From: [d f n] at [ccwf.cc.utexas.edu] (David F. Nalle) Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.announce Subject: [CORE] CORE Rules - Free Roleplaying System Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc Date: 21 Sep 1995 15:02:41 GMT CORE Character Oriented Roleplaying Engine Version 1.2, Copyright 1995, David F. Nalle BECOMING THE CHARACTER The character is the heart of roleplaying. Your job as a player is to make your character a complete and believable person, as real in the game world as you are in this one. You create his personality, develop his background and make him everything that he is. When you play the game you become the character, so he should be someone you want to be for a while. Think about your character in the abstract before you start to put anything on paper. The mechanics of character creation exist so that you can describe your character in game terms to make it more practical to determine the outcome of the things he does. They are there to help you define the character, not to tell you who he should be. Consider such things as where he was born, his early experiences, appearance, his family life, education, hopes, dreams, fears and vices. Every person has both strengths and weaknesses. Only the most obvious of these will be expressed mechanically in the game so you should flesh the rest out in your mind and in a short written character history and description. Once you have that done your next job is to define a few of those characteristics in terms specific to the game. DESCRIBING THE CHARACTER For game purposes each character is described by five basic characteristics and a selection of skills. You choose how good he is in each of these areas by spending points. You have 20 points for basic characteristics and 20 points for skills. Basic Characteristics When creating your character you allocate 20 points to these five characteristics. No single characteristic may be less than 1 or more than 6. Strength: Ability to exert force and endure hardship. Particularly important for hand to hand combat. Speed: Movement and manipulative ability. Important for most physical skills. Will: Mental toughness, stamina and the ability to overcome natural limitations. Reason: Analytical and decision making ability. Important for most technical and knowledge oriented skills. Creativity: Inventiveness and expressive ability. Important in artistic and design oriented skills. Learning Skills Once you have determined your basic characteristics, you assign 20 additional points to skills. Each skill is associated with a characteristic on which it is based. Your chance of success with a skill - called a Skill Rating - is equal to your value for the appropriate characteristic plus any points you assign to that skill. When first starting out you may not assign more skill points to any one skill than the value of the characteristic associated with that skill. To find your skills look at the skill list provided here. Under each basic skill you will see a listing of secondary skills. Once you have assigned points to a basic skill you may divide those points up among the secondary skills listed under it. So if you had assigned 4 points to Agriculture you might divide it up with 3 in Horticulture and 1 in Animal Husbandry. In some cases you may be required to use the secondary skill instead of the parent skill for a more specific application of that general type of knowledge. Skill Characteristic Agriculture REA Aiming Skills SPD Applied Science REA Arcane Science REA Archery SPD Axe Weapons STR Blade Weapons SPD Business REA Club Weapons STR Crafts CRE Culinary Arts CRE Gaming CRE Government REA Languages CRE Literary CRE Manual Skills SPD Mathematics REA Medicine REA Mental Conditioning WIL Military REA Movement SPD Music CRE Natural Science REA Nautical REA Perception WIL Performing Arts CRE Persuasion CRE Physical Conditioning WIL Physical Science REA Rustic REA Shield SPD Social Science REA Sports SPD Stealth SPD Survival WIL Thrown Weapons SPD Thrusting Weapons SPD Unarmed Combat SPD Visual Arts CRE USING SKILLS From time to time during the game you may be called on to use one of your skills. Success with a skill is determined by rolling 2D6 and comparing the result with your Skill Rating (the total of the characteristic the skill is based on and any points you spent on the skill). Depending on how well you roll relative to you Skill Rating several results are possible. Roll Result Over Skill Rating Failure Under Skill Rating Success Under 1/2 Skill Rating Superior Success Under 1/4 Skill Rating Critical Success When determining half and quarter values of Skill Rating you always round up. Failure means the skill just didn't work at all. A Success result indicates that the skill performed basically as expected, but with nothing more than the most basic results. When rolling agaisnt a primary skill for success with a secondary skill to which you have assigned no points this is considered a Failure. A Superior Success means that the skill worked the way you would want it to, producing an ideal result, with all the qualities you aimed for. A Critical Success means that the skill exceeded your expectations and produced additional results beyond what you anticipated. In situations where your use of a skill is opposed by another person you both roll to determine a comparative result. After you make your roll your opponent rolls against his opposing skill and your results are adjusted based on how he does. If he gets a Failure there is no effect. A basic Success reduces your result by 1 level of quality. A Superior reduces your result by 2 levels. A Critical reduces your result by 3 levels of quality. So, if you were hiding and someone was trying to find you, and you had rolled a Superior success with the Concealment skill, he would need to roll a Superior or better with his Search skill to find you. COMBAT One of the ways in which characters may use their skills is in combat. There are skills for the use of weapons and for different methods of defending yourself. Combat is generally determined through the use of comparative skills as described earlier. Making an Attack When an attack is made in combat you roll against your skill with the weapon you are using. Your opponent then rolls against any defensive skill he is using against your attack. As described above, combat is a comparative use of skills. Your opponent's degree of success may effect yours. The possible results of an attack are: Skill Result Combat Effect Failure Your blow misses Success 1/2 Damage to defender's STR or SPD distributed by defender. Superior Defender chooses 1 of 2 options: 1/2 Damage to defender's STR or SPD distributed by attacker or Full damage to defender's STR or SPD distributed by defender. Critical Full damage to defender's STR or SPD distributed by attacker. Weapon damage is generally in a range from 0 to 7 points. Damage done to Speed or Strength effects any future uses of skills based on those characteristics until the damage is eliminated. A character receiving damage may choose to take any or all of that damage to his Will instead of to the characteristic effected. When Strength and Speed have both reached 0 any future damage is given directly to Will. If Will is reduced to 0 or less you are dead. Defending Yourself There are two key skills for self defense, Parry and Dodge. Parry is listed under each weapon skill and Dodge is listed under the Unarmed Combat skill. The key difference between the two skills is that once you pay for Dodge it allows you to roll against any attacks made against you during a round of combat, while Parry only allows you to roll against a single attack. However, Parry takes less Speed and does not require the learning of an additional skill, and is therefore more versatile than Dodge. Multiple Actions Your Speed determines how much you can do in a round of combat. Each action, including weapon attacks, parrying and dodging attacks has a Speed cost. The total cost of the actions you take in one round of combat may not exceed your Speed. If you find you have extra points of Speed after taking your actions for a round, but not enough to pay for a complete additional action, you may pay for part of it and pay the remainder in the next round so that the action takes place in the round it is completed. No more than half your Speed may be carried over from one round to the next and it cannot be carried over for more than one round. For example, if you had a Speed of 5 you might want to make 1 attack with a Speed cost of 2 and also Dodge with a Speed cost of 3. Or alternatively you might make 2 attacks and not bother to dodge, leaving you with 1 extra point to apply to an action for the next round. Action Damage Speed Dodge -- 3 Kick Attack STR 3 Hand Attack STR-1 2 Club Attack/Parry STR 3/2 Dagger Attack/Parry STR-1 2/2 Sword Attack/Parry STR 3/2 Axe Attack/Parry STR+1 3/3 Bow Attack STR 4 Pistol Attack 3 2 Rifle Attack 4 3