Sporadic Lands Advanced Game System (SLAGS) or Imperialismo or Muerte - Roleplaying in the land of the Sporadic Verses By Louis-Philippe Mitouard and Alexandre Lerot d'Avigne (Ben Baron) (Jeff Berry, nexus@panix.com) Proofread by Alexandre 11/25/97, who was embarrassed by the number of typos and errors he found. Please note that SLAGS is a work in progress. Introduction: There are two planes of existence - the real and the 'mundane' - the intersection of these two universes is The Imperium, a strange timewarped world in which Knights and Nikes coexist. The Imperium was created 100 years ago. The residents have no idea how the world began, but they do know one thing - they're going to be on top by the end of it. Players roleplay characters from this strange world, on their quest to accomplish whatever it is they think needs to be done. Equipment needed * Five VI sided dice (any other kind would be inauthentic). * Paper (or papyrus). * Pencils. * oh, and players - the more the better. NOTE: the standard units of measure in this game are stones, fortnights and ells - better look 'em up now - avoid the rush. Character Creation: Players create a character by first rolling three dice and consulting the persona charts below: ****John the Smith. Through the rules, we will be showing the development of John the Smith, because it is a tradition to pad role-playing game rules like this and because we think it will be good for a laugh. All sections about John are marked with **** like this one.**** Race: 3 Viking 4 Celtic 5 Gaelic 6 Welsh 7-9 English 10-12 French 13-14 Scots/Irish 15 Roman 16-18 Other Write the result down on your character sheet on the line marked "Persona". ****John rolls 17 on his three dice and dutifully writes "Other" in the space marked persona.**** Any persona except "other" also requires that the character choose either Late Period or Early Period, thus the actual persona is something like, "Late Period Roman, Early Period French" and so on. Note that Persona has absolutely no other effect on the game, save to provide ammunition for insulting commentary. The only part that matters is late period or early period. ****As "other" John does not need to choose early or late period.**** ATTRIBUTES: The character is measured by six basic attributes: Brawn (BR) - A combination of strength, speed and, most especially, pain quotient. Savvy (spelled SA,but pronounced 'Brains')- General knowledge and horse sense. Chutzpah(CH) - Essential for politics Authenticity(ARGH) - Used throughout the game, don't ask me why. Dedication(DED) - High dedication gives more dream points Beauty (BABE) - Obvious Roll two six sided dice for each attribute, then subtract one from each attribute (if you can't keep up with the math here, perhaps you should go back to chess or something.) ****John rolls his dice and gets results of 6,10,12,4,6,7 for his attributes, after subtracting 1 from each he has the following: BR 5, SA 9, CH 11, ARGH 3, DED 5, BABE 6 **** Saving rolls: Often a saving roll against an attribute is called for. This means that the character should roll 2 dice. If the total is less than or equal to the attribute, then the roll has been made. ORIENTATIONS Next each character should choose their orientations. Orientations affect what types of activities and skills the character will have. There are three orientations, Knight, Laurel and PELICAN. Each character has six points to distribute among these three orientations, but each must have at least one. **** John chooses to put 2 points in each of Knight, Laurel and PELICAN, hoping that a broad spectrum of skills will enable him to cause more trouble.**** Note that when a character receives one of the three peerages, the associated orientation is increased by 1. The character does not actually know anything more than they used to, but they think they do which is far more important. SKILLS Each orientation governs a set of skills. This affects skill improvement (See section on Skill Improvement), and also starting skills. For starting skills, roll 1 die for each point of orientation. The number of points thus generated is the number of points which may be spent on that orientation's skills. ****John rolls 2 dice for his Knight Skills (since his orientation is 2) and gets 4, he repeats the process for Laurel getting 5, and for PELICAN getting 11).**** The first skill level gained is always 0, so one point is for a level 0 skill, 2 points for level 1 and so on. (see skill lists) PROFESSIONS Before choosing skills, the character must choose a profession, there are only three professions: Bimbo/Bimboy, Nematode and Other. To be a Bimbo/Bimboy, one must have a BABE of at least 9, and no skill at greater than level 0. To be a Nematode, one must have no attribute greater than 5, and no skills at all. Instead, however, Nematodes gain the special Nematode abilities. Everyone else is an "Other". **** John is an Other**** SKILL USE: In most cases skills allow a character to perform some action if they can roll less than or equal to the governing attribute on two dice. The level of the skill is added to the attribute for determining chances of success. **** John has a SA of 9 and a Forgery skill of 2. He tries to create a scroll in the style of the Current Uber-Herald of Decaid. He needs to roll an 11 or less (9+2) on two dice**** Note that whenever doubles are rolled, the dice must be rolled again and the new total added to the old to determine success. **** John rolls and gets double two! Oh, no! But all is not lost, he rolls again and gets 2 and 4, for a total of 6. He adds the four from the double 2's and has a total of 10. He is still successful. John now has a scroll proclaiming him to be a Companion of the Spiny Codpiece of Decaid.**** SKILL LISTS: Knight Skills Imbibe (BR) - With a successful use of Imbibe skill, the character can avoid passing out or making embarrassing faux pas like vomiting on the King's tent. This skill may also be used to impress Bimbo(y)(s), or for drinking contests. Shrug Blows (CH) - This skill allows the character to avoid taking damage in Brawn combat. After being struck, the character may make a CH saving roll, if successful, the blow has been shrugged and no damage is taken. Additionally, for every opposing blow which is "shrugged", all witnesses within 10 ells (the conversion to meters is left as an exercise to the reader) must make an ARGH saving roll. If the ARGH save is made (not failed), then 1 DP is lost. Example: Battle von Wagon aims a blunderbuss and strikes the match, hitting Sir Mounted Andstufed squarely in the chest, leaving a smoking hole. Sir Mounted declares that since blunderbusses were not known in his period, he does not need to take the blow, and rolls the dice. If he makes his CH roll, the blow is successfully 'shrugged'. Suck up to Ruler by Right of Arms (SA) - This is the skill of keeping track of where the Crown is located and taking every opportunity to make comments like "We fighters ..." to the ruling head. As such, if in the same general location as the Crown, it may be used once a week to attempt to gain 1 PP. Failure results in the loss of 1 DP as the character gets a reputation for being a brownie-hound. Swordsman (BR) - This skill is used in BR-based combat. After a blow has struck, the Swordsman may attempt to increase the damage done from 1 to 2 points by making a swordsman skill roll. NOTE: as this is generally a less useful skill than the 'Shrug Blows' skill, it is included only for player interest. Train (DED) - This skill is used to train new fighters. Over the course of six months, the character may attempt one use of this skill. If successful, he gains 1 PP. Note that this skill is much less effective than the skill Suck Up to Ruler by Right of Arms. Use Illegal Weapons (DED) - Use of this skill allows a character to use an illegal weapon in fighting, such as a 19 foot spear, or a lead tipped sword, or a flail weapon. Such a weapon adds 1 to the damage done by every blow. NOTE: That Use Illegal Weapons and Swordsman Skill are both denied to all Late Period Persona. Laurel Skills: Critique (ARGH) - This skill allows an artisan to make valid criticisms of another's work, persuading them that they should gracefully yield. A successful use of this skill allows the character to cause a temporary loss of a single ARGH point to his opponent. It is vastly inferior to the nitpick skill. Falsify Documentation (CH) - This skill allows the character a chance to avoid either the ARGH loss from a Critique or the chance of immediate loss from a Nitpick if they can make a successful FD roll. History (ARGH) - This skill gives the character in-depth knowledge of a century of history (player's choice of century). It has no game effect whatsoever except as an adjunct to the Obscure Insults Pelican skill. Nitpick (SA) - This skill is used in artistic conflicts. Use of this skill causes the target to make an immediate ARGH save or be immediately disqualified from the the competition. Note that the Falsify Documentation allows another save. PELICAN Skill: Obscure Insults (CH) - A successful use of this skill will cause utter confusion in the target for 1 round, during which time they may take no action. Successfully use of a History Skill before the OI use will increase the confusion to two rounds. DREAM POINTS: Survival in the game depends on how many Dream Points a character has. Dream Points represent the level of belief in the peculiar magic which exists in the land of the Imperium. When a character's DP total goes to zero, that character is instantly transported back to the mundane plane for five days game time (after which the character has effected a full recovery and gets his full DP complement back). A characters initial DP total is DED+CH+SA-ARGH. If this total is 0 or less, the character never made it to the Imperium, he or she is instead probably teaching history somewhere, start a new character. ****John has DP of 5+11+9-3=22, a very good total. John will be hard to get rid of!**** POLITICAL POINTS: Political points are a type of currency in the Imperium, one can gain them by doing favors or sucking up to the right people and expend them to gain favors, awards and so on. No one has any political points to start the game. Downtime: (to be added later) NEMATODES: A player may choose to become a Nematode if they have no attribute greater than 5. To do so, they exchange all of their skill points for the special Nematode powers. They have no other skills whatsoever. Nematode Powers: Each Nematode Power is based off an attribute, thus there are 6 Nematode Powers. In each case the governing attribute determines how many dice the Nematode may roll in the use of the skills. ****John, in his adventures, encounters Wilfred the Wimpy of Westlake, a Nematode. Wilfred has CH of 3 and chooses to Whine. He will roll 3 dice*** Cringe (BR): The Cringe skill is the Nematode's main method of dealing with all forms of Physical threat. The Nematode rolls his dice and if the total is less than the targets BR, the target will be unable to physically harm the Nematode for fear of gaining a reputation as a bully. Dine (DED): The Dine skill (and it's companion skill, Whine) allow the Nematode to occasionally get companionship or favors from Members of the opposite sex. The Nematode rolls his dice and if the total is less than the targets CH, the Nematode may ask for any favor which does not involve actual sexual activity that anyone else will ever know about. Mouth-Off (SA): (To be added later) Pontificate (ARGH): This skill attacks the targets ARGH. The Nematode rolls his dice and if the total is less than the target's ARGH, the target immediately flees the Nematode's vicinity. Sympathy Date (BABE): This, the most dreaded of all Nematode powers, strikes fear into the hearts of all people everywhere. The Nematode may only attempt this power once every month, but often the mere threat of it will serve to get the Nematode his way. If forced to use this heinous power, the Nematode rolls his dice. If the total is less than the targets BABE, the target is forced to be seen in public with the Nematode. This instantly inflicts 2 dice worth of DP damage to the target and causes the loss of 2 PP. In addition, the target takes a -3 to rolls involving anything which requires respect from another person for either 3 months or until cured by a fling with a Bimbo/Bimboy. Whine (CH): This skill works exactly like the Dine skill, only the Nematode's Chutzpah is compared to the targets DED. Skills we haven't finished working on yet. Armoring - Note that his skill differs from the Artistic interest 'Armoring', below, in that it actually allows the character to produce armor. Arts Judge - Normally Arts combat is one on one. However, those players with the Arts Judge skill may challenge as many people to Artistic combat as are within a 10 ell radius. Each combat is treated as a 1-1 combat (see combat, below). Cloud men's minds/cloud women's minds - This skill can only be used by the Bimbo/Bimboy class. This a BABE-based skill. If successful, places a geas on the affected character. The command must be non-verbal, however (player must demonstrate by role-play the body language for the gestures). The character may normally only have one outstanding geas on one other character at a time, however, each game day, the casting character can roll once to see if they have 'gotten over' the affected character (roll 3d6 _above_ caster's SA - yes, being dumb helps). If successful, the caster may use a new geas. This has no effect on previous geases, however. Confabulation - I think lying is such an ugly word, don't you. Cook - Forgery - Gimme Shelter - For each point of DED that the character has, he can create housing for one other character for one game night. Note, of course, that this does not mean that the character can create housing out of 'thin air', but if there is any sort of other structure - house, tent, pavilion, etc. in the area, it allows the character to impose on that structure's owner to let the others lodge there for free. This skill may be used once per game week, but may only be used on a particular landowner once per month Heraldry - essentially useless as it does not actually allow one to better identify people on the field, nor do anything else useful. It does, however, subtract one from PP earned from any encounter. No Life - allows the character to avoid Mundane Intrusions dice rolls entirely (See Downtime). Restore Faith - a 'healing skill' which allows the recipient to recover one lost DP. This skill takes an hour of game time to apply, during which both characters must declare that they are performing no other activities except sitting and discussing Imperial philosophy. Typing - Normally, one would not think of this as a particularly useful skill, however, this skill allows the character to double his/her CH score for each round of political combat. COMBAT: Combatants must choose same combat mode - otherwise no effect Fighting - this simulates any form of 'macho' encounter - tourney fighting, arm wrestling, Viking Belly Bumping, etc., The mechanics are simple, each contestant makes a BR save. If successful they have struck their foe. The opponent loses 1 point from their BR for the duration of the fight. If the skill Swordsman is possessed, a Swordsman roll may be made after a blow strikes. If successful the damage is increased to 2 points. When BR is reduced to 0 or less, the person is forced to admit defeat. Their BR immediately returns to its maximum value. A&S Competition - This is any form of encounter where the winner is declared by some form of object or activity other than fighting. Essentially any conflict other than fighting falls into this category. Each competitor may use the skills Critique, Nitpick, and/or Falsify Documentation as described under those skills. Belief Rolls Disbelieve inauthenticity - frequently occasions come up which require a disbelieve inauthenticity dice roll (this simulates the effect when the objects from the 'mundane' plane intrude on the 'real world'). For instance: Herbert the Hoover sees a knight coming up to the tournament in a Buick. He must immediately make his Disbelieve roll, or lose two DP. Monsters: Mundanes - First attack must be inAuthenticity attack "Are you in a play?" Modules: "There's Trolls in the Troll Booth!" "Magnum Carter's Little Pills" "John the Smith goes to Washing Town"