletons slumped against the sides or piled up at the bottoms of the canisters.
Cholron: Hmmmm. those appear to be humanoid remains.
GE: You get to the glowing canister and peer inside. You see an Ancestor!
Judith, Bula, Trevis, Maga, Chloron, Herata: Woah!
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