Fundamentals
The first and most fundamental rule of ’Verses is that all rules and mechanics are rooted in reality. The rules described throughout this site are all attempts at modeling the probabilities and outcomes of interactions. While in many cases these interactions deal with fantastical or speculative settings, the singular, root rule of ’Verses is this:
No rule should ever be read or interpreted as to prohibit something which is obviously possible.
While GMs will be required to improvise and rule on situations not explicitly covered in these rules, when doing so their rulings should always lean in favor of the possible. In fact, GMs are encouraged to override a written rule if they deem it contrary to their intuition of what is possible in a given situation. Ambiguous situations should always be ruled in favor of more possibility than less.
There are also some fundamental mechanics on which the game is built.
Objects & Actors
Throughout these rules, various entities are described as objects and actors.
Objects are the most fundamental components of the game world. Any given thing that is described by properties called Attributes and isn’t typically separated into discrete objects is an object. A rock, a tree, a horse, its rider, and that rider’s armor are all objects. An object’s attributes determine how it behaves with respect to other objects and player and GM actions.
Actors✻ are a special kind of object. A game object that also possesses Action Dice (AD), and might take a turn in Fast Action is called an actor. Generally, actors are biologicals (living beings), constructs (machines), or incorporeals (AIs, spirits, etc). Characters played by players or the GM are actors (and also objects!). Other examples of actors are animals, autonomous machines, vehicles, fey spirits, and AIs.
It is worth noting that the word “actor” here is not used in the sense of an actor in a play, but rather as “one who takes action.”
Rated Values
Object capabilities and task difficulties are measured using a rated value. In fact, most values described in these rules, aside from certain derived attributes, are measured this way. Rated values go from zero to five, with zero being the lowest and five the highest.
Rated Values
| Value | Attribute Rating | Difficulty Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | None (unallocated) | Trivial |
| 1 | Low | Easy |
| 2 | Typical | Typical |
| 3 | High | Difficult |
| 4 | Elite | Very Hard |
| 5 | Superior | Extreme |
An object’s core attributes can never be set to zero, although some conditions may temporarily reduce them to zero. Other values may be zero, which may indicate a complete lack of allocation or training for a skill or ability, or in the case of difficulty, a trivial task for which a test is unnecessary.
If you’ve played other ttRPGs, you may have rolled a die and added bonuses to its value, trying to roll higher than a target number. In other cases you might roll several dice together and add their values. While adding and subtracting aren’t generally a barrier to play, it can slow down the game right when things are getting exciting!
’Verses avoids a lot of this kind of arithmetic in favor of an ability we all have called subitizing. When we subitize, we look at a number of things and immediately know how many there are without counting. Most people can subitize up to four things. To take advantage of this ability, most numbers in ’Verses are kept small. This helps make gameplay fast.
Dice Pools
Nearly all parts of gameplay in ’Verses involve rolling some number of dice all at once. These dice you roll together are called a dice pool.
Any die in the pool that rolls a five or a six counts as a success.
Sometimes one success is all you need. Sometimes you’ll need more than one. The number of successes you need is called the success target and is abbreviated as #S. When you roll the dice, you will look at each die and count the total number of successes. If this count is equal to or higher than your success target, your roll was successful.
While both fives and sixes are considered successes, sixes are more important for some rules in Fast Action. When you’re counting, count the sixes first, then the fives (this will be important when discussing certain game features such as Action Chaining, Cover, and Armor & Shields.
As the difficulty of the task increases, the success target will increase. To improve your chances of meeting the success target, you’ll want more dice in your pool. The game rules will determine how many dice you can add to your dice pool.
Whenever a bonus or penalty affects a particular roll, the number given refers to a number of dice added or removed from the dice pool for that roll.
In the examples throughout these rules, whenever rolls of dice pools are depicted, successful dice are represented with 
and non-successful dice as 
.
Dice yet to be rolled are shown with no pips: 
.
Action Dice (AD)
Action dice represent an actor’s ability to act. Each actor in the game will have some number of action dice each round in a special pool called their AD pool. The AD pool size is determined by their attributes, abilities, and current condition.
One or more action dice from this pool are used to contribute to the dice pool for any given action. At least one action die must be spent on any given action, but more can be spent to improve the chance of success. Players decide how many action dice to spend on any given action. More AD spent on an action means a better chance of success, but fewer AD left over to spend on other actions in that round. Fewer AD spent on an action means a lower chance of success, but more AD to spend on other actions.
The way action dice are spent accounts for the number of actions an actor can take in a round, allowing an actor’s player to choose how much effort is spent on any given action they take, and to balance that choice against how many actions they take.
Using action dice will be explored in more detail in the section on Fast Action.
Exhaustion (EX)
Exhaustion saps an actor's ability to take action and impacts their effectiveness across all actions. When an actor suffers exhaustion, one or more action dice are removed from the AD pool (unspent if available, otherwise from spent action dice) and are said to be “bound in Exhaustion” or EX-bound.
Action dice which are EX-bound cannot be used in any rolls. An actor that has EX-bound all action dice can take no actions except one Rest action in a round.
Action dice can become EX-bound in a number of ways. Actors taking a significant amount of damage, being subject to certain status conditions, or using all action dice on the Move action in a single turn are some of the ways that action dice can be EX-bound.
EX-bound action dice can be unbound and returned to the AD pool through the Rest action. Some abilities may also offer other ways to release EX-bound action dice.
Technology Levels (TEC)
Within a particular game universe, Technology Level (TEC) gives players and GMs a rule-of-thumb for what skills and equipment are available to characters. Technology Levels are not intended to provide accurate fidelity across historical time periods and cultures, but rather to provide rough categories of availability for gaming convenience and story-telling. It is for this reason that technology examples and not date ranges are provided as examples.
Generally speaking, TEC provides an upper limit to available technology; That is, any skills or equipment at or below the society’s TEC is available to characters. In practice, GMs and particular expansions may limit or broaden this availability for story reasons, and availability of equipment may also be constrained by social conventions or legal sanctions.
Technology Levels
| Value | Level | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ancient | Animal Husbandry, Herbalism, Swords, Bows & Arrows |
| 2 | Pre-Industrial | Gaslight, Microorganisms & Germ Theory, Muskets |
| 3 | Industrial | Steam-power, Mass Production, Electric Lights, Revolvers & Repeating Rifles |
| 4 | Modern | Genetics, Pharmacology, Solar System Exploration, Automatic Firearms |
| 5 | Future | — |
Readers may note that TEC 5: Future is undescribed and unbounded. This is deliberate, in that these core rules are intended to remain unopinionated about what the future holds. Phasers and warp drive? Cold fusion and laser swords? Individual expansions that embrace future technologies are responsible for providing skills, equipment, and gameplay environments consistent with their universes.