STaRS: Simple Tabletop Roleplaying System

e Tabletop Roleplaying System
Table of Contents P a g e |2
Copyright 2019 by Charles Cohen. Art by Josie Cohen and Ru Bradley. Editing by Dashiell
Graci. Index by Susan Cohen. Art resource images from Pixabey.com, released into the public
domain under Creative Commons CC0.
Special thanks to Samuel Clarvoe for years of help with brainstorming and playtesting, and to
all my guinea pigs, both in real life and online:
137ben Grinner Noelle Thalia Hedges-Goettl
Alex Sturbaum Helen Rich noob
Allison Asbury Hiro Protagonest Quellian-dyrae
atmanSeijo infinitetech Rachel Angie Eaton
Autobot Supreme Commander Jasdoif Ryo Kimura
Fortress Maximus (aka Chris Melka) Jeff Kaplan Samuel A Lombardo
Bec Stargel Joel Ginn Seto
Sam Filla Jormengand Sherishade
Hayden Burger joshua220 Sir Swindle89
Maggie Gilligan Josie Cohen Starsign
Kate Daly Justin Pearl Taylor TJ Hobart
Emily Wright Karli Anderson Uche Anomnachi
benmilesrocks Kate Diamond E. Luis Adams
bobthe6th Knaight Verbose Mode
Cluedrew Luke Austen-Smith Will de Montmollin
Crystal Lambert lunar2 Will Nichols
Dominique Pearson Madara Will Paris
Dunkoro Martin Durham Xander Eosphoros
erikun Matt Swinton
Felipe Firmo Miles Lex Schwartz
Genevieve T. Senechal Mith
GigaNerd17 Nick Lockyer and many more
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
What Do You Need to Read?......................................................................................................................... 7
The Rules in Brief ............................................................................................................................................. 8
Chapter 1: The Core .................................................................................................... 11
Checks ................................................................................................................................................................ 12
Difficulty ........................................................................................................................................................... 13
Abilities ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
Health ................................................................................................................................................................. 21
Chapter 2: Conflict ...................................................................................................... 24
Degrees of Success ........................................................................................................................................ 25
Structure ........................................................................................................................................................... 26
Your Turn ......................................................................................................................................................... 28
Your Enemy's Turn ....................................................................................................................................... 32
Physical Conflict ............................................................................................................................................. 33
Social Conflict.................................................................................................................................................. 36
Environmental Conflict ............................................................................................................................... 39
Chapter 3: Creating a Character ................................................................................ 43
Part 1: Planning Your Character .............................................................................................................. 44
Part 2: Building Your Character............................................................................................................... 46
Abilities......................................................................................................................................................... 46
Traits ............................................................................................................................................................. 47
Drawbacks ................................................................................................................................................... 52
Trait Summary Sheet .............................................................................................................................. 53
Sample Magic Systems............................................................................................................................ 54
Part 3: Advancing Your Character .......................................................................................................... 62
Chapter 4: Creating Opposition ................................................................................. 63
Co-Stars ............................................................................................................................................................. 64
Co-Stars in Action .......................................................................................................................................... 68
Unusual Co-Stars ........................................................................................................................................... 69

Encounter Design .......................................................................................................................................... 71
Chapter 5: Creating a World ....................................................................................... 74
The Easy Way .................................................................................................................................................. 75
The Hard Way ................................................................................................................................................. 76
Fractal World Building ................................................................................................................................ 81
Sample Setting: Cowboys in Fairyland .................................................................................................. 83
Sample Fractal: The Town of Scorpion Brook.................................................................................... 92
Chapter 6: Playing the Game ..................................................................................... 96
Group Guidance.............................................................................................................................................. 97
To Be a Star .................................................................................................................................................... 100
Directing and You ........................................................................................................................................ 103
Chapter 7: Expanding the Rules .............................................................................. 107
Including Homebrew in Your Game ..................................................................................................... 108
Tools of the Trade ....................................................................................................................................... 109
Advanced Combat Options ...................................................................................................................... 110
Competence Levels ..................................................................................................................................... 113
Doom Pool and Other Horrors ............................................................................................................... 117
Encumbrance ................................................................................................................................................ 120
Flaws ................................................................................................................................................................ 122
Hero Points .................................................................................................................................................... 123
Mass Combat ................................................................................................................................................. 126
Player Verses Player .................................................................................................................................. 128
Rote Skills ....................................................................................................................................................... 129
Vehicles ........................................................................................................................................................... 133
Character Sheet......................................................................................................... 135
Character Creation Cheat Sheet .............................................................................. 136
Index ........................................................................................................................... 137
Introduction P a g e |5
Introduction
Remember playing make-believe as a kid? Through a child's eyes, a stick could be a magic
sword or a laser rifle, a cardboard box might become a spaceship, and all you needed to be
a superhero was a towel tied around your neck. You and your friends could have a hundred
epic adventures in your backyard—fighting monsters, overthrowing evil sorcerers, and
maybe even saving princes or princesses.
You may have grown up—or at least gotten older—but that doesn't mean you have to put
your imagination away. Role-playing games (RPGs for short) offer a way to channel that
childhood enthusiasm and creativity in a slightly more adult way.
A role-playing game is a flight of pure fancy. For a few hours at a time, you and your friends
can pretend to be anyone you can imagine and tell any kind story you can think of—all
from the comfort of your own home.
How Does it Work? More than anything else, STaRS strives for
Before you can start the game, you'll need simplicity. If you can't be playing within
to pick one player to be the Director. thirty minutes of finishing this book,
They will be the one in charge of the we've done something wrong. The rules
setting. The shape and mood of your are simple as we could make them, so that
imaginary world, the foibles of physics you can play without constantly looking
and the actions of any characters not things up. They're written to enable you
controlled by another player—Co-Stars— rather than constrain you, so that you can
are all in the Director's hands. They also spend more time having fun and less time
serve as a sort of referee, making the final flipping through rulebooks.
decision whenever there are questions
The game is easy on Directors as well as
about the rules.
players. Creating non-player characters is
Everyone else gets to be a Star, a breeze—no need to spend hours
controlling one character, like an actor crunching numbers and looking up
playing a role in a movie. As the name abilities to create an enemy who'll only
suggests, the Stars are the main appear once.
characters of whatever story you and
Not content with being fast and simple,
your friends are telling. If the Director
the game also aims to be as flexible as
sets the stage, it's up to the Stars to make
possible. Without any extra rules, you'll
it their own.
be able to model anything from horror
Last, you may need one or Producers. movie protagonists to cosmic gods, and
While playing the game, the Producer is the game will be as fast and easy as ever.
just another Star or Director. But when
What Do You Need to Play?
the dice aren’t on the table, they take
First off, you'll need a few friends—
over. Producers are the ones who recruit
someone to be the Director, and a handful
the group, organize the meetings, order
of dice (or "d10s" as they're known in
the pizza, and so on. In some ways,
gaming parlance). If you don't have any,
they're the most important people in the
they're easy to find online or at your local
group—it wouldn't exist without them.
comic or gaming shop. You can also use
OK, but Why Play STaRS? any number of dice rolling programs on
It's a fair question. There are hundreds of your computer or phone, if you prefer. It's
RPGs out there, ranging from big names a good idea to have a copy of these rules
like Dungeons and Dragons to obscure handy, at least until everyone gets
indie games from the far corners of the comfortable with the system. Finally,
internet (like this one!). So, what makes everyone will need some paper and
STaRS special? pencils to make character sheets, draw
maps, and take notes.
What Do You Need to Read?
As far as RPGs go, STaRS is light and 5. If you've never played an RPG
simple, and this book is relatively before, you might find it helpful to
small. But people are busy, and you'd look at Chapter 6: Playing the
probably rather just get started. Game. There's a lot of good advice
That's okay! Here's what you need to there.
look at, in increasing order of
importance.
1. Start with below. They'll give you a

decent idea of what's going on. If
anything confuses you, flip to the
appropriate section for a more
detailed explanation.
2. If that doesn't satisfy you, the most

important section of the full rules
is Chapter 1: The Core. The rules
there are the foundation of
everything else.
3. Next up should be Chapter 2:

Conflict. It's probably the densest
part of the book, we're sorry to
say, but trust us—you'll use those
rules a lot.
4. Move on to Chapter 3: Character

Creation. We'd prefer that you
read both Parts 1 and 2, but Part
2: Building Your Character has
the actual rules. You can definitely
skip Part 3: Advancing Your
Character for now, though. If
you're the Director, you'll need to
check out Chapter 4: Creating
Opposition as well—at least the
section on Co-Stars.
The Rules in Brief
Much of this book will be filled with rules. Characters can occasionally have
We’ll take time to explain things carefully, Adrenaline Surges, where they attempt
go over our reasoning, and give examples. otherwise-impossible tasks. At any point,
But before we get to that, we’d like to do a you may take a -6 penalty to your
quick run-through of things. If you or Check; if you still succeed, you can
your friends already know how to play, accomplish a goal normally a bit
this is probably all you need to get beyond your ability.
started.
Conflict
The Core Mechanics The Conflict rules exist to turn a single
Characters are primarily defined by their Check into a prolonged scene with back-
ten Abilities—Agility, Awareness, and-forth action. The most common type
Dexterity, Intellect, Manipulation, of Conflict is a fight, but everything from
Physique, Presence, Speed, Will, and arguments to attempts to escape a
Wits. Abilities are ranked between 3 and burning building can be a Conflict.
7, with higher numbers being better.
In a Conflict, it often matters exactly how
Whenever a character attempts to do
well you did. For every two points by
something with a chance of failure,
which the result of your Check is less
make a Check by rolling a ten-sided die.
than your Ability, you score an extra
If your roll is equal to or lower than
success. For every two points your roll
your Ability score, you succeed. Every
exceeds your Ability, you're saddled
two points you succeed or fail by is an
with an extra failure.
extra success or failure, respectively,
making your success or failure even more If timing is critical, everyone makes
dramatic. Each Ability has several Speed checks. Those who succeed act
common uses, called Rotes. before the enemies, while those who fail
act afterwards. On your turn, you can
The Difficulty of these Checks can change,
take one Major Action (usually
based on circumstances. At any point, the
attacking), one Minor Action (usually
Director can assign a Modifier, making a
moving), and infinite Free Actions
task easier or harder. Modifiers can also
(usually talking).
be gained through Traits and actions (see
the Conflict/Challenge rules). A Modifier
provides either a +2 Bonus or a -2
Penalty to your Ability rank.
Once a conflict has begun, there are four  Against Complications—When an

main actions you can take: enemy attempts a Complicate action
against you, make an appropriate
 Move (varies)—Move a short distance
Ability check. If you fail, you’re
as a Minor Action, or a much larger
affected by a Complication, making
distance as a Major Action.
relevant Checks harder for one
 Overcome (Major)—To directly round per failure. You or an ally can
overcome the challenge (or a specific attempt to remove Complications
foe), make an appropriate Check. On early with a relevant Ability Check.
a success, deal one Damage per Health
success. In a direct confrontation this You have a set amount of Mental and
is probably Physical or Mental damage Physical Grace, equal to the relevant
to a single foe, but it could also Ability score. (Will for Mental and
represent your lead in a race, leads Physique for Physical). Grace represents
gathered through research, progress your plot armor, in a sense—how many
made towards repairs, or similar such blows narrowly miss you or clang off your
measures. shield, how many insults you can
 Complicate (Major)—To hinder an swallow, how many bruises you can take
enemy in specific tasks, make an before something really hurts. Damage is
appropriate Check to impose a subtracted from your Grace. If you’d be
Complication on another character, reduced to zero or less Grace, you’re
giving a Bonus to relevant Checks Taken Out, and the attacker can choose
against them easier for one round your fate.
per Success. Alternately, you may choose to suffer an
 Aid (Major)—To help an ally with a Injury, a sort of long-term Complication
specific task, make an appropriate which makes relevant Checks harder
Check give an ally a Bonus on their until it heals. If you suffer an Injury, your
next relevant Check within one Grace is instantly refilled. However, you
round per success. You can may only ever have three Injuries at a
sometimes Aid yourself, depending on time.
what you’re trying to do. All Grace is recovered after a minute or so
When it’s not your turn, you need to make of calm. Injuries require appropriate
checks to defend yourself. treatment. After they’re treated, you may
recover from one Injury every time the
 Against Attacks—When attacked, group reaches a Minor Milestone. (see
roll an appropriate Ability check. If below).
you fail, take one Damage per
failure.
Character Creation  Weapons let you deal an extra 2

In addition to their Abilities, characters damage of a given type, and cost 1
are defined by their Traits—special skills, XP per rank.
powers, equipment, and so on.
Characters begin with a score of 5 in Additionally, your Traits themselves may
each Ability. They then receive 6 have flaws, known as Discounts, which
Experience Points (XP), 3 of which must reduce their effectiveness by about half.
be spent on Abilities and 3 of which must Each Discount reduces the Trait’s cost
be spent on Traits. by one XP, to a minimum of one. You'll
want to add up the total cost of the Trait
You can spend an XP to raise an Ability by before applying the Discount.
one rank. Traits, on the other hand, come
in several different types and costs: Character Advancement
Character improvement is tied to
 Armor reduces the damage of a Milestones. You hit a Minor Milestone
specific type you take by 2, and at the end of each session, letting you
cost 1 XP per rank. recover from an Injury and re-assign a
 Companions give you the services Trait Point. Major Milestones come
of a non-sentient vehicle (for 1 XP) every few sessions, after achieving a
or a sentient ally (for 3 XP). Both major goal, and grant you a new XP Point.
have half as many XP as you, and
you can spend more on their
behalf.
 Powers add completely new
abilities to your character.
o A Minor Power gives you a
single narrow feature for 1
XP
o A Moderate Power offers a
versatile or broadly-
applicable ability for 3 XP
o A Major Power grants an
exceptionally far-reaching
power for 6 XP.
 Quirks cost 1 XP and let you use an
Ability in an unusual way.
 Skills grant a Bonus to one type of
Check easier, and cost 1 XP
Chapter 1: The Core P a g e |11
Chapter 1: The Core
While role-playing games are about imagination, they can’t be entirely devoid of rules—
otherwise, things can devolve into endless arguments. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the core
rules of the game, and the core aspects of your character: Checks, Difficulty, Abilities,
Health, and Traits.
 Checks are how we tell when your character succeeds and when they fail.
 The Difficulty is how we tell what kinds of things are possible for a character to do.
 Abilities are how we represent your character’s basic attributes—strength,

intelligence, charisma, and so on.
 Health is how we tell when your character can keep going, and when he’s out of the
running.
 Traits are how we represent your character’s special skills and powers.
Checks
Life would be dull if we always succeeded, When Do You Roll?

and games doubly so. In a typical game of While you could certainly argue that Stars
STaRS, characters will constantly find need to make Checks any time their
themselves in tense situations, with no character tries to do anything, that would
guarantee that they'll get everything get silly fast. Some things are so easy as to
right. When you want to know if your be automatic—walking across the street
character manages to do whatever it is doesn't require a Physique check.
he's trying to do, you make a Check.
But things aren't always so clear-cut.
To make a check, pick the appropriate Picking a lock is certainly complex enough
Ability and roll a ten-sided die (d10). If to warrant a Dexterity check…but what
the number on the die is equal to or does that failure mean? You can just try
lower than your Ability, you succeed. again, and again and again until you
succeed, right?
Rolling a check using a specific Ability is
usually shortened to "roll [Ability]" or an As a rule, Directors shouldn’t call for
"[Ability] Check"—you roll Physique, checks unless something interesting
make a Presence Check, and so on. (We’ll can happen on a failure. Under some
talk a bit more about “Abilities” later on.”) circumstances, failing to pick that lock
doesn't mean anything—the door will still
Explaining Your Game: Roll Under vs be there, waiting patiently. But if you
Roll Over snuck past the guards to get to the door,
Unlike many other RPGs, STaRS is a "roll and you've only got minutes until the next
under" game—you're trying to get less patrol comes by? Or if the door is trapped,
than the target number, which in this case and failing means the corridor will be
is your Ability rank. Doing things that way flooded with toxic gas? Then there's a
makes it very clear what your rank consequence to a failure, and it's time to
means. If you have Agility 6, you have a reach for your dice.
60% chance of succeeding on an Agility Stars Roll All the Dice
Check, no mental math required. On the Stars are the only ones who ever need to
other hand, it can make modifiers (see the touch a die. All Checks are made in
next section) a bit counter-intuitive. If you relation to their characters. If you take an
prefer, you can also make a Check by action, you roll for it. If someone else
rolling a d10, adding your Ability rank, takes an action against you—be it
and trying to get more than 10. The swinging a sword or throwing an insult—
math works the same both ways. you roll to resist.
Difficulty
Not all tasks are created equal. Maybe the Whatever the source, Modifiers all work
lights are out in the warehouse you're the same way. A Bonus increases your
trying to sneak through, or maybe the effective Ability Rank by 2, while a
guards are on especially high alert. Penalty decreases it by 2. That’s all you
Maybe the computer you're trying to hack need to remember—plus two or minus
has a bunch of security software, or two.
maybe you already have half the
Can you get multiple Modifiers, making
password. Circumstances change, and the
Checks easier and easier until you don't
difficulty of your Checks should reflect
have to roll? Of course, but only to a point.
that.
Multiple Modifiers can stack, as long as
Modifiers they come from different sources. If one
When external circumstances affect a friend Aids you, you won't get any more
task, your character will gain a benefit from a second Aid action—but
Modifier. Sometimes they’ll be part of the you can certainly benefit from your own
rules—you’ll suffer an Injury or a innate Skill at the same time.
Complication, and some Checks will
It’s also worth noting that this goes for
become harder. You'll purchase a Skill,
both positive and negative Modifiers—
and other Checks will become easier. A
opposite Modifiers effectively cancel
Co-Star's talents will dictate how easy it is
out. If a friend Aids your action and an
to trick or punch him. Other times, the
enemy Complicates it, you wind up
Director will assign a single Ad-Hoc
making your Check normally.
Modifier. A positive Modifier, one which
helps you, is known as a Bonus; a Ad-Hoc Modifiers
negative one is known as Penalty. Ad-hoc Modifiers are one of the most
useful options in the Director's toolbox.
Modifiers can be short-lived, such as an
They're how you make sure the world
Aid action, or long-term, such as an
responds to the Stars, how you make sure
Injury. Modifiers will typically only
that their surroundings are more than
apply to a few sorts of Check—you might
just pretty scenery. When you feel
have a Bonus on Checks related to melee
circumstances demand it, you may
combat, for instance, or a Penalty on
assign one Ad-Hoc Modifier.
stealth Checks.
Always think about whether a Modifier  Co-Star Actions: Did anyone make
should apply, but don't overthink it— a special effort to encrypt the
Your gut feeling is sufficient. Like most message? Did they send out extra
parts of the game, it's much better to guards? Is the car over-loaded? On
make a quick call and go on with the fun the other hand, maybe someone
than it is to stop and spend ten minutes completely forgot to station a
mulling over every little detail. That's why lookout to the rear of the camp.
we put so much emphasis on “one” The actions of the Co-Stars, in
Modifier—it's to keep you from going other words, can make things
overboard trying to account for easier or harder.
everything.
Explaining Your Game—Where do
Here are a few things to think about when Modifiers come from?
deciding whether to assign a Modifier: We've been talking a lot about Modifiers, but
we still don't really know where they come
 The Environment: What's the from. We'll learn more soon, but for now, we
can quickly summarize:
terrain like? The weather?
Environmental factors tend to be Skills are character-specific Traits. They are
pretty static things that can favor always available.
anyone who uses them properly.
The Aid action lets you help a friend. The
Modifier granted usually doesn't last for very
 The Stars' Approach: Don't think
long.
about the Stars' character sheets
so much as their general actions. The Complicate action is how an enemy
Are they being exceptionally rude? hinders you (or vice-versa, of course). Like
Aid, the Modifier tends to be shaken off
Are they rushing things along and
quickly.
forgetting key steps? Or are they
using good roleplaying and clever Injuries are collected when your armor runs
tactics? If you think the way out and an enemy scores a palpable hit. They
last for a while, until you can be properly
they're playing is smart enough to
healed.
give them some sort of advantage,
you should absolutely reward Ad-hoc Modifiers, as mentioned above, are
them for doing so—and punish awarded by the Director. They rarely last
more than a scene.
them for being fools.
If you look closely, you might notice a pattern.
There are three ways to get Bonuses and
three ways to get Penalties—just enough to
get from an average Ability rank to auto-
success or auto-failure. One is hard-coded
into the rules, one comes from teamwork (or
enemy action), and one emerges from natural
gameplay.
Too Many Modifiers? Obviously, there are still some limits to

You might have noticed that you can rack this. You can’t take the penalty, declare “I
up a lot of bonuses (or penalties) if things fly away” and leap into the sky. At least,
work out right. With three potential not in most settings. Your basic human
sources of Modifier in either direction, character might be able to lift a car
you might wind up with a Modifier of 6. enough to let their friend slide out from
Given that Ability Ranks range between 3 underneath, but they’re probably not
and 7, it’s entirely possible that you’ll going to be able to toss it through a
blow right past the range of die rolls. building. Adrenaline Surges can only
What happens when it’s impossible to take you just beyond the normal edge of
fail (or succeed) at a Check? the possible.
Well…exactly that. If you’re making a

Check with an effective rank of 10 or
more, you’re guaranteed to succeed—the
only point of the roll is to see how many
extra successes (or failures) you get. If
that’s not important, feel free to skip
directly to the result. That being said, it’d
be silly if there wasn’t some point to
racking up all those modifiers…
Adrenaline Surges
We all know the trope. A mother, frantic
with worry for her child, single-handedly
lifts a car out of the way. The hero,
watching their lover plummet to certain
death, makes an impossible leap to save
them. Throughout fiction, characters in
desperate straits manage to achieve the
impossible. Well, STaRS is no different. At
any point, you may voluntarily take a -6
penalty to attempt a near-impossible
task.
As a caveat, Adrenaline Surges can

(usually) only be attempted once. They
represent an almost superhuman effort of
will under the most stressful
circumstances—you can’t just try again
and again until they work.
Difficulty and Genre Hollywood Action

Of course, “the possible” is not a static In a Hollywood Action game,
thing. STaRS is, after all, designed to movies and TV are our guidebook.
work for many different sorts of games. Characters are surprisingly
"Normal" means something different in a capable, even when plunged into
superhero movie that it does in a slice-of- situations they're not supposed to
life drama, after all. So where do you set be prepared for. In areas where
boundaries? What limits do you put on they are specialists, they're almost
things? unstoppable. Normal Checks cover
most things, even those that
Obviously, that depends a lot on the genre
would—in reality—require years
you're playing in, and even more on the
of training.
feel. Groups should feel free to work these
things out on their own, but here are When Adrenaline Surges come in,
some basic suggestions: you enter the realm of action-
fantasy, where Stars run up walls
Grim and Gritty
to spin-kick villains in the face and
In a Grim and Gritty game, reality hack alien databases with nothing
is the name of the game. Heroes but an old laptop.
struggle and fail as much as they
succeed. Characters are, well, like Over the Top
us—normal people, who are good
In an Over the Top game, everyone
at maybe one or two things. If you
is a badass. Even "normal" Stars
can’t get up and do something
are exceptionally capable
right now, it’s probably not
individuals. Characters like
possible with a normal Check.
Batman are our touchstones here,
Only with an Adrenaline Surge can rather than reality—lip service
you hit the heights of competence may be paid to the laws of physics
we usually think of our heroes as and biology, but we certainly don’t
having—hacking computers, think about them too hard.
scaling sheer brick walls, and so With Adrenaline Surges on the
on. (In other words, tasks that table, we leave even the semblance
need professional training in real of reality behind, and enter the
life usually require special Skills realm of superpowers. Characters
and equipment in-game, to make toss cars around like toys, build
up for the -6 penalty). spaceships out of scrap metal, and
more.
Example With the information he learned, John

To show you what we mean, let's look at a sets out to find the bandit's base by
few quick situations: following his trail. Normally, given the
time and distance involved, this would be
Marshal John Wild is trying to sneak up
impossible for him—he’ll need an
on a bandit. He's smart enough to keep
Adrenaline Surge to even make the
watch, but he's not particularly good at it,
attempt, and with a base Wits score of 5,
either, so the Director decides not to
he’ll never succeed. The Director agrees
assign any Modifiers. John rolls a normal
that the information he gathered would
Agility check and succeeds with a 4.
make things easier, but a single Bonus
Now he decides to plug the man isn't enough to make John feel confident.
somewhere nonlethal, as part of a big
He thinks about it for a moment, then
entrance. John is a pretty good shot—he
reminds the Director that he has the
even has a Skill in shooting, automatically
ability to talk to animals. He asks if he can
granting him a Bonus. The bandit hasn't
use that power to help supplement his
noticed him either, which ought to make
tracking abilities. The Director agrees that
things even easier.
the plan sounds like a reasonable Aid
Looking at his stats, the Director sees that action (see the Conflict chapter for
the poor sap doesn't have any particular details), providing another Bonus for
dodging ability. He figures that "surprise" another +2.
is worth making things even easier, so he
Thus, armed with two Bonuses, John
informs John that he has an ad-hoc Bonus.
decides to risk it. With a -6 from the
With two Modifiers boosting his Dexterity
Adrenaline Surge and +4 from his
to an effective 11, John’s success is
Modifiers, he rolls as though he had a
guaranteed. He decides that the bandit
Wits score of 3. Unfortunately, he still
takes a bullet to the knee and steps out
fails, leaving the good Marshal stranded in
with a smoking gun to begin the
the desert, far from civilization. On the
interrogation.
third night, the Director tells him he hears
the howling of coyotes closing in, and the
adventure continues…
Abilities
At the core of every character you’ll find Categories

their Abilities. They measure the most Sometimes you'll see references to
fundamental aspects of body and mind— "mental" or "physical" Abilities. You can
how strong are you? How fast? How break the list of Abilities up along the
smart? Each character has ten Abilities, following lines:
each with a score between three and
 Mental Abilities: Awareness,
seven. Higher abilities are better,
Intellect, Manipulation, Presence,
meaning that your character is stronger,
Will, Wits
faster, or smarter.
 Physical Abilities: Agility,
We’ll go into detail about what each Dexterity, Physique, Speed
Ability means in a moment, but in general
Missing Abilities
terms, the ten Abilities are:
It's possible to have characters lacking
certain Abilities entirely—a creature with
Ability Description
no legs might not be capable of making
Agility How graceful you are. most Speed Checks, and one without a
Awareness How perceptive you are. proper body might lack all Physical
Dexterity How good your hand- Abilities. To model this, represent
eye coordination is. Absent Abilities with a “—” and
Intellect How educated and consider the character utterly
logical you are. incapable of making checks involving
Manipulation How good you are at that Ability.
using words.
Physique How strong and tough
you are.
Presence How charismatic and
charming you are.
Speed How fast you are.
Will How much self-control
you have.
Wits How much common
sense you have.
Agility Intellect
Agility represents your general physical Intellect represents your "book" learning
coordination and grace. A character with and logical reasoning skills. A character
a high Agility score might move like a with high Intellect might be good at trivia
dancer, never seeming to be caught off- questions and logic puzzles, while
balance, while someone with a low Agility someone with a low Intellect might have
score might always be tripping over their never received a formal education.
own feet.
Intellect is used for things like hacking
Agility is used for melee combat; it’s also computer systems, sprouting off facts
used for things like acrobatic maneuvers, about things, performing first aid, and
sneaking about, riding horses, and so on. building or repairing machines.
Awareness Manipulation
Awareness represents your ability to Manipulation represents your ability to
observe the world around you. A choose the right words to make other
character with a high Awareness score people believe you. A character with high
always seems to know what's around him, Manipulation might be able to talk you
and is almost never caught by surprise, into anything, while someone with a low
while someone with a low Awareness Manipulation might have trouble
might wander around in an oblivious expressing themselves clearly.
haze.
Manipulation is used for things like lying
Awareness is used for things like spotting to people, persuading them, and bartering
ambushes, searching for clues, and with them.
following trails.
Physique
Dexterity Physique represents raw physical power.
Dexterity represents your hand-eye A character with high Physique might be
coordination. A character with a high tough and athletic, while someone with a
Dexterity score might be known for their low Physique might be sickly or suffer
nimble fingers, while someone with low from physical disabilities.
Dexterity might always be fumbling and
Physique determines how much
dropping things.
Physical Grace you have, and is used for
Dexterity is used for making ranged things like lifting weights, kicking down
attacks, and for things like picking locks, doors, wresting with people, climbing
catching thrown objects, and driving walls, and shrugging off physical trauma.
vehicles.
Presence Speed
Presence represents your raw personal Speed represents both general reaction
magnetism. A character with high time and physical movement. A character
Presence might be the center of attention, with high Speed might feel like the rest of
capable of making friends without really the world is in slow motion, while
trying, while someone with a low someone with a low Speed might be
Presence might be more of a wallflower. inattentive or lethargic.
Presence is used for things like making Speed is used for dodging ranged and
friends, intimidating people, performing area attacks and determines who acts
in front of an audience, and leading a first in a fight. It’s also used for things like
group of allies. racing people and trying to accomplish
things quickly.
Explaining Your Game—Manipulation
vs Presence Will
What, exactly, is the difference between Will represents your raw mental strength
Presence and Manipulation? Ultimately, and toughness. A character with high Will
they're both used for the same thing— might be exceptionally stubborn or
persuading people to do what you want. secure in their own identity, while
The difference is in approach. Presence someone with a low Will might be easily
makes people like you; Manipulation persuaded or allow himself to be molded
makes them do what you want. by his companions.
A character with high Presence but low Will determines how much Mental Grace
Manipulation is charismatic and likeable you have, how well you can resist social
but may not be very eloquent—think of a or mental attacks, and is often used to
James Bond type, getting by with a wink attack with magic or superpowers. It’s
and a smile. A character with low also used for things like concentrating on
Presence but high Manipulation may not a task.
be very likable but knows exactly how to
push your buttons—think of a Wits
Wormtongue type, treating every Wits represents your experience and
conversation like a game of chess. common sense. A character with high
Wits might be wise or down to earth,
while someone with a low Wits might be
flighty or sheltered.
Wits is used to see through social

influence; it’s also used for things like
reading people, training animals,
navigating through complex mazes, and
surviving in the wilderness.
Health
Sooner or later, a fight is bound to break When you take Damage from an attack
out, be it verbal or physical. When that (see the Chapter 2: Conflict for how that
day comes, it’s important to know how happens), you subtract from the matching
much punishment you can take. That’s pool. For example, if you take two
where your health comes in. A character physical Damage, you lose two points
has two reserves of health: Grace and from your Physical Grace pool.
Injuries. Grace determines how long they
Loss of Grace isn’t exactly getting hurt, but
can stay in the fight before getting hurt;
it’s not necessarily a near miss, either.
Injuries are, well, the injuries characters
Damage is typically a glancing hit, a
suffer when they start taking real hits.
blow that doesn’t quite penetrate your
Grace armor (metaphorically or literally) but
Protagonists in fiction usually don’t spend nevertheless leaves you bruised and
every fight getting constantly struck by shaken. Physical Damage could be a
swords and bullets. Instead, they’re bullet grazing your cheek, a heavy blow
constantly experiencing lucky escapes— that leaves your hands ringing after the
ducking behind cover in the nick of time, parry, your force field getting worn down,
finding that the hit didn’t penetrate their or a bruise from diving for cover. Mental
armor, and so on. Characters in STaRS Damage could be a telepathic attack that
work the same way. exhausts you when you resist or an insult
that hurts your feelings but doesn’t stop
All characters have pools of Physical
you from arguing. If it helps, think of
and Mental Grace, with a size equal to
your Grace as plot armor—when it runs
your rank of the corresponding ability:
out, you start to suffer realistic
 Physique determines your consequences of getting shot or having
Physical Grace. Your Physical your mind invaded.
Grace is a measure of how much
punishment your body can take
without getting hurt.
 Will determines your Mental

Grace. Your Mental Grace is a
measure of how much punishment
your mind can take without
breaking.
Taken Out Injury

Not every fight goes your way. If an If an attack would leave you Taken Out,
attack would reduce you to zero or less it’s not the end of the world. Instead of
Grace, you are Taken Out—you lose the being Taken Out, you may instead suffer
Conflict, and your fate is in your enemy's an Injury and recover all Grace of the
hands. Whoever delivered the Attack appropriate type. An Injury is a sort of
which left you Taken Out decides what permanent Complication (see Chapter 2:
happens to you. They dictate the broad Conflict). Whenever your Injury would
strokes of what happens to you, and you be relevant, you take a Penalty on the
to fill in the fine details. They remain the Check. For example, a broken leg might
final arbiter of what's an appropriate make it harder to sprint or dodge attacks,
"death scene," however—you usually while a fit of rage might penalize all
won't be allowed to turn events to your Manipulation checks.
advantage.
The Star whose character would be
 If you're Taken Out by Physical Taken Out picks the Injury, although
Damage, you usually wind up Directors can and should reject Injuries
unconscious, dead, or dying, that are inappropriate, too mild, or too
although a merciful opponent may painful.
leave you surrendered at their feet.
While suffering from too many Injuries is
Any way you slice it, you're too
a good way to render yourself ineffective,
battered to keep fighting.
there needs to be a limit—otherwise you
 If you're Taken Out by Mental could just keep stumbling through a
Damage, you wind up an battle, getting more and more useless but
emotional wreck—sulking, never allowing the fight to end. A
sobbing, or maybe even in a coma character may not have more than
if the trauma is bad enough. You three Injuries at a time, regardless of
might also wind up agreeing what type of Damage inflicted them. If
with or obeying your opponent, you have three Injures and lose the last of
at least for a little while. Whatever your Grace, there’s nothing you can do to
the case, you're unlikely to be stop yourself from being Taken Out.
capable of even simple tasks for
some time.
Recovery
As long as you're not dead, being Improving Your Game—Lethality
Damaged or Taken Out isn't the end of the The rules for Grace and Injuries were
world. You can recover, given time and written so that Stars are under constant
treatment. All Grace is recovered after threat of serious consequence, but don't
approximately a minute of calm, with no wind up in the hospital for a month after
Checks required. every fight. If you want to dial up the
danger, though, there are a few good ways
Recovering from Injuries is harder. A
to do it.
character can’t begin to heal an Injury
or recover from being Taken Out until  You can make more use of the
they receive appropriate treatment. Weapon trait, having high-damaging
“Appropriate treatment” is, naturally, weapons be significantly more
dependent on the natural of the Injury common than matching armor. Even a
sustained—first aid for a physical Injury single level of difference can chew up
such as a gunshot wound, therapy for a Grace in a hurry; two levels can easily
mental Injury such as PTSD, and so on. leave you with an Injury after just one
or two shots.
After being treated, a character is no
longer Taken Out, and heals one Injury  You can make Grace harder to
every time he reaches a Minor recover, perhaps requiring similar
Milestone—essentially, at the end of the treatment to Injuries (with matching
session, or after a prolonged period of in- descriptions for what it means). You'd
game downtime, such as a long trip (see primarily see the results of this
Chapter 3 for details). At the Director’s change in prolonged action sequences,
discretion, sufficiently powerful magic or where characters have to rush from
advanced technology can speed this up, fight to fight with no chance to rest.
although in general, the availability of
extremely effective treatments should  Finally, you could make Injuries take
usually be balanced out by more longer to heal by, say, removing the
gruesome wounds. In the modern world, automatic "end of session" healing and
a broken leg might be an appropriate leaving prolonged downtime the only
Injury, but if magic can regenerate body way to recover. How big an effect the
parts in hours, maybe it’s better to have change has would depend on the
the limb completely sliced off. structure of your game, obviously—on
a naval game with lots of travel you
might not even notice, while other
games might never see a chance to
heal.
Chapter 2: Conflict P a g e |24
Chapter 2: Conflict
Why do we need an entire chapter of special rules for fights when we can already handle
these sorts of things with Checks? If you want to know whether you killed the
Stormtrooper, can't you just make a Dexterity Check to shoot him?
Well… you could do that. And sometimes you should. The choice of whether to use the
Conflict rules is similar to the choice of whether or not to require a Check—either way is
correct but using the Conflict rules makes things more dramatic. A single Check only
takes a few seconds of real-life time to resolve a situation, while making a scuffle into a full-
blown Conflict draws it out by adding in a back-and-forth feel and giving the Stars much
more influence over how it plays out. Using Conflict rules can also make things a bit more
organized, especially when there are lots of characters all trying to act at once.
On the other hand, if you're not interested in how the details of how a wrestling match or a
bar fight turns out, it's perfectly acceptable to resolve it in a single Check. The Conflict
rules exist to turn a single Check into a prolonged scene, one in which all Stars can
easily participate—but it's up to the Director to decide whether that scene is interesting
enough to play out or gloss over.
Note that’s “scene,” not “fight.” The distinction is intentional. We’ll talk about this a bit more
in Chapter 4, but the Conflict rules can be used for any sort of extended challenge,
especially one where there’s opposition. Trying to persuade the king to intervene? Sounds
like a Conflict—you make your points, he makes his, and may the best politician win. Lost
in the wilderness and trying to get home? You’re trying to make progress or scrape up
supplies, and Mother Nature sends you storms and bears? Sounds like a tense Conflict to
me. Trying to repair a damaged spaceship amidst showers of sparks and randomized
explosions? There’s success, there’s danger, there’s actions and reactions really, all you
need to do is adjust what “Damage” means and anything can be a Conflict.
Degrees of Success
Most of the time, we don’t bother to tell Improving Your Game—Calculating

you exactly how well you did with a Successes
successful Check, or how badly you
botched a failed one. Stars and Directors You don't have to do the math every
can tweak their descriptions based on the time you roll a die. “Every two points”
die roll, but we only really care about two is easy enough to keep track of—all
states: “success” and “failure.” you need to do is count even or odd
numbers.
In Conflicts, though, we’re zooming in a
bit more, breaking down that a single Heck, if you really need to, you can
event into a series of back-and-forth write down what die rolls give you
actions. Your foes are reacting to, or even what results for each Ability you
interrupting, whatever it is you’re trying commonly use in Conflict. If your
to do, and we need to know how often Agility score is 7, write it out as
that happens. We need to know how well _1_/_3_/_5_/_7 / 9 or 7 (1, 3, 5, 9), or
your Check works. any other way you can think of. If you
roll a 9, that's an extra failure. If you
To tell, we look at how closely your die roll a 5 or less, that's two successes,
roll was to your Ability. For every two and a 1 gives you a whopping four
points by which the result is less than successes!
your Ability, you score an extra success.
For every two points your roll exceeds
your Ability, you're saddled with an
extra failure.
For example, let’s say John Wild has an

Agility of 6 when he tries to punch out a
rebellious deputy. His Star rolls a d10 and
gets a 3. That’s more than two points
below his score of 6, but less than four, so
he scores a single extra success.
Structure
In real life action scenes, everything The length of a Round can be converted to
happens more-or-less at once. Characters any real amount of time, but before you
are running around, yelling and fighting can do that, you need to think about what
as much as they can. To them, it makes kind of Conflict is happening. In a bar
sense. If you were watching it on TV, it fight, a Round might take seconds. In a
would probably make sense. But to dual between two great spacecraft, it
control the chaos, it needs to be a bit more could take hours for missiles to cross the
linear. distance between the two ships. Directors
should pick an appropriate round length
Not every Conflict needs to be broken
but, generally, a Round is six seconds
down like this, of course. If timing isn’t
long in most physical Conflicts.
important, don’t bother keeping track
of rounds or initiative—simply let your Initiative
Stars act and react in whatever order they All actions in a Round may be
please. You only need to roll Initiative if simultaneous, but you'd break your brain
most Stars will be trying to act as often trying to resolve them all at once. Instead,
as possible. we take turns. At the start of the Conflict,
all Stars make Speed checks. Those who
Rounds
succeed take their actions before their
The basic unit of Conflict is the Round,
foes, and those who fail act afterwards.
the amount of time it takes for all
combatants to act—swinging swords, Within those two groups, exact turn order
making arguments, firing missiles, is unimportant. Just go around the table,
whatever the situation calls for. letting everyone act in turn—first those
Remember, in the game-world, all actions who passed the Check, then those who
during a single Round are taking place failed it. Stars can freely delay their turn
simultaneously. It's only our out-of-game and act later in the Round if they want.
perspective that sees people neatly taking
If any characters have higher Competence
turns.
levels for their Speed (Initiative) Rote,
they automatically act first, before anyone
with lower Competence—regardless of
whether or not they passed the Speed
Check.
Actions Improving Your Game—More (or less!)

Rounds and turns help you sort out when Detailed Initiative
different characters get to act, but a single
character can only do so many things in The basic Initiative rules are simple, and
that time. "Actions" are divided into three deliberately so. We'd rather get to the
categories: Major Actions, Minor Actions, action faster than worry about who's
and Free Actions. Each round, a faster than whom. But if it matters to you,
character gets one Major Action, one try this: Stars act in order of the number
Minor Action, and a reasonable number of successes or failures they got on their
of Free Actions. You may take a second Speed Check. In the likely event that two
Minor action in place of a Major one, if or more characters have the same
you so choose, and you may take your number of successes or failures, resolve
actions in any order you want. ties in order of Speed, high to low. Doing
so is more "exact," but also somewhat
 Major Actions take both time and slower.
effort, such as shooting a gun or
casting a spell—generally, things Alternately, you might find the current
for which you might have to make structure too restrictive, or at least too
a check. slow. If that's the case, you can toss out
the initiative structure altogether.
 Minor Actions take either time but Allow all the Stars to act, in any order
little effort, such as moving a short they want, whether that means just going
distance; or effort but little time, around the table, "popcorn" initiative
such as kicking down a door. where everyone passes the ball to
someone else when they're done, or just
 Free Actions take little time and
allow whoever pipes up first to act. This
little effort, such as talking or
can lead to a very natural flow of actions,
opening a door.
but it can also be chaotic, and it certainly
de-values characters who invested in
Speed.
The overall point here is that it's not too

important what order people get to act
in, as long as everyone gets their turn.
Your Turn
Conflict has broken out, initiative has  Sprinting: "Sprinting" means

been rolled, and now it's your turn to act. putting your head down and
So, what can you do? You'll usually want charging at top speed, leaving little
to Move, as well as use one of the three time for other actions. As a Major
major conflict actions: Overcome a Action, you can move a
challenge, Complicate the situation, or significant distance. We're talking
Aid an ally. about charging distant archers,
rushing from one fight to another,
Move (Action Varies)
and so on. If you want an exact
They say there are two kinds of soldiers
distance, figure Sprinting lets you
on the battlefield: the quick and the dead.
move approximately twenty feet
Whether or not that’s true, in STaRS there
for every point of Speed.
are two general types of movement:
The numbers above assume a Speed score
 Walking: "Walking" is a relatively
that hasn't been altered. A Bonus should
controlled form of movement, and
double your speed, and a negative one
that usually means a jog or a
should half it.
scuttle, not a literal slow walk. As a
Minor Action, you can move a
short distance—enough to move
between enemies in a group, reach
a nearby piece of cover, move from
room to room, and so on. It's best
not to worry too much about exact
distances, but if it matters, figure
Walking lets you cover
approximately five feet for every
point of Speed.
Overcome (Major Action) A Multiple Overcome means making

An Overcome is any action intended to multiple attempts in short order. You can
directly bring you victory in the Conflict. attempt to Overcome up to three
More than anything else, what it means targets, rolling separately for each foe.
depends on the nature of the Conflict. In a However, you take a Penalty on all three
physical fight you might be shooting a gun Checks. For example, a character with an
or punching a thug, but in different Agility of 6 could attempt to punch up to
circumstances it might mean sprinting three targets in a single action, but he’d
directly out of a burning building, making take a -2 penalty and make each attack
a point in an argument, replacing a with an effect Agility of 4.
damaged power conduit, or whatever
other action will overcome the main
problem at hand.
Overcoming a challenge requires a

successful Check, the specifics of which
will depend on the Conflict in question. A
successful Overcome deals one Damage
per success.
By default, an Overcome only affects a

single target. Sometimes there will only
be a single target—because you're only
fighting one ogre or because you'll all
struggling to sail a single ship through a
storm. Other times there will be multiple
targets to be overcome—a horde of
goblins, multiple shield pylons that need
to be repaired, or worse. When that
happens, you might get impatient only
dealing with things one at a time.
Complicate (Major Action) The fact that it’s you making the check
Sometimes you don't want to just hit probably sounds odd but remember—
someone—you might want to hinder your this Check doesn't necessarily represent
target instead, wrestle your foe to the an addition action on your part. Instead, it
ground, throw sand in their eyes, or reflects how well your initial Complicate
knock the sword from their hand. An action worked. (It's a bit weird, we admit,
attempt to indirectly succeed in a Conflict, but it's a necessary consequence of the
by hindering opposition rather than "Stars roll all the dice" rule.)
directly attempting to overcome it, is a
Complicate action.
To Complicate the situation, make an

appropriate Ability Check. If you
succeed, you inflict a Complication on
your foe, such as "knocked down" or
"blinded by anger." When the
Complication is relevant, you gain a
Bonus to your Check. You might have an
advantage when making physical attacks
or defense Checks against a blinded foe,
but not when trying to wrestle them. It
might be easier to trick an angry foe, but
certainly not to persuade them.
Just like with Overcomes, you can attempt

a Multiple Complicate action, with the
same rules— you can attempt to affect
up to three targets at once, but you take
a Penalty on each check.
A successful Complication lasts for one

round per success. However, Enemies
may attempt to remove Complications on
their turns as a Major Action, either from
themselves or from their allies. When an
enemy tries to remove a Complication,
make an Ability Check of the same sort
you used to inflict the Complication. If
succeed, the Complication remains. If you
fail, the Complication is removed.
Aid (Major Action) It's also worth noting that Aid actions
The opposite of an attempt to Complicate can be used outside of a Conflict.
the situation for a foe is an attempt to Aid There's nothing stopping you from
an ally. Pick an action that your ally is teaming up with a friend to force a door
about to attempt and make an Ability open or helping out with a research
Check, usually using the same Rote as you project. There’s just one wrinkle—Aiding
would if you were the one taking the yourself almost never works outside of
action—an Intellect Check to help your action-time, though, since the normal
buddy hack a computer, a Physique Check Check assumes that you're already taking
to help break down a door, and so on. If your time to do it right. Directors may
you succeed, your friend gains a Bonus wish to place limits on this if Stars
on their next Check of the appropriate abuse it—having a failure make the check
type within one round per success—if harder is a good price.
possible. If you help overturn a heavy
bench, then leave to attack an enemy Improving Your Game—When do you
knight, your friend can't exactly benefit Aid?
from your help to push the bench against Taking a moment to aim makes sense as
the door. On the other hand, if you gave an Aid action, but what about diving for
them advice about where the dragon's cover? Melding into the shadows? When
weak spot is, it doesn't matter what you do you need to manufacture the Modifier,
do next—they'll still know where to aim and when should the Director just give
at. you an Ad-Hoc Modifier?
You can use certain Aid actions on The key word there is manufacture. If you
yourself, although you and the Director need to do something to get the
need to agree on whether the Aid action is Modifier, you need to take the Aid
possible—spending a few seconds to aim action. If you’re taking advantage of
more carefully is pretty reasonable, but something that was already there, you
it's hard to imagine how you can help probably didn’t need to do anything but
yourself pick a lock. say so.
Finally, as usual, you can attempt a
Multiple Aid action just like a Multiple
Overcome or Multiple Complicate, with
the usual rules— you can attempt to
affect up to three allies, but you take a
Penalty on each Check.
Your Enemy's Turn
You've fought well, but now your turn is Resist a Complicate Action
over and there are still bad guys on the Enemies can Complicate things, too.
field. Don't put down your dice just yet— When an enemy attempts a Complicate
you're going to have to keep making action against you, make an
Checks as your enemies come for you. appropriate Ability Check. Just like when
you Complicate things, there’s no set
Enemy Actions
Check—roll whatever seems most
Your foes get the same set of Actions as
appropriate for the specific attack. If you
you—one Major Action, one Minor Action,
succeed, you resist the assault. If you
and a reasonable number of Free Actions.
fail, you suffer from the Complication
They use the same Actions to move and
for one round per failure, with the round
attack as you do—the only real difference
you’re first affected being round zero.
is in how the dice shake out.
On your turn, you can make a new Check
Enemy Movement
to shake the Complication off as a Major
Enemies move at the same speed as
Action. Again, there’s no hard-and-fast
Stars do, with the same sort of action
rule about what kind of Check you need to
costs. There's generally not much you can
make. It’ll often be the same as the initial
do about that.
one, but there are plenty of situations
Resist an Overcome Action where that’s not the case. It might take an
When your opposition tries to Overcome Agility Check to avoid getting snagged by
you, make an appropriate Ability Check. a net, but a Physique Check to escape
If you succeed, you successfully defend once you’re trapped.
yourself—you dodge the attack, see
As with Overcome actions, you get a
through the lie, whatever it takes. If you
Bonus to resist a Multiple Complicate
fail, you take one Damage per failure.
attempt—including the subsequent
Like you, enemies can attempt Multiple checks to shake off the Complication.
actions. Since they don’t make attack
Resist an Aid Action
rolls, the penalty rolls around to you—
You can’t really do anything about one
you get a Bonus when resisting a
enemy Aiding another, but when it
Multiple Overcome attempt.
happens, you take a Penalty when
resisting the Aided guy’s actions, just
like when you help one of your friends.
Physical Conflict
Let’s be honest with ourselves—the If the Stars are really good at their job—
entire time we’ve been talking about or the opposition is really good at
“conflict,” you’ve been picturing a theirs—you might wind up with one side
conventional fight scene. Two or more having total strategic surprise. Perhaps
characters trying to kill each other with they arranged an ambush and attacked
swords, guns, bare hands, and more. before the enemy even knew that there
was a threat. If one side is unaware of an
Kicking Off a Physical Conflict
attack, the surprise attackers each get
Time-honored tradition says that a fight
to take a Major Action before initiative
starts when the person running the game
is formally rolled. Directors might rule
announces, "okay, everyone, roll for
that surprise attacks get a Bonus, too!
initiative!" There comes a point when
everyone is drawing weapons and Structure
readying spells and it's time to switch to Knowing who acts when is really
the more-complicated set of rules for important in a physical conflict, where it
fighting. And that's pretty much how can literally be the difference between life
STaRS works too. Most of the time, and death. Unlike a social conflict, where
everyone will be attempting to kick things we highly recommend sticking to the
off at the same time. default initiative system.
On the other hand, the second most The Four Actions

common way fights break out is when a  Move actions can be highly significant
single person throws the first punch. A in a fight. Or they can be largely
single unprovoked attack can be redundant—to a large extent, it's up to
resolved before Initiative at the cost of the Director to make sure that
the attacker’s normal turn. Resolve the movement is relevant, by spreading
attack, then roll initiative as normal—just out enemies, including cover, creating
pretend that the initial attacker had acted opportunities to knock down pillars
at the very start of the Round. and throw enemies off cliffs, and
otherwise make the environment a
part of the fight. In any case, exact
movement speed tends to be more
important in a physical conflict than
other types, so it's worth paying
attention to.
 Overcome actions might as well be When attempting an Area

re-named "Attack" actions, because Overcome, you can attack all
that's what they'll be. Agility and targets in a radius of twenty
Dexterity are your active Abilities (for feet, but you take a Penalty
melee and ranged attacks when doing so. While we say
respectively) while Agility and Speed "radius," Area attacks don't
are your typical defensive ones, have to affect a perfect sphere
though you might see Will used to (though individual attacks
launch or resist special attacks. must be consistent). A grenade
Physical Overcome actions damage might hit all targets within the
Physical Grace. radius, but a flamethrower
might only affect a sixty-degree
o Multiple Overcome actions cone, and a lightning bolt might
are likely to be fairly common only hit a narrow line. Don't
in a fight with multiple foes. worry about it too much—the
They work well for things like extra area affected and extra
rapid swordplay or machine collateral damage pretty
guns, but not so well for much balance each other out.
modeling something like a
grenade—it would be pretty  Complicate actions are usually
odd to throw a bomb into a relatively straightforward—you're
crowd and find that only affects throwing sand in a foe's eyes,
a few people. For that reason, knocking their helmet askew,
we'll also invent Area throwing their weapons aside, and so
Overcomes—striking on. You'll mostly use Agility and
everyone and everything in a Physique, both to attempt and resist
given radius, friends, foes, and such actions.
scenery alike.
 Aid actions similarly work as
You can't just choose to expected, though the "use the same
attempt an Area Overcome. Ability" guideline isn't always
You need to have some sort of applicable. Instead, most combat Aid
special weapon or power to actions will use an attack Ability—
"enable" it (ergo, a weapon that for example, "covering fire" might use
normally makes Area Dexterity to boost an ally's Speed.
Overcomes usually can't be
used to also make single-target
ones, but that's not always the
case).
Example of Physical Conflict

While out on patrol, US Marshal John Wild
comes across a pair of cattle rustlers
prowling around old man Jenkins' corral.
He calls on them to surrender, but they
draw guns instead. Conflict has begun!
John makes his Speed Check and

succeeds—he'll act before the varmints.
He uses his Minor Action to move to cover
behind a handy rock, and his Major Action
to attack. He makes a Dexterity Check and
scores two successes—enough to Take
Out his target. John declares that the
woman suffers a nasty shoulder wound,
and the Director describes her dropping
her gun and sinking to the ground,
clutching the injury.
But there's still one more foe, who uses

his own Major Action to fire back. John
makes a Speed Check to duck, and the
Director declares that the rock he’s using
for cover provides a Bonus, making it
easier to avoid the shot. Unfortunately,
the dice aren’t in his favor, and he comes
up with a single failure. Doubly
unfortunately, the thug is using a wide-
bore shotgun, which counts as a Weapon
Trait, and John doesn’t have any armor.
He takes three points of Damage to his
Physical Grace, and the Director describes
the big shell impacting less than an inch
from his face, peppering him with
fragments of rock. Perhaps sensing that
he's only managed to annoy the Marshal,
the rustler takes his Minor Action to start
running for his horse.
Now it's John's turn, and the fight

continues…
Social Conflict
Physical battles aren't the only things you Structure

might want to turn into a prolonged Generally speaking, strict initiative isn't
scene. Some games—especially those useful in a Social Conflict. Unlike big
with an emphasis on diplomacy and multi-person brawls, conversations are
intrigue—might like to do the same thing linear—there’s generally only one person
for social battles. talking at a time in a social situation.
There's a certain amount of back and
Kicking Off a Social Conflict
forth, to be sure, but it's easy for formal
The most important thing to remember
initiative to render the conversation
about Social Conflict rules is that they
stilted and awkward. A general guideline
exist. We know that we need special rules
of "you can't take more than one Action
during a fistfight—we're not exactly going
in a row" is enough to keep things under
to stand up and take a swing at the
control.
Director, after all. But when we're role-
playing an argument, we're usually doing The Four Actions
it in real time, with real words. It's easy to  Move actions are rarely significant in
go back and forth for a time without a Social Conflict. Generally, you're
realizing you're at a point when a few either in the conversation or you're
rules would help. You don't need them, of not; there's little need to track where
course, but the most important thing exactly you're standing relative to
Social Conflict rules do is de-couple the everyone else. What does matter is
Stars' social skills from their who you're talking to—a large
characters'. Without such rules, if a gathering might have multiple groups
particular Star is good with words, they of people discussing multiple topics.
can portray a suave, persuasive character While it's certainly easy to walk from
even if their Presence is low—and the shy one group to another, it's a bit odd to
Star who trips over their own words can't just walk off mid-talk. If you think it
be a fast-talking diplomat no matter worth tracking, a single Major Action
what's written on their sheet. is enough to switch gracefully
between two conversations, without
making anyone think you've been
rude.
 Overcome actions are Group Conflicts

straightforward attempts at The Conflict rules are designed around
persuasion, typically made with individuals acting individually. This
Manipulation or Presence. Defense works out great for, say, a swordfight, but
usually involves either Wits or Will. it can get a bit clunky in an argument. You
Social Overcome actions damage probably don't want to sit there while
Mental Grace. both sides attempt to batter down the
Mental Grace of five guards and four
 Complicate actions are a little harder Stars—or worse, one captain against four
to quantify in a social setting than in a Stars. The rules for multiple actions exist,
physical one. After all, even a of course, but they get a bit clunky,
roundabout way of making your point especially if one side has more people
is still making your point. A than the other can target.
Complicate action, then, is an
attempt to introduce a related Instead, you can turn off the restriction on
tangent—getting your opponent mad Multiple actions, and say that during a
enough to make a mistake or group Social Conflict, you may attempt
inventing a lie that you'll then play on to affect everyone on a side with no
to make your point. penalty. Of course, this offensive boost
should be balanced with a defensive
 Aid actions are simpler. On a basic one—when you're part of a group Social
level, you're just saying "I agree with Conflict, you gain bonus Mental Grace
him." You might be bringing up equal to the number of active allies.
related points, or you might simply be After all, peer pressure works both
talking up your friend—pointing out ways—it's easier to stand up to someone
their credentials to the field, adding when you've got your friends around you.
your own observations on the subject,
that sort of thing. More generally, That moral support doesn't end when the
perhaps, an Aid action is a positive argument is over, mind you, so we'll note
tangent, while a Complicate action is that when the group Conflict is over,
a negative one. your maximum Grace returns to
normal, with your current total being
reduced if it’s over the normal limit. You
can’t gain Grace from ending a discussion,
and you can’t take yourself out by ending
a discussion. Thus, if you normally have
five Grace, entered an argument with two
allies and took one damage, you'd return
to five Grace at the end.
Example Social Conflict Pride merely scoffs. Good luck with that,
Our old friend John Wild is facing down a he blusters—he’s got his own men inside
bandit leader in a saloon filled with his the sheriff’s office. That’s a lie, but John
men. The bandits have kidnapped a young doesn’t know it. Another Overcome
heiress, and John needs to know where attempt, but this time John needs to use
she is. Outnumbered, he can't use force. Wits Check to resist. He fails this check,
The bandit leader, for his part, doesn't and loses a point of Mental Grace as a
want to kill a US Marshal if he can avoid nagging bit of doubt sets in.
it—that's likely to cause problems down
He tries to brush it off and gives Pride a
the line. The Director wants this scene to
steely glare. If it’s a fight he wants, he
be more exciting, so he declares that a
promises the bandit that he’ll be the first
Social Conflict has begun.
one to die. A third Overcome, but the first
The bandit leader, a one-eyed man known from the Stars’ side. He makes a Presence
only as Pride, leans back in his chair and check, and thanks to the lingering
points out how many men he has, telling Complication from last round, it’s easier
John that he’d best be moving along if he than normal. He rolls with a +2 bonus,
doesn't want to get hurt. That's an netting a total of two successes. Pride
Overcome attempt, and a fairly direct one loses two points of Mental Grace,
at that, so John makes a Will Check to blanching at the thought of facing the
ignore the attack. He succeeds and infamous John Wild at such short range,
brushes off the threat. and the stand-off continues…
Now it's John's turn, and he decides to try

to Complicate things. He claims that he
has an entire posse waiting just outside of
town, with orders to sweep in if he
doesn't return soon. That's a major-
league lie, so he makes a Manipulation
Check. He succeeds with two successes,
sticking Pride with a "Cautious"
Condition. For the next two Rounds,
John's attempts at delivering or resisting
threats are easier.
Environmental Conflict
Not every big action scene involves a Goals should be known and specific.
sentient enemy. Think about the movies There might be one (“outrun the cops”) or
you’ve watched—how many of them had several (“put out the fire, find the baby,
dramatic scenes of the main characters and launch the ship”), but the Stars
running through an exploding hideout, should know that each exists and how
caught in terrible storms, or pulling they can overcome it.
victims from a burning building? Heck,
Think of Goals as the Conflict’s defense.
how many had chase scenes? While you
They’re the challenge that the Stars need
could handle scenarios like those with a
to overcome. The Director assigns each
couple Checks, as we discussed at the
Goal its own pool of Grace, which will be
start of the chapter, you can turn any
damaged by Overcome actions. Quite
action scene into a Conflict.
likely, it’ll be a big pool; Environmental
"Environmental Conflicts" are probably Conflicts tend to involve all the Stars
the most nebulous type—we're using the facing the same challenge. The Director
phrase as a catch-all for anything that's picks a few Abilities that work for
not an actual fight or talking scene. Overcome actions, and how difficult
Environmental Conflicts are often more they’ll be—Speed in a foot chase,
abstract than others. There’s no living, Physique to control a ship in a storm, that
breathing people to interact with; no sort of thing. Be open to other options,
obvious targets to punch or seduce. though. Your Stars are creative people,
Instead of thinking about Co-Stars, you and they’ll almost certainly think of cool
need to think about Goals and Dangers. new approaches.
Together, they make up the abstract
Dangers
“enemy” you’re trying to defeat.
A ticking clock on a bomb, bursting
Goals bulkheads in a flooding ship, deadly
In any Environmental Conflict, you’ve got beasts stalking you through the jungle—a
to have a Goal—something you need to good Conflict needs danger. After all, if
do, and do right, before bad things you have all the time you want to
happen. You need to get to the escape pod accomplish your Goal, what’s the point of
before the entire space station explodes, even rolling? Things never go all the Stars’
to find the key witness before the way; we call those complications
assassins catch them, or disarm the bomb Dangers.
before it explodes, or…well, you get the
idea.
Just like Goals can be thought of as The Four Actions

defenses, Dangers are the Conflict’s  Move actions usually aren’t relevant.
offense. They’re how the environment Most Environmental Conflicts
“fights back,” so to speak. Each Goal has abstract exact movement away
an associated Danger; every round, the entirely—if you're trying to navigate a
Dangers attempts an Overcome or trackless wilderness, your position
Complicate action. Doing so works just relative to your friends doesn’t really
like normal—the Director picks an matter. And when movement does
appropriate Ability Check for the Star to matter in the Conflict, such as a chase,
defend with, and they take one point of the actions tend to become
Damage per failure. Just as with Goals, Overcomes.
Dangers can have increased difficulties.
Move actions are only relevant when
Just as with a physical conflict, the key is you have multiple, physical Goals in
to keep things fresh. Don’t let the conflict close proximity to each other. A
dissolve into routine—Dangers don’t room full of bombs that need defusing,
have to make the same Overcome every perhaps, where the Star needs to rush
round. A fire can burn you, but it can also from one to another while dodging
“attack” with choking smoke, collapsing gunfire—that might be a Conflict
floors, waves of heat, and more. where Move actions matter.
Kicking off an Environmental Conflict  Overcome actions are direct attempts

Unlike social or physical battles, Stars to accomplish a Goal. The Director
don't really have a way to initiate an will designate one or more types of
Environmental Conflict. That's the Check that count as Overcome
Director's prerogative. There’s nothing actions. For obvious reasons, which
really fancy about it—in its purest form, Rotes will help will vary wildly from
an Environmental Conflict begins when Conflict to Conflict. You might roll
things start exploding. Speed to catch a fleeing suspect,
Intellect to disarm a bomb, or
Structure
Awareness Checks to find victims in
Exact turn order is rarely important for
the smoke, and so on. Calculate
Environmental Conflicts. They tend to
Damage normally, regardless of what
involve the entire group working together
Ability was just rolled.
against an unthinking foe; it doesn’t really
matter who reacts faster. Like with social
conflicts, a simple rule of “Stars can’t act
twice in a row” is plenty—and even that
is more to keep one Star from hogging the
spotlight than anything else.
 Complicate actions are more Feel free to establish custom Grace

complicated, if they’re even possible. tracks for Environmental Conflicts.
Complicate actions are attempts to Often, as with Social Conflicts, it's
mitigate Dangers, rather than appropriate to only have a single track for
directly accomplish a Goal. If you’re the entire group of Stars, as they all work
fighting a fire, for example, a towards a common goal. The Director
Complicate action might represent should set its value to whatever they
knocking down a wall to let smoke deem appropriate, although as a general
escape—it’s not helping you put out rule of thumb, "the highest relevant
the fire, but it’s making it easier to Ability rank plus the number of Stars" is a
breathe. Complicate actions aren’t good starting point.
always possible if the Conflict
Timers
between the Stars and their “foe” is
Timers can be thought of as a special
too direct, such as a car chase.
variant of Grace. To set a Timer, limit
 Aid actions work normally. how many Checks the Stars can attempt
before they fail the Goal—“ten total
Alternative Grace checks,” “before eight failures,” and so on.
The normal forms of Physical and Mental
Grace generally work fine for Timers are simple to understand, and
representing conventional wear-and-tear, they can be a source of tension, but
but if there's one thing you've probably there’s one fundamental problem: Timers
noticed about Environmental Conflicts, are boring. There’s no back-and-forth, no
they don't have to be "conventional." In twists, no strategy, just “roll the same
many cases, traditional, individual Check five times and hope for the best.” If
Grace doesn't make sense. you must use a Timer, always pair it
with some other Danger or challenge to
If you're trying to navigate a trackless keep things interesting.
wilderness, it doesn't make sense to
damage characters individually, because
that's not where the stakes are—the
failure state is "we used up all our
supplies and now we're starving," not "I
got shot and died." If you're trying to
repair a starship while it's being attacked
by enemy fighters, it's not you who's
getting worn down, it's the thing you're
working on.
Example Environmental Conflict But the Danger strikes again, this time
It took a lot of doing, but our good friend with a cloud of toxic gas released by the
Marshal John Wild finally tracked down explosions. John’s headlong flight carries
Black Jack Jimmy, deep in the bowels of him straight in—this time, the Director
an abandoned silver mine. calls for a Physique (Fortitude) check to
resist the poison. Luckily, he succeeds,
Moments after winning a desperate
and the scene continues…
standoff with the legendary gunslinger,
the Marshal hears a distant rumble and
the ceiling starts to cave in.
Suddenly, the Director declares that an

Environmental Conflict has broken out.
The Goal is to escape; in this case, he says
Speed (Sprinting) and Wits (Navigation)
will work for Overcome actions.
Privately, he notes that the Goal has five
Grace, and that the Danger—“Falling
Rocks,” in his notes—has a Weapon Trait.
John takes off at a dead run, rolling two

successes right off the bat. The Director
describes the way he practically flies
through the twisting paths of the old
mine…but the collapsing ceiling is faster.
Rocks begin to crash around him as

Danger makes an Overcome attempt.
John makes a Speed (Reflex) save to resist
and rolls badly; he takes three physical
Damage as a large bolder clips his
shoulder.
Back on John’s turn, he tries a Wits

(Navigation) check this time, hoping he
remembers the way through the maze of
mineshafts. Another success this time; his
injury is slowing him down, but he’s still
making good progress.
Chapter 3: Creating a Character P a g e |43
Chapter 3: Creating a Character
Before you can write down any numbers, you need to know who you want to play. A
grumpy archer? An outgoing pilot? A nerdy psychic? You have a lot of choice in STaRS—
you're not picking characters or even classes from a discrete list. That many options can be
overwhelming at first, so we recommend taking some time to think about who your
character will be, before you look at the mechanics. While you don't need to know every
detail of a character's life and personality to make a character sheet, you won't get
anywhere without some idea of who they are.
To help you out, we've come up with five questions for you to think about. As you try to
answer them, bear in mind that the questions are just a starting point. You don't need to
answer every single one. And they're certainly not the only things to think about when
designing a character.
And remember…no matter how much or little you come up with now, you never really
know a character until hit the table. And over time, some of the answers will change. That's
not just okay, it's a good sign—it means that your character is growing and maturing.
Part 1: Planning Your Character
What Do You Do? Where Did You Come From?

What's your character good at doing? Are What's your past like? What sort of
you a swordsman? A sniper? An animal people and events made you the way you
tamer? Are you good at talking to people? are today? Do you have any mentors? Old
Maybe you're tough as nails, or seem to rivals? Lost loves? You don't need to
know everything? You don't need to know chronicle every year of your character's
where all your points are going to go, but history, but everyone has a few big
you should pick a focus—ideally one that formative events. Whenever possible,
doesn't overlap too much with those of share the answers with your Director—
your fellow Stars. it'll help them flesh out the world you'll
be playing in. And who knows? Maybe
Why Do You Do It?
some of the things you come up with here
Characters in RPGs tend to be pretty
will turn up in the game!
extraordinary people who are risking life
and limb on a regular basis. Even in the Where Are You Going?
most mundane game, you'll be doing We all have plans and ambitions, so
more than the usual nine-to-five daily what's your character's goal? What do
grind. What drives you? What are you they want to accomplish? Do they want to
fighting for? What is it about your become wildly famous? To punish their
character that separates them from the brother's killer? What's their quest? What
herd and leads to them getting caught up do they need to do before they retire? The
in the sort of dangerous insanity of a Director will probably have a plot of his
typical STaRS game? own in mind, but active character goals
can help keep things moving when the
How Do You Do It?
game would otherwise start to slow
You know what drives you, but how does
down.
it drive you? What kind of methods do
you use? What are your ethics like? Do
you strive for virtue, or believe that the
ends justify the means? Do you prefer to
tackle your goals head-on or in a
roundabout manner? Do lies stick in your
craw, or spill from your mouth like a
fountain?
Fitting In quite enough of a power hit, or too much

There's one last point to consider when of one. Maybe a Power was more useful
designing your character—how do they than expected. Maybe both players made
fit into the campaign as a whole? Not swordsmen, but one tried to be a fast-
every character idea will work in every talker as well, while the other only put
setting or every game—imagine trying to points in combat skills.
play a traumatized ex-soldier in a game
Unequal characters aren’t always a
focused on cartoonish heroics, or an
problem, especially if they have different
illiterate barbarian in a serious spy game.
areas of expertise. But if the weaker Star
Your character should fit the general
(or Stars) feels overshadowed, something
theme of the game.
needs to be done. Groups should give
It's also important that he fit in with the characters who are too weak or too
other Stars. If everyone else is playing strong the opportunity to redistribute
wholesome heroes, you don't want to be their points and bring themselves more
the one playing a brooding antihero. in line with their fellows.
That's not to say that your character can't
You can often head off such problems by
have disagreements with others, but
building characters as a group. If you set
everyone needs to be able to work
aside an hour or so during the first
together when the chips are down.
session for character creation, it’s easy to
Making Sure Characters are Equally make sure that you don’t wind up with
Powerful two fire mages. Better yet, those with
In theory, two characters with the same more skill at character creation can help
number of Trait and Ability points should those who struggle at it
be equally powerful. In practice, that’s not
always the case. Maybe a Discount wasn’t
Part 2: Building Your Character
Now that you've got an idea of who you Improving Your Game: Character
want to play, it's time to translate that Creation Quickstart
into game mechanics. This section may be
longer than the last, but that doesn't In a hurry to get going and don’t feel like
mean it's more important. A personality wading through all these details? That’s
with no numbers may not be playable, but understandable. If you want to get
a character with numbers but no through the process as quickly and
personality is just as useless. painlessly as you want, follow these
guidelines:
Abilities 1. Assign Abilities: Pick one score to
The first step is to arrange your Abilities. start at 7, two that will start at 6,
Characters start with a score of 5 in all and one that will start at 4.
Abilities. Characters also begin with a 2. Choose Your Strength: Pick one
certain number of Experience Points thing you can do using one of your
(XP), which must be spent to modify your higher Ability scores that’s
Abilities. By default, characters should important to your character and
begin with 3 XP to spend on Abilities, take a Skill in it, making you the
but feel free to adjust this if you want a best in the group at it.
particularly powerful or grounded
campaign. 3. Shore up a Weakness: Pick one
thing that’s normally covered by
By spending one XP, you may raise one one of your lower Ability scores,
Ability score by one—for example, but that’s still important to you.
increasing your Physique from five to six. Take a Skill in it as well,
Conversely, you may gain one XP by compensating for the low Ability.
lowering one Ability score by one. In
other words, Experience Points and 4. Become Unique: Get the Director
Ability ranks are interchangeable. Just to help you pick a Minor Power,
remember that you can’t raise an Ability giving your character a trademark
above 7 or reduce it below 3! ability to play with. Alternately,
repeat the “Choose Your Strength”
step to pick up a second specialty.
Traits
Abilities represent the most basic aspect The Seven Traits

of your character, but people are more
complicated than that. Beyond simple  Armor: Take less Damage!
measures of strength or intelligence,  Companion: Gain a sidekick or
everyone has things that make them vehicle
special—unusual talents, unique powers,  Power: Gain a brand-new ability
elite training, exotic equipment, and  Quirk: Use an Ability in a new
more. In STaRS, these special aspects are way.
known as Traits.  Skill: Gain a Bonus on certain
types of Check.
Traits are also purchased using XP. You  Variable Trait: Gain a TP you can
get a new pool of XP to spend on Traits. re-assign at will.
Like with Abilities, we recommend
 Weapon: Deal more Damage!
beginning with 3 XP to spend on Traits,
but that can, of course, be fiddled with. Armor and Weapons
1 XP/Rank
While technically two separate Traits,

Armor and Weapons are similar enough
that we'll cover them together.
In a normal Conflict, the Damage you deal

and receive is based purely on the result
of your Checks. Weapons and Armor
simply increase and decrease those
Explaining Your Game: Two XP pools?
numbers.
If Abilities and Traits are bought with the
same currency, why gain them When wielding a Weapon, you deal an
separately? Why not just have a lump
extra two points of Damage with a
sum? In a word, balance. Starting with
three and three forces you to spread successful Attack check. Weapons inflict
yourself out and create a varied character, either Physical or Mental damage, at
rather than spending all your points on either melee or long range. Once
god-like Abilities or a single massively decided, these attributes cannot be
expensive Major Power. That said, this is changed without a Power or some sort.
your game—if you like the idea of having
that freedom, feel free. Just make sure
you discuss things with the rest of the
group first!
When wearing Armor, you receive two Weapons and Armor need not be literal.
less Damage on a failed Defense Check, A skilled martial artist might have a
to a minimum of zero—sufficient armor physical Weapon Trait to represent their
can render you immune to lesser attacks! prowess at unarmed combat, while a
Just like weapons, Armor is either particularly stubborn socialite might have
Physical or Mental, and does not apply to a mental Armor Trait to represent their
damage of the other type. ability to keep calm.
Weapon and Armor Traits of the same Companions

type may be taken multiple times, with 1 XP (Vehicle)/3 XP (Sentient)
stacking effects—we usually record this
Companions are independent entities
as “Weapon x2” or “Armor x4.”
who, for whatever reason, serve your
It’s important to note that not every character. They may or may not have
weapon is a Weapon—Armor and minds of their own—both Robin and the
Weapons Traits represent unusually Batmobile would be represented as
powerful examples of those things— Companions.
weapons more powerful than you
Companions are their own character,
normally encounter, or an unusual
with their own set of Abilities and
amount of armor. A pistol might not count
Traits. However, they neither start with
as a Weapon in a modern police game, but
nor earn experience for themselves.
a sniper rifle might. A chainmail shirt
Instead, they have half as many XP as
might not register as Armor in a medieval
you do, rounded down—though if that’s
game, but a suit of full plate probably
not enough for you, you may invest your
does. As with many things in STaRS, what
own points in your Companion's
counts as a Trait will vary with the
abilities.
genre of your game.
A Star generally controls their own
Improving Your Game: Weapons and
Genre Companions. That being said, your
You might have noticed that we’re being a Companions are (usually) your friends,
bit vague about what counts as a Weapon. not your slaves—if they're sentient
That’s somewhat intentional, because the creatures, they'll behave as such and
decision can have a big effect on how a refuse to follow obviously self-destructive
game feels. A man pointing a gun at you is or out-of-character commands.
a minor threat if it’s a non-Trait weapon
but is worrying if it’s a capital-w Weapon
1, and downright scary if it’s a Weapon 2.
It’s worth thinking about how scary a
weapon should seem when determining
if it warrants a Trait.
Not all Companions are capable of their Powers are categorized based on their
own thoughts, though—vehicles are also versatility.
represented as Companions. Non-
sentient Companions lack Mental  A Trivial Power has little to no
Abilities, although some may have effect on gameplay. Example
Awareness thanks to sensor arrays and Trivial Powers include having
the like. Additionally, vehicles generally warm fur or perfect pitch.
have no Dexterity score.
 A Minor Power has a single effect,
Most of all, non-sentient Companions without much versatility to it.
cannot act on their own—you must Example Minor Powers include
donate your own actions in order for speaking all languages or turning
them to do anything. For your invisible.
motorcycle to move you, you must take a
Minor Action. If you want your helicopter  A Moderate Power has well-
to provide you with covering fire, you'll defined limits but is versatile
be the one who takes a Major Action. within those limits. Example
Moderate Powers include
Powers
telepathy or control over fire.
0 XP (Trivial), 1 XP (Minor), 3 XP
(Moderate), or 6 XP (Major)
 A Major Power has few limits and
Powers are the most open-ended Trait, can be applied to virtually any task
representing any special talent you with sufficient imagination.
possess that other humans do not. Example Major Powers include
"elemental magic" or "summoning
Seeing through walls, reading minds, and spirits."
casting spells are all examples of Powers.
What is or is not an acceptable Power It may help to think of Powers in terms of
varies widely, depending on what kind distinct spells:
of game you're playing—telekinesis
 A Trivial Power isn’t even a
makes sense in a game where everyone's
spell—it’s barely more than sleight
playing super-heroes, but it would
of hand.
(probably) be completely out-of-place in a
 A Minor Power is a single spell.
game about pirates. Stars and Directors
need to work together to determine if a  A Moderate Power is a set of
Power is "OK" for a particular game. related spells, such as "illusion
Because of their sheer variety, it's spells" or "fire spells."
impossible to provide concrete rules for  A Major Power is an almost
how Powers work, but we can give you a unlimited set of spells, such as
few guidelines. "elemental magic."
Apart from the setting and your Quirks

imagination, there’s only one limit to 1 XP
what a Power can do: Powers cannot
Quirks are for characters who have
grant characters extra Actions. Doing so
different ways of doing things. A Quirk
is just asking for trouble. The game is
allows you to do something unusual
simply healthier when the action
with an Ability. For example, a biologist
economy remains intact.
might have a Quirk letting them use
Powers can be combined with other Intellect to survive in the wild, letting
Traits, particularly Skills. A Skill can only them forage for food, predict the weather,
affect about a Minor Power’s worth of and track predators using their academic
stuff, though—the “wind gusts” aspect of knowledge, rather than their wits. A
a Moderate “Air Magic” or a Major particularly brutish strongman might
“Elemental Magic” Power, perhaps. have a Quick letting them make melee
attacks with Physique instead of Agility.
Skills
Quirks need to be plausible, and groups
1 XP
should feel free to disallow those they
Skills represent special training and feel to be too much of a stretch.
natural gifts that make you better at doing
Variable Traits
certain things. A Skill provides a
2 XP/Rank
permanent Bonus to certain types of
Checks—Manipulation checks to lie, The Trait system is pretty flexible,
Agility checks to sneak, and so on. Just especially when it comes to Powers. But
remember, a Skill shouldn’t be as broad as sometimes you need more versatility than
an Ability. As a general rule of thumb, a what we give you. Maybe you're a skilled
Skill should cover about a quarter to a shapeshifter, or you mimic the powers of
third of an Ability’s typical uses. For a your enemies. Maybe you wake each
good example, see the “Rote Uses” section morning with completely different
in the Expanded Rules. abilities. When that's the case, we turn to
Variable Traits. Every rank of Variable
Skills do not stack—you can only ever
Trait grants you one XP, which may be
have a single Skill affecting a given Check,
re-assigned at any point as a Major
even if you have overlapping ones.
Action.
If you really need to, you can purchase a

Variable Trait multiple times, getting an
additional XP every time that you do. If
you do, you can re-assign all granted
points as part of the same action.
That sounds pretty powerful, and it is. To

counterbalance things somewhat,
Variable Traits must have some sort of
limiting description. If you're a
shapeshifter, the new Traits might need
to stem from physical changes to your
body. If you're a mad scientist, the
Variable Traits might have to be
Equipment, and require an Intellect
(Craft) Check to redistribute. These limits
are all that keep Variable Traits in check,
so be careful that they are limits. The
limits on Variable Traits should
generally be such that you can't do
everything.
Even the best limits have, well, limits, and

Directors think carefully before
allowing Stars to purchase Variable
Traits. A character with a Variable Trait
will be able to approach most situations
with a significant leg up on other
characters. Variable Traits should be the
last resort in character creation,
allowed only when other means of
capturing a particular set of abilities
comes up short.
Stars should be careful too—the worst

thing you can do with a Variable Trait is
to slow the game down while you re-
assign it. If you're afraid that might
happen, consider a different set of Traits.
Weapon
See the “Armor and Weapons” section,
above.
Drawbacks
Traits can get expensive in a hurry. You  Healing magic that can only affect
may want a Power or a nasty Weapon but those who worship the same god
be unable to afford it. If that's the case, as you.
you can get a discount by accepting
certain Drawbacks. A Drawback reduces  A belt of explosives that only fits
the price of the Trait by one XP, to a three grenades.
minimum of one.  A suit of power armor that makes
What exactly counts as a Drawback will you stronger, but clumsier.
vary, from Trait to Trait and game to Like with Powers, the sky’s really the
game. In a game of political intrigue, the limit when it comes to Drawbacks. You
fact that your Armor comes from a suit of can even apply multiple Drawbacks to
plate mail could be a huge disadvantage— the same Trait, so long as they do not
you can’t exactly wear that to a formal overlap. Each new Drawback must
party. On the other hand, in a dungeon- continue to significantly weaken the Trait.
delving adventure, you can expect to have
your plate almost any time you fight. “Can You don’t have to feel like you’re stuck
only be used once per hour” is a major with a flawed power, though. If you
limit for telepathic powers, but not so realize that you don’t like a Drawback,
much for the ability to teleport from city you can always remove it later. You may
to city. pay one XP to remove a Drawback from
an existing Trait. It’s actually not a bad
As a rule, a Trait with a Drawback idea to start with a Drawback or two that
should lose about half its benefit. A little you buy off with time—not only is it
more or a little less is fine, but that’s the mechanically efficient, but it’s a great
margin to shoot for. Some common source of character development!
examples of Traits with Drawbacks are:
 Uncontrollable blasts of fire that

damage you as well as your
intended target.
 Super-strength that only functions

when you’re in the dark.
 Clairvoyance that requires you to

sacrifice a live animal.
Trait Summary Sheet

We know that was a lot to take in. To help you out, here’s a brief summary of everything we
just discussed.
Trait Cost Effect Example
Armor 1 Point per rank Decrease Damage received by two. Plate Mail: Reduce all Physical Damage
by 2.
Companion, 3 Points or more Gain a sidekick with half as many XP as Bruno: A loyal wolf follows you around.
Sentient you, rounded down.
Companion, 1 Point or more Gain a special vehicle with half as many Batmobile: A high-tech car.
Vehicle XP as you, rounded down.
Drawback -1 Point Trait loses about half its utility in one Dream Magic: Your Moderate Power
way or another. (Transmutation) only functions at night.
Power, Free A thematic ability with little effect on the Thick Fur: Doesn’t need a coat to stay
Trivial game. warm in winter temperatures.
Power, 1 Point A single “spell” with little versatility. Gust of Wind: Can generate short,
Minor intense blasts of wind.
Power, 3 Points A versatile-but-limited power, or a set of Air Magic: Can perform many spells
Moderate thematically-related “spells.” involving air.
Power, 6 Points A broad set of “spells” or powers, Elemental Magic: Can perform a huge
Major capable of achieving most tasks. number of spells, all based on the four
elements.
Skill 1 Point Gain a Bonus to certain Checks. Street Magician: Gain a Bonus on
sleight-of-hand type Checks.
Quirk 1 Point Use one Ability to do things. Brawler: Make melee attacks with
Physique.
Variable 2 Points per rank Gain one XP which may be re-assigned as Mad Science: You can make inventions,
Trait a Major Action, within thematic limits. equipment worth one XP.
Weapon 1 Point per rank Increase Damage dealt by two. Claws: +2 Physical damage.
Sample Magic Systems

Powers are probably the trickiest aspect ice and reduce the heaviest burdens to
of STaRS. Figuring out the differences nothing. It's associated with the light,
between Minor, Moderate, and Major uplifting Dorian mode.
Powers can be almost an art at times—
especially when it comes to capital-m  Matter—Controlling physical objects.
Magic. What follows are a few ideas for Matter Maestros conjure chains and
magic systems we've come up with; gold, and re-shape crates and walls
groups may choose to use them into whatever they desire. It's
wholesale, adapt them, or ignore them. associated with the grounded, somber
Phrygian mode.
The Music-Magic of the Maestros
Deep in the frozen depths of the Dirge  Mind—Manipulating and controlling
Empire, the priest-composers known as the minds of living beings. Mind
Maestros have developed a form of Maestros can lift spirits, place
musical magic. Their teachings divide thoughts in the heads of others, or
reality into seven aspects, and marry each send them spiraling into possession
aspect to a different musical mode. To a and madness. It's associated with the
Maestro, songs and spells are one and the dissonant Locrian mode.
same, with the precise rhythms and  Soul—Controlling life and death. Soul
harmonies coming together to change the Maestros can heal or slay with a touch,
world. It takes a great deal of knowledge conjure ghosts and raise corpses to
and power to manipulate this form of shambling life. It's associated with the
magic, and individual Maestros rarely simple, foundational Ionian mode.
have power over more than a few modes.
The seven aspects, and their  Space—Manipulating the very
corresponding modes, are: structure of space. Space Maestros can
teleport, bend the path of a foe's
 Energy—Controlling energy, such as arrow so it strikes his back, and
fire, electricity, and light. Energy project their senses across vast
Maestros smite their foes with distances. It's associated with the
fireballs, weave illusions from open, mystic Mixolydian mode.
sunlight, and it's associated with the
bright, exciting Lydian mode.
 Force—Controlling physical forces

such as gravity or momentum. Force
Maestros send foes sliding across
ground suddenly more slippery than
 Time—Manipulating the flow of time.

Time Maestros can slow foes to a
crawl, revert dead wood to flowering
life, and peer into the past and future.
It's associated with the deep, poignant
Aeolian mode.
Knowledge of each individual aspect

requires a Moderate power; for a Major
power you can master three. For all
seven schools, increasing Competence
Levels bring with them greater power,
range, control, and duration. But even the
strongest Maestro is limited by the three
fundamental laws: the dead cannot be
kept in life, time can be reversed but not
changed, and no magic can linger past the
ending of the Maestro's song.
The Necromancy of the Mediums coherent reports, but they can also
To those who struggle to avoid the toxic move objects in a sort of telekinesis.
hatred of the Miasma, "I see dead people" Unlike Animation, it's not the objects
themselves moving—they're being
is both a curse and a pathway to power.
controlled by outside hands. The
Those who practice the art are known as ghosts cannot directly strike solid
Mediums, those with the power to objects, only lift and throw them.
command the spirits of the dead. The
more human souls a Medium commands, Skill in any one of the three techniques is
the more powerful he is—but the harder a Moderate Power; a Major Power covers
it is to find those souls, for few people all three. (For a Minor Power, you could
willingly leave ghosts behind. All be a reluctant or fledgling Medium, with
Mediums can see and communicate with the ability to see and speak with the dead
the spirits of the dead—though they but not command them). The power of
rarely have enough presence of mind to these techniques is directly linked to how
give useful answers. But more than that, many ghosts the Medium can command.
they can command the dead, which
usually takes the form of one of three
disciplines:
 Animation: Causing a spirit to

possess an object, bringing it to life
and allowing the Medium to control it
from a distance. At normal strength
the objects are limited to their normal
range of motion; with an Adrenaline
Surge they can bend and move in
unnatural ways, such as a statue
walking or windows growing fangs to
eat people.
 Possession: Causing a spirit to

possess a person, accomplishing
anything from stealing memories to
full-on mind control. At normal
strength a Medium can have a high
level of control or a subtle one, but not
both—applying more than minor
pressure without being noticed
requires an Adrenaline Surge.
 Poltergasm: Ordering spirits to move

about in the real world. Ghosts
dispatched this way can scout for the
Medium, returning with useful and
The Universal Codes of the Scribes These Powers must be paired with the
Over the long centuries, the Scribes of the Drawback discount—a sacrifice must be
living islands of Aetheas of the have made each time you draw a rune. Usually
discovered hundreds of true-runes, this is blood, best represented by a small
infinitely intricate fractal patterns that bit of Grace. In order to do something
that, somehow, can be read more clearly with magic, you need to know a related
than any book. While they might appear rune. Directors might impose
naturally in nature—FIRE in the ashes on Disadvantage for attempting to use a
the hearth, WIND in the clouds of a tenuously-related rune, or grant
rainstorm—Scribes soon learned that to Advantage when using the exact rune for
truly capture the runes required a the circumstance.
sacrifice. Ink would never to do write
But Scribes are not the only ones with
them; only blood, and tears, and pain.
power. A common practice is to draw a
But the sacrifice not only let them record rune directly on your own body, via
the rune for a thing, it gave them power of scarring or tattooing, and make a
the thing as well—and the greater the permanent sacrifice to power it. These
Sacrifice, the greater the power. Short- sacrifices are often more conceptual than
lived power if the sacrifice was a physical—some priests, for instance,
temporary thing, but if it was a true sacrifice their sexuality, gaining both
sacrifice—a body part, a memory, an power and the detachment to better serve
aspect of your very self—the power their flock. A Scroll, as people with
would linger and could be called up again permanent runes are known, may or may
and again with only a small cost in pain. not have a Flaw to represent this
sacrifice; otherwise, determine how
Being a Scribe, one who knows and writes
broadly applicable their rune is and use
the runes, a Minor Power might grant
the usual Power rules to determine its
knowledge of a single, very specific
cost.
rune, such as "Adhere" or "Flower." A
Moderate Power to grant knowledge of
several specific Words (say, half your
Intellect), or one very general one, such
as "Fire" or "Blue," while a Major Power
could grant several broadly-applicable
runes (half you Intellect again, say) or
many very specific ones (say, twice your
Intellect). A Skill in “Magical Knowledge”
or something similar might also grant
knowledge of extra Words.
Spirit-Allies of the Callers Instead of a single Companion, such a

Our world is not alone. Almost every Caller instead possesses Variable Trait
culture in human history has known this (Companions) 3 (enough to afford a
simple truth. The idea has many names sentient Companion), along with the same
though the ages—Hell, Faerie, Asgard, Minor Power to summon and dismiss
Mount Olympus, a thousand more. Today, them. If they have three or fewer Entities,
we know it as the Otherworld, an empty they qualify for a Drawback (Limited to
plane of black mists and white rock, as Pre-Selected Companions); otherwise, the
unreachable as the stars above and as ability is versatile enough that the
close as the underside of a dream. Drawback no longer applies.
However, the Otherworld is not as empty
as it appears, for entities great and small
haunt its depths. They too have hopes and
dreams. And one day maybe, just maybe,
an Entity and a human will have same
dream.
Humans who’ve met and befriended

Entities in their dreams are known as
Callers. Each Caller is connected to a
single unique Entity, a Companion
(Sentient) that they can manifest (or
dematerialize) as a Minor Power. Each
Comrade’s entity is unique, and they grow
and develop alongside their masters in
the normal manner of Companions.
But like all things in life, there is a darker

side to the truth. When a Caller dies, their
Entity lingers on the edges of our world
for a brief time, lost and alone. Another
Caller, if they are close enough, can claim
the Entity for their own—either by
befriending it through kindness or
enslaving it through raw willpower.
Superpowers of the Rippers  Builders (3 XP): Builders are

In the twenty-sixth century, humanity will arguably the flashiest of all
discover the Rift Drive—a reality-warping Rippers. While Boomers unleash
technology capable of projecting entire hyperspace energy in explosions,
starships into the boiling fury of Builders sculpt it into solid
hyperspace. With faster-than-light travel constructs of chaotic energy that,
in hand, we will spread across the stars, once formed, they can continue to
but such power is not without cost. The move with the power of their mind
strange energies unleashed by Rift Drives alone. These shapes can be up to
have unsettling effects on unprotected twenty feet across and weigh up to
bystanders. Most die horribly from one ton, and Builders can control
incurable genetic damage, but a small up to three at a time. With an
percentage emerge from this strange Adrenaline Surge, though, they can
quantic baptism capable of doing amazing permanently manifest an object,
and impossible things. These superior giving up the ability to move it to
humans have come to be known as create a real, solid form that will
Rippers. endure even after they die.
There are ten major types of Ripper:  Classics (4 XP): While “super
powers” mean many things to
 Boomers (2 XP): Boomers are, in
many people, a few themes pop up
many ways, the most direct of
time and again. Super-strength.
Rippers. All Rippers derive their
Invulnerability. Flight. The Rippers
power from the physics-shattering
known as Classics exhibit all of
energies of hyperspace; Boomers
these, thanks to their mind-over-
simply do so more directly. With a
matter psionic abilities. They have
Minor Power (Teleportation), they
a Minor Power (Super Strength),
can project themselves (and a few
enabling them to lift several tons
hundred pounds of other stuff next
of material and automatically
to them) up to kilometer through
overpower anyone without a
hyperspace. They can also open
similar trait—consider them to be
unbound portals anywhere within
permanently under an Adrenaline
their line of sight, resulting in
Surge when it comes to lifting,
uncontrolled explosions of
shoving, and breaking things.
energy—a Weapon 2 trait, with
Another Minor Power (Flight) lets
the Drawback that it can only be
them fly, and Weapon 1 and Armor
used to attempt Area attacks.
1 traits round out their abilities to
shrug off bullets and punch
through force fields.
 Enigmas (3 XP): Enigmas are  Ghosts (2 XP): Ghosts are similar

shapeshifters, and exceptionally to Flickers, but instead of time,
good ones. They possess a they are out of phase with space.
Moderate Power (Shapeshifting), While this is normally noticeable
enabling them to transform into only as a slight haze, with only a
any shape of a similar mass. An slight effort of will they can
Enigma can look like a mouse, but become invisible (a Minor Power)
they’ll still weigh in as if they were or intangible (another Minor
human. Their bodies remain made Power)—they can walk through
of flesh, so while they can look like solid walls and force fields as if
a metal door or a computer, a they weren’t there, though they
touch will reveal that it’s just a must return to the solid world to
show. Their Ability scores do not affect anything.
change—a particularly slow
Enigma who turns into a cheetah  Nulls (2 XP): Debate rages over
will simply be an exceptionally whether Nulls should be counted
slow cheetah. However, they do as Rippers or not. They can’t fly,
gain the inherent traits of their throw lightning, walk through
new form. They can fly if they turn walls, or anything fancy. No… all
into a bird, breathe underwater if they can do is turn powers off.
they grow gills, track by scent if Nulls are completely immune to
they turn into a bloodhound, and other Rippers (a Minor Power),
so on. even the conjured explosions of
Boomers. And with a touch, they
 Flickers (3 XP): Flickers are one can disable ongoing power
of them more disconcerting types effects—pull Ghosts back to the
of Ripper, their powers rendering physical world, return Enigmas to
them slightly out of phase with their normal form, and so on. This
time itself. Thanks to their Minor is another Minor Power, which
Power (Super Speed), they can run may also be used to impose
at close to the speed of sound, Complications on other Rippers
effortlessly out-pacing anyone themselves.
without a similar trait. They can’t
step on water or run up walls
while doing so—to them, it’s the
rest of the world that’s moving
slowly, and physics works
accordingly—but their powers do
grant them two Skills in avoiding
ranged and melee attacks.
 Shapers (4 XP): Perhaps the most  Surgeons (3 XP): Surgeons are

powerful of all Rippers, and among the most prized Rippers,
certainly the rarest, Shapers have for theirs is the power to heal. Or
control over matter itself. They to harm. In fact, theirs is a
possess a Major Power Moderate Power (Biokinesis), total
(Transmutation), which enables control over the bodies of living
them to reshape the world around things. With a touch, a Surgeon can
them practically at will. heal you, kill you, or change your
Thankfully, Shapers have a few shape. They can’t give you Ripper
limits—they must have line of abilities, to be sure, but with a
sight to operate, can’t affect much Surgeon’s help you could
more than a few hundred pounds painlessly (or painfully) change
of matter at once, cannot create or your face, become taller, or even
destroy matter, and cannot affect grow an extra set of arms—though
living organisms (a Drawback). nothing more potent than a Trivial
Most notably, the changes they Power’s worth of alterations.
make revert as soon as they can no
A Surgeon’s healing, in mechanical
longer see the changed object
terms, is mostly used to treat
(another Drawback).
Injuries—after all, lost Grace
 Stormers (4 XP): Stormers merely represents depleted luck.
command electricity, in all its Having a Surgeon around lets your
many forms—a Moderate Power Injuries start healing instantly and
(Electromagnetic Control). They reduces the amount of time it
can drain energy from buildings, takes for them to recover, allowing
spacecraft, even thunderstorms, you and your friends to heal two
and store it within their own Injuries at every Minor Milestone.
bodies until they’re ready to
unleash it. They can strike enemies
down with bolts of lightning, yank
metal objects across the room with
magnetic fields, disable electronics
with electromagnetic pulses, and
even crudely control machinery by
regulating the flow of current
through the tech. When they
project energy, it counts as a
Weapon 1 trait.
Part 3: Advancing Your Character
A good campaign can last for months, Major Milestones represent concrete
even years, giving you hours and hours of accomplishment. Characters reach a
playtime with your favorite character. No Major Milestone after achieving a major
matter how good the story, things would goal, such as rescuing the princess or
get pretty stale if you never changed— solving the mystery of Smuggler's Cove. It
good characters evolve, learning new should take a few gaming sessions to
lessons and gaining new skills. reach one.
Milestones At a Major Milestone, you gain one XP. If

Character advancement is marked by you want, you can spend both your new
Milestones, markers of how much time and your re-assigned XP on a single, more
and how many events have elapsed in expensive Trait. Or, if you prefer, you can
your life since the game began. There are save the new point to spend at any
two different types of Milestone. future Minor or Major Milestone.
Minor Milestones represent simple

passing of time. Characters reach a
Minor Milestone at the end of every
gaming session and at any point during
the session where they have a
prolonged period of downtime—
anywhere from a few days to a few
months where nothing interesting is
happening, and the group fast-forwards
through the intervening time.
At a Minor Milestone, you may re-assign

one XP. This lets you change out
Equipment, train a different Skill, and so
on. You may also spend any unspent XP.
In addition, you may recover from one
Injury, as described in Chapter 1.
Chapter 4: Creating Opposition P a g e |63
Chapter 4: Creating Opposition
Stars are great and all, but it wouldn't be much of a story if the players didn’t have anyone
to interact with—and it wouldn't be much of a game if they never had anyone to fight with.
One of perhaps the most important jobs a Director has is to create opposition for the Stars.
Everything from armed soldiers to hostile environments to tense negotiations is up to them
to create and control.
A Co-Star is any character in the game not controlled by the Stars. In many roleplaying
games, Co-Stars (or the local equivalent) are fairly straightforward, since they follow the
same basic rules as the Stars. They're built using the same pieces and interact with the
world in the same way. But this is STaRs, where the Stars roll all the dice. So how do Co-
Stars function?
Put simply, Co-Stars aren't really characters. Instead, Co-Stars are groups of Modifiers,
applying whenever Stars interact with them. A master swordsman doesn't have a good
Agility score—instead, she makes Checks harder for anyone who tries to duel her. A
particularly skilled diplomat doesn't have a Skill in “Reading People,” he imposes a Penalty
on the Stars’ Manipulation checks.
Co-Stars
The Five Types of Co-Star  Against an Overpowering Threat, all

For a dead-easy Co-Star, you can apply a checks fail unless you use an
single Modifier to all checks involving Adrenaline Surge. The Stars are
them: either easy, normal, or hard, like unlikely to win unless they work
so: together, and even a practiced team
will almost certainly be hurting
 Against a Trivial Threat, all checks
afterwards.
receive a Bonus. They represent no
real threat to the Stars, even in large Co-Stars and Traits
numbers, and serve as window Just like Stars, Co-Stars can have special
dressing more than anything else. traits and powers. Luckily, since they
don't have Talent Points, picking them is a
 Against a Minor Threat, all checks are lot simpler. You don't have to worry
made normally. They’re not about whether a Power is Major or Minor,
dangerous individually, but several or how many Discounts it has, or whether
working together can be dangerous. A something is too broad or too limited to
specialist can still carve through them be a valid Skill. After all, the Stars will
with little trouble. never see it. All that matters is that you
 Against a Moderate Threat, all checks know what the limits are supposed to
receive a Penalty. One-on-one, they’re be.
a match for a Star who’s competent- In fact, there are only three types of Trait
but-not-specialized, and even an that matter for Co-Stars: Weapons,
expert can be threatened by a pack. Armor, and Powers.
 Against a Major Threat, all checks And in truth, Powers almost don’t belong
receive a double Penalty. Only the on the list—if you want to give a Co-Star a
most skillful Star can hope to stand special ability, you can just do that
against them one-on-one, and it’s without worrying about the details. Just
more likely that the Stars will find be consistent, since Stars tend to get a bit
themselves needing a numerical miffed when villains invent brand-new
advantage to triumph. Expect to cause abilities to get out of a tight spot.
Injuries.
Weapons and Armor work pretty for Co- As a very rough rule, five Grace worth of
Stars just like they do for Stars, increasing opponents per Star makes for a decent
or decreasing damage respectively. If you challenge—the fight will last several
want, you can even use odd numbers for rounds, and each Star can expect to
damage and damage reduction—it really receive a little damage if they use decent
doesn't matter, but be careful that their tactics, and a lot of damage if things go
numbers are comparable to the Stars'— badly. You can expect each long-term
too much and a single botched Defense Modifier such as Skills, Injuries, and
roll will end a fight, but too little and extra-threatening Co-Stars to double or
things devolve into a boring cakewalk. halve this ratio, depending on if they’re
Bonuses or Penalties.
Co-Stars and Grace
The final step is to determine how long For example, a Star with a Skill in “melee
you want your Co-Star to stick around combat” can probably handle about ten
when the Stars try to get rid of them. Co- Grace worth of Co-Stars all by themselves,
Stars don't have Abilities, so you get to while a Moderate Threat with four Grace
pick how much Grace they have. In fact, contributes more like eight Grace worth
you don’t even need to worry about of challenge. You’ll probably need to run a
mental-verses-physical Grace—Co-Stars few Conflicts with your group to get a
only have a single type of Grace, and good sense of things.
both physical and mental attacks
Co-Stars and Injuries
damage the same pool.
Co-Stars can take Injuries, but generally
When picking how much Grace to give a don't. While it might make sense from
Co-Star, don't think about the Physique or their point of view, it can be kind of
Will they'd have if they were Stars. irritating from the Stars' perspective.
Instead, think about how long you want Most enemies they'll face will be common
the Co-Star to stick around. If you Co- cannon fodder, faceless mooks with no
Stars fold too quickly, the fight won't be narrative importance beyond their ability
interesting, but if they last too long things to fight and die. Having to "kill" them
can become repetitive. And possibly multiple times gets old fast.
lethal—the longer a fight goes on, the
more Damage Stars will take.
You should also consider the number of

total Co-Stars and Stars who’ll be
participating—the more outnumbered
your Co-Stars are, the more Grace they’ll
need… and the more outnumbered the
Stars are, the more dangerous each extra
point of Grace becomes.
On the other hand, important Co-Stars As with the three types of Co-Star we
probably should take Injuries. described above, Challenge Groups can
Characters with names generally lend grant a single Bonus or Penalty, a
themselves to big, dramatic fights. In double one, or even be impossible
situations like that, an Injury or two can without an Adrenaline Surge.
be a nice touch, a good opportunity to
Challenge Groups are entirely defined by
shout curses or signal a change in tactics.
you. You can go all the way down to
Just be sure to take Injuries into
individual skills or keep things as simple
account when choosing how much
as "all checks are harder." It doesn't
Grace to give your Co-Star—they
really matter what Challenge Groups
Getting Fancier: Challenge Groups you use—in fact, it's likely to vary from
The three broad types of Co-Star can Co-Star to Co-Star, based on what their
serve for most purposes. But sometimes, role in your game is. As a rule of thumb,
especially with a unique foe, you want a though, don't make too many Challenge
little more detail. An opponent is much Groups. You don't want to go down a
more interesting with strengths and rabbit hole of choices every time you
weaknesses, after all. If you want to go make a minor character, and you certainly
down that road, you can ignore the broad don’t need to think about approaches that
types and instead use Challenge Groups. won’t come up in game.
Instead of Abilities, Co-Stars can have

Challenge Groups, broad categories of
actions which all have the same
difficulty to attempt or resist. For
anything not covered by a Challenge
Group, assume the Check works normally.
Whenever a Star attempts an action
opposed by a Co-Star, pick the
appropriate Challenge Group—that's
how hard the Check is to make.
For example, an orc warrior might have a

Challenge Group of "Hand-to-hand:
Penalty," meaning that trying to stab him
with a sword, avoid his axe, or wrestle
him to the ground all take a Penalty. On
the other hand, his Challenge Group of
"Mental: Bonus" means that attempts to
trick him gain a Bonus.
Bringing It All Together

Let's create Vanaheim the Black, a Vanaheim the Black
legendary elven duelist. He’ll be an
 Melee Combat:
important character, so we'll want
Challenge Adrenaline Surge Only
something a bit more detailed than just a Groups  Reflexes: Penalty
“Major Threat.” Specifically, we want him  Will: Penalty
to be fast, strong-willed, and good with a  Elf Magic: Speak with
sword. That’s three notable descriptors, Traits and exert minor influence
so we’ll assign three Challenges Groups: over plants and animals.
Melee Combat, Reflexes, and Will. Grace ( )( )( )( )( )( )( ) / 7
For the latter two, we’ll assign a single

Penalty to any Star attempting to mess
with him those ways. Vanaheim’s
supposed to be an exceptionally skilled
swordsman, though, so we’ll rule that it’s
impossible to duel him without an
Adrenaline Surge—the Stars will need a
lot of help to face him head-to-head.
He’ll carry a rapier, and maybe wear a bit

of boiled leather or mail, but such things
are commonplace in the pseudo-medieval
setting we’re using—neither deserves a
special trait. On the other hand, he is an
elf, which in this setting means a bit of
nature magic. He never spent much time
training it, though, and he’s not likely to
use it. Still, we’ll note it, just in case.
Our boy is pretty tough, but he's not likely

to fight the entire party at once—we're
planning on using him in a one-on-one
duel. So, we'll give him seven Grace, a
comparable amount to the Star he'll
probably fight.
And there we have it! One mighty

swordsman, ready to go! His final sheet
would look like this:
Co-Stars in Action
Jack the Rowdy and Platinum Jones have Jack points out that there’s a door in the
cornered Vanaheim the Black at the way, which will mess with Vanaheim’s
eleventh hour, minutes before the attack. The Director concurs, assigning
legendary duelist is due to start his bout him a Bonus. Jack’s Skill in “Dodging”
with Prince Carl—one they know has helps as well—adding up his Agility of 7,
been rigged. They’ve barged into his the +4 from the two Bonuses, and the -6
rooms, but he’s already armed and from Adrenaline Surge—so he only needs
armored and ready to kill the prince. to roll 5 or more to defend. He succeeds,
Sensing that a fight is imminent, the and describes how he ducks back and
Director calls for Initiative checks. These slams the door, trapping Vanaheim’s
will be at a Penalty, she notes—Initiative rapier.
falls under Vanaheim’s “Reflexes”
Platinum doesn’t have much in the way of
Challenge Group. Jack succeeds, while
sword skills. She does have a set of
Platinum fails—thus, the order is Jack,
throwing knives up her sleeve, she notes,
Vanaheim, Platinum.
and decides to lob one at Vanaheim. A
Jack tries to bluff, claiming that the judge ranged attack like that won’t put her up
already knows about the duel’s true against Vanaheim’s “Melee” Challenge
nature. The Director informs him that this Group, but his “Reflex” Group does apply
will be a Hard Presence (Intimidation) to ranged attacks, the Director declares,
Check, as it is by Vanaheim’s “Will” citing the villain’s generally speed. She
Challenge Group. His Star rolls and fails. points out that Platinum has a Skill in
The Director describes Vanaheim Dexterity (Ranged Combat), canceling out
narrowing his eyes and gripping the hilt the Penalty, and rolls a normal check.
of his rapier, and Jack curses and takes his Platinum succeeds spectacularly, dealing
Minor Action to duck behind the door for three damage. The villain howls in pain
cover. and whirls on her.
Vanaheim’s turn is next, and he goes “Bad luck, old chap,” Jack quips. “Platinum
straight for Jack. The Director informs always uses poisoned knives.” The
him that as a melee attack this will Director asks if that’s just a taunt, or if he
automatically hit, unless he takes a -6 wants to spend his turn making a mental
penalty to attempt his defense with an attack. Jack nods, and the encounter goes
Adrenaline Surge. on…
Unusual Co-Stars
The basic rules for Co-Stars work well Alternately, you can break the rules and
enough, but there are times when they give the boss extra turns. That instantly
start to become a bit unwieldy. We'll sidesteps the Star's main advantage in a
discuss a few examples below and give fight like this, letting you challenge the
you suggestions for how to deal with it. Stars without needing to make the enemy
vastly stronger or hardier than them.
Boss Battles
Think of it as having a group of identical
The "boss battle" is a staple of fiction—
enemies with a shared pool of health.
the entire party facing off against a single
powerful enemy. Unfortunately, it's hard The more Stars in your group, the more
to pull off in an RPG like STaRS. Solo useful this method becomes, as their
enemies can't be too close to the Stars in advantage over a solo enemy becomes
power, or else he'll be dragged down by higher and higher. Naturally, the more
raw numbers. If their defenses are high Stars, the more extra turns you need—
but their offense is low, they can stick one turn for every 2-3 Stars is a good
around, but the fight becomes ratio.
frustrating—the Stars aren't in danger,
The main danger is that the boss can sort
but they keep failing to hurt their foe. If
of gang up with itself, using all its actions
their offense is high but their defense is
to attack the same Star. Obviously, you
low, the fight becomes "rocket tag"—the
can use your Director's prerogative to
battle is over in a few rounds, with
avoid that, but it's better to avoid
multiple bodies littering the floor.
clumping the extra turns together. We
So, what's a Director to do? You could suggest placing the first extra turn after
just give the boss lots of Grace. That'll the Stars who failed their Speed
make the fight go on for longer, no (Initiative) check, and any additional
problem…but it can feel cheap, and for extra turns in between Stars' turns.
some enemies (especially guys that are
Your Stars might also ask why this
supposed to be human) it just seems
character can have extra actions, and they
weird. Giving them multi-target
can't. It's worth considering your group
abilities—say, a big area attack—is
before implementing this solution—if
helpful, making everyone feel like they're
they seem like the type of players who'll
in danger every turn, but doesn't solve
have a problem with "he has extra turns
the survivability issue.
because that's what the game needs to
work," it might be better to avoid the
argument altogether.
Hordes
Heroes bravely fighting against superior
numbers is a common trope, but
surprisingly difficult to pull off in a game,
even one as simple as STaRS. It might not
take long to resolve one attack, but what
about ten? A hundred? A thousand?
To speed things up, try representing

large groups as single Co-Stars. Instead
of trying to deal with a thousand
individual goblins, divide them up into
five mobs. That way, you can play through
the scene without having to roll a
thousand Defense checks a round.
The principle also works for crewed

vehicles, or mounts and their riders. If
multiple Co-Stars are going to be
fighting together at all times, you might
as well treat them as the same creature.
Giants
Forget this goblin thing—sometimes you
want to fight something big. While it's
easy enough to represent a giant as a
single Co-Star, doing so can make things
feel less epic. Instead, try representing
giant enemies as multiple Co-Stars. If
you're fighting Godzilla, give each limb a
separate turn and separate Health. Let the
Stars trap his tail in rubble to slow him
down or scale his chest to reach the head.
At the very least, require Speed checks to
dodge the giant’s attacks, instead of the
usual Agility. (After all, let's see you try to
parry a fist bigger than your entire body
Encounter Design
How Powerful is my Co-Star? Constraints

There's no hard and fast way to tell how Sometimes, circumstances prevent one
powerful a Co-Star is. We can count how side from taking advantage of its greatest
many penalties they impose. We can look powers. High winds or cramped quarters
at how much Grace they have. Those can nullify an archer. Nobles might not
aren't bad estimates, but they're still just listen to a lowborn thief, no matter how
estimates—there are many factors that silver their tongue. When planning an
feed into how dangerous a fight will be. encounter, watch out for any
Be sure to think about all aspects of an environmental factors that would
encounter when planning it. Otherwise, significantly weaken Stars or Co-Stars.
a fight you thought was fair might be
Synergy
unwinnable, and one you thought
Archers can be dangerous. Spearmen can
challenging might be unexpectedly
be tricky to handle as well. But if you
simple.
combine the two, use a band of spearmen
Action Economy to defend a squad of archers, suddenly the
"Action economy" is a term that gets group becomes much more efficient.
thrown around a lot in RPG circles. Sometimes, the whole is greater than the
Roughly speaking, it refers to how many sum of the parts. When Co-Stars work
turns various characters or groups of together well, be sure to factor that
characters have access to each round. If teamwork into your planning.
the Stars greatly outnumber their enemy,
Tactics
they'll get many more actions than him.
Good tactics can greatly change the odds.
When outnumbered badly enough, even
Clever use of traps, terrain, and so on
the toughest foe can be taken down
can win a fight in an RPG as easily as
easily. On the other hand, if the Stars are
they can in the real world. A monster
badly outnumbered, even weak foes can
that sits in one place and attacks
bring them down. (Though in both cases,
whoever's closest is much less of a threat
that only applies if they're potentially
than one who strikes and retreats,
vulnerable—if you're outright immune to
hindering powerful fighters and preying
enemy attacks, you're…well…immune.)
on vulnerable ones. This is especially
noticeable when one side—the Director
or the Stars—is much more tactically
minded than the other.
Terrain We already talked about how terrain can

Particularly when paired with good make a fight easier or harder, but it can
tactics, terrain can offer one side of a fight also make one more interesting. After all,
a tremendous advantage. A band of which is more memorable: dueling on the
archers aren't much threat in a small street, or dueling on the edge of a
room, but they'd be more dangerous on volcano? Terrain is doubly interesting
the other side of a rocky field, and when it’s dangerous, giving characters
absolutely deadly at the other end of a the opportunity to throw each off cliffs or
long empty hallway. A dragon may be able into the gears of active machinery.
to crush a knight in an open field, but it'd
Finally, using different tactics can make
have trouble coping in a narrow cave.
encounters play out differently, even
Terrain can often function as a
when fighting similar foes. Imagine two
constraint, or provide opportunity for
groups of swordsmen, one fighting in
overpowering tactics.
disciplined ranks and one making
Keeping Things Fresh kamikaze charges. Even if the individual
A good group of friends and an engaging fighters have the same Traits, the battles
story can keep a game going for a time, would feel very different. Different
but nothing kills the fun like repetitive tactics are best paired with different
fights. No-one wants to encounter the terrain, as the two are generally related.
same enemies in the same featureless
When Things Go Wrong
rooms over and over again. Creating
Not every encounter goes the way you
interesting encounters is one of the
expect it to. In fact, most of them won't.
Director's most important duties. To do
That's ok—part of the fun of Directing is
so, vary the three T's—Traits, Terrain,
watching your Stars foul up your plans.
and Tactics.
Sometimes they'll use clever tactics and
Changing your Co-Stars' Traits is an render a tough fight easy; other times,
obvious solution. Fighting an archer is they'll make bone-headed mistakes and
different than fighting a swordsman, and get themselves into way more trouble
a fight with a harpy will play out than you expected. At other times, you'll
completely differently than a fight with a be the one making mistakes and
giant. Changing Powers around has the presenting fights that are too easy or too
biggest effect—shuffling Skills around lethal.
might make certain tactics easier or
harder, but exotic Powers like flight or
invisibility can introduce completely new
dimensions to the fight.
If your Stars make things easy, it's best Making Things Easier
not to take that away from them. They Making things easier is a bit harder. Foes
just did something clever—you want to can have attacks of overconfidence,
encourage that sort of behavior. Just sending off groups to deal with threats
make a note of what happened so you can "elsewhere" while a few men stay behind
keep the same thing from happening to "mop up." They might conveniently
again. If they made things harder for forget to block escape routes or fail to
themselves…well, usually it's best that take advantage of perceived weaknesses.
the Stars face the consequences of their Basically, play dumber—just don’t go
actions. But if you’re the one who messed too far, or your Stars will notice what’s
up, it's best not to make the Stars suffer going on. Even then, sometimes there's
because of your mistake. On the other nothing you can do to salvage the
hand, you don't want to strain credibility situation.
by having enemies suddenly become
When Things Go Really Wrong
stronger or weaker. What do you do?
Always have a plan for what happens
Making Things Harder when an encounter goes wrong and the
The simplest way to make an easy Stars are defeated. Sometimes, yes, that
encounter harder is to bring in means they all die, and the game is over.
reinforcements. As long as it's plausible But that shouldn't always be the case. If
that another squad was called in, or the you generally like how things are going, it
evil wizard could summon some demons, can be sincerely upsetting when bad luck
it's a graceful way to bring in more brings your campaign to a crashing halt.
cannon fodder. Instead, take a page from countless evil
masterminds and throw your Stars into
You can also try to step up your own use
prison, or a conveniently-escapable death
of tactics. Be subtle about it—angry bears
trap. Heck, leave 'em for dead in the
aren't about to become tactical
streets. Remember: just because it
geniuses—but if one just happens to go
would be the smart thing for a villain to
after the socialite instead of the warrior,
kill the heroes, it may not be the
things just got more interesting.
interesting thing. We're here to tell a
story, after all. But be careful if you do
decide to rescue the Stars from certain
death—the game's a lot less interesting
without the chance of failure. Make sure
that their defeat comes with a cost and
try not to get in a habit of saving their
lives.
Chapter 5: Creating a World P a g e |74
Chapter 5: Creating a World
Stars are pretty creative people, but they can't act in a vacuum. As a Director—or better yet,
as group—you'll need to create a setting, an imaginary world for the Stars to adventure in.
What's Batman without the dark, gothic skyline of Gotham City? How can you have a Harry
Potter book without Hogwarts? You've surely read, watched, and played through stories
where the setting was every bit as important a character as the mere humans that move
through it. An RPG like STaRS is no different—without a world to anchor yourselves in,
how can you expect to get into the mind of your characters?
The Easy Way
You don't have to be J.R.R. Tolkien to run If you find yourself feeling nervous about
a game of STaRS. The easiest way to "canon," stop. Don't be afraid to put your
create a setting is to “borrow” one that own stamp on the world. That might
already exists. All you have to do is pick mean picking an unusual place or time
your favorite book, movie, video game, period within the setting or designating
comic, or even a bit of the real world and your game as an "elseworlds" story—
set your game there. You can even use whatever works for you. The important
settings written for other roleplaying thing is giving yourself and your Stars
games. Sure, the rules probably won't freedom to operate. Never let your group
translate, but the rest of the information be trapped by what someone else has
will. already written.
Doing so also make things easier for your You might also feel an obligation to
Stars, too. You don't have to take as much become an expert on the setting before
time to explain things, and you’ll be able you can run a game there. If you enjoy it,
to enter the campaign with a clear image feel free…but you shouldn't let a lack of
of what's to come. Good settings also tend in-depth knowledge stop you from using
to be chock-full of interesting people, a world. You can always look things up
places, and mysteries. With an especially or make them up as need be. Just be
popular setting, your Stars may come up careful if you're only a casual fan and
with plans before you ever sit them down some of your Stars are "experts."
at the table!
One last concern with established settings
Words of Warning is "super-NPCs." While it can be fun to
The big downside to using an established meet your favorite characters from the
setting is that it is established. It’s easy to fiction, as a Director you should be extra
feel constrained by years of other people's careful that established characters
world-building, afraid that anything you don't steal the stoplight from your
do will violate "canon." This is doubly true Stars. The purpose of the game is to tell
in extremely well-developed worlds like their stories, not to repeat the original
Middle Earth. Worse, you might have a work of fiction. Be particularly wary of
Star who feels the same way, complaining protagonists, who were created
whenever you "make a mistake" and specifically to be a narrative focus—this is
contradict something already established. your story, not theirs.
The Hard Way
The alternative to using an established  Simple—You and your Stars are

world is to create your own. If you don't only human. Too much detail, and
think you'd enjoy the process, you might you won't remember any of it.
want to stick to using existing Even if you can keep track of a
settings—world building takes work. But binder full of intricate history and
when done right, it can result in an alien names, your friends can't. A
incredibly rewarding experience for the setting can't truly come alive
entire group. unless you can hold it in your
mind, and that won't happen
Words of Warning
unless things are simple.
Before you decide to give it a try, though,
you need to remember one thing: you will  Open—In the section on using pre-
always understand your world better existing settings, we talked about
than your Stars. They'll do their best to feeling hemmed in by canon. While
remember the things you say, and the that's a lot less likely to happen in
things they see, but they almost certainly a homemade setting, it's still a
won't read that packet of setting possibility. When designing things,
information you put together. Be remember to leave room for new
prepared for a lot of references to "that adventures and mysteries—a
one place with the stuff." If you suspect setting where everything's nailed
you'll get irritated at such flippancy, it down and explained is boring.
might be best to avoid putting a lot of
work into building a custom world.  Evocative—Too many details can
keep your Stars out of the world
SOE What? you're trying to build, but too few
Throughout the world building process, can have the same effect. If your
there are three key principles to keep in setting is bland and generic, why
mind. The setting you create should be bother paying attention to it? The
simple, open and evocative—SOE for world fades into a cardboard
short. cutout, making it difficult to care
about anything. To keep their
interest, you'll want to come up
with a few vivid, memorable
ideas, and make them the focus
of the setting.
Starting Out: What Kind of World? While it's true that these are
Before you can draw maps and design generalizations, and you can certainly run
cities, you need to figure out what kind of any type of game in any type of setting,
world you're going to be working on. things work best when the mood of the
Nothing too detailed, not yet. For now, all world and the mood of the campaign
you need is a short description, match.
something to grab your interest and flesh
Feel isn't something you can pin down.
out later. If you've put any thought into
Rather, it's something to keep in mind
the process so far, you've probably
throughout the world-building process. If
already done this, but if not, there are a
you want a gritty, morally ambiguous feel
few steps you can work through:
to your world, remember to invent plenty
The first thing to think about is genre. of slums, criminal underworlds, and
Just saying "fantasy" or "sci-fi" isn't corrupt officials. On the other hand, if you
enough. Imagine you said science fiction. want a more heroic, good-verses-evil
Are you thinking about an urban campaign, maybe leave those in the
dystopia? Something on the border of a background.
freshly-colonized planet? Are we talking
The final element of this initial
about transhumanist themes, or fleets of
brainstorming is a shtick. Your setting
battleships? Blade Runner, Star Trek, Star
needs a gimmick, something to
Wars, and Firefly are all science fiction
distinguish it from similar settings,
settings, but apart from the odd spaceship
something you can rattle off when trying
they've got little in common. Try to nail
to recruit new players. It doesn't need to
down a sub-genre as well as a more
be an original gimmick, mind you, but it's
general one.
hard for most players to get excited about
Closely related to genre is mood—what's generic fantasy world #327. But a fantasy
the general "feel" your setting is mean world where the "world" is a living,
to evoke? To continue off the previous breathing titan, and all the Stars and Co-
example, Star Wars and Star Trek can Stars are tiny parasites living inside him?
both be described as "space opera," but That's something to catch a jaded player's
they feel very different. The Star Wars interest.
universe is rougher, more broken-down
and lived in, the sort of place where
violence is usually a go-to solution. On the
other hand, Star Trek is slicker, more
optimistic and utopian, where the
universal translator is more useful than
the photon torpedoes.
The Skeleton Is magic the exclusive domain of

Now that you have a good idea about half-crazed hermits out in the wild,
what you want your world to be, what it or is it ubiquitous to the point that
should look and feel like, it's time to start every house is lit by magical lights?
filling things in. The background we'll Be careful on this one—Stars are
come up with in this section serves as a pretty sharp folks, and they’ve
kind of framework for your setting, on been known to take advantage of
which you can easily hang further details. that sort of oversight.
In short, the key elements you'll want to
Races
consider are Technology, Magic, Races,
Nonhuman races are a major
Locations, Culture, History, Conflict, and
fixture of fantasy and science
Mystery.
fiction, and chances are good that
Technology you'll eventually want to invent a
It's always important to know few. Mechanically, a race is
what sort of technology is nothing more than a package of
available in your setting. Is the Traits that must all be purchased
setting modern? Futuristic? at the time of character creation.
Medieval? Steampunk? Perhaps
Whenever possible, you should try
some types of technology are
to balance positive Traits and
common, but others are
Flaws such that the total package
underdeveloped. The exact level of
comes out to zero points. At the
technology will vary from place to
very least, be aware of how many
place within the world, but you
Trait Points characters will be
should think about the average
starting with. If you make a race
level, as well as what "high tech"
too expensive, Stars will have
means for your world.
trouble making their characters
Magic distinct from other members of
The fantasy counterpart to the race, if it's playable at all.
technology, "magic" here serves as
Be careful that you're not just
a shorthand for any sort of
including races for the sake of
paranormal powers that your
having dwarves or elves. If you
setting might focus—anything
(or your Stars) can't think of
from summoning demons to
anything particularly interesting to
superpowers. Think about what's
do with nonhuman races, there's
out there, how rare it is, and how
nothing wrong with having a
much impact it has on the rest of
human-only setting.
the setting.
Locations History
A world’s not much good without If those who forget the past are
places to go and to see. At the very doomed to repeat it, then those
least, you should list some major who forget to invent a past are
landmarks, nations and jot down doomed to muddle along in a daze.
a few details about each. You don't need much—your Stars
(Nations, or cities, or certainly won't remember it—but
neighborhoods, or planets— you should have at least a
whatever scale fits your game). It general idea of where different
doesn’t need to be too in-depth if cultures and nations are coming
you don’t feel like it yet; you just from. Knowing the general history
want to know what’s around. of your setting will help you figure
out how different groups coexist
Of course, if you want to draw a
and interact.
full map, that can be fun too. You
don't have to be a cartographer or Culture
an artist. You don't have to ever Academics have been struggling to
show it to your Stars. It doesn't define "culture" for centuries, but
even have to be incredibly most of us can recognize it when
consistent. Really, a map is we see it—"it" being everything
mostly helpful to visualize the from how we eat to how we make
world. friends. Different races and regions
in the real world can have
An easy way to get started is to
dramatically different cultures,
take a map of some real-world
and your setting should be no
region and rotate it. Doing so
exception. That said, coming up
creates unfamiliar yet plausible
with interesting cultures is hard
terrain that you can subsequently
work, probably the hardest part of
populate with cities and nations.
world building. Luckily, there are a
Other real-but-obscure maps are
few shortcuts:
also good starting points—
medieval maps, images of other
planets, and so on. Improving Your Game—On Names
Be very careful when making up names.

The more fantastical the name, the less
likely Stars are to remember it—and the
more likely they are to start making fun of
it. Even with a well-behaved group, it's
hard to be immersed when you can't
remember anyone's name, much less
pronounce it.
 "Like us, but…"—This is Conflict

the easiest and most No world is a complete utopia.
common method. Start Certainly not any world that's
with a familiar culture interesting to explore. Conflicts
and give it a new coat of can be found at all levels of a
paint. Change a few easily- setting, from racial tensions within
noticed traditions, a neighborhood to all-out
surround it with some intergalactic wars. The tension
exotic scenery, and presto! they create helps bring a setting
alive, makes it dynamic, capable of
 The Research Method— sustaining itself even when the
On the other hand, you Stars' backs are turned.
don't have to start with a
familiar culture. There are Mystery
thousands of unique Finally, no world is complete
cultures right here in the without a few good mysteries.
real world, many of them as Your Stars may or may not be able
alien as anything you'll find to find the answers. You may or
in a fantasy world. Head to may not know the answers. But
a library or Wikipedia and leaving a few open questions can
start reading up on keep your setting from feeling too
ancient civilizations and stagnant.
isolated tribes—you'll find
These aren't meant to be
plenty of cool stuff in
whodunits—that's more a part of
inspire you.
writing a specific campaign—but
big questions about the world
itself. Why did the Blood Feud War
suddenly end? What destroyed
Arcania a thousand years ago?
Why do corpses disappear
immediately after death? A good
Mystery will keep the setting alive
and your Stars on their toes.
Fractal World Building
In math, a fractal is an infinitely repeating Not every plot will wind up as the focus of
pattern, creating by applying a simple a campaign, or even a single session, but
rule to a simple shape many times in a they should all have the potential to be.
row. You can build worlds (and plots!) the And even if the game goes a different
same way, getting just as much direction, the plot should still be moving
complexity from just as simple a forwards, influencing the rest of the
procedure. The techniques we're about world.
to try can be applied to every level of
You don't need to come up with too much
setting creation, from universe-spanning
detail. You should have some idea of
empires to the contents of a single house.
what's going on and who's involved, but
Step 1: Premise that's about it for now—nothing needs to
To start off, you've got to identify the be really fleshed out unless the Stars are
area you’re filling in. What is it? What’s actively interacting with it. For a good,
the gimmick? What makes it unique? dynamic setting, try to come up with at
“It” can be anything from a theocratic least three plots for each level of the
trade city to an abusive household, but world you flesh out.
you can’t come up with interesting details
Step 3: Place
until you have a framework to attach
For every plot, you'll want to come up
them to and a central idea to give them
with at least three places that are
unity.
involved. These places may be critical to
Step 2: Plot the plot's progression, or they may just
The next step of world-building is come exist to show its effects. If your plot is
up with overarching plot elements, things "invading orc tribes," your three places
that will cause conflicts and provoke may be an orcish war camp, a human
stories. Your plots might be physical border fort, and a village that had recently
threats, such as an impending alien been subject to a raid.
invasion or a resurrected Dark Lord. Or
Again, you don't need too much
they may be something more nebulous,
information at this stage—a name, a
such as "the King has no heir" or even
rough idea of where it is in relation to
"the city is sliding into corruption."
other places, and perhaps a one-sentence
Plots should be scaled appropriately for description.
whatever level of the world you're
building—an alien invasion is a mighty
big threat for a single city, but an unruly
ghost is probably too small.
Step 4: People Sharing the Load

Finally, for every place, try to populate it World building is a lot of work. And while
with at least three people. The leaders of the fractal method certainly helps
that place—mayors, generals, merchant organize your thoughts, there's still a lot
princes—are certainly good candidates to of brainstorming to do. Luckily, you've
flesh out at this point, but they shouldn’t already got a couple of extra brains to
be the only people you come up with. The pick—your Stars. There's nothing wrong
goal of this step is to have characters with asking the rest of your group to
for the Stars to interact with, if and help, and a lot of good. Participating in
when they visit the place, not to figure out world-building helps get Stars invested in
who's in charge of events. That means you the world before they ever pick up a die
should have characters ready at every or character sheet. Better yet, it also
level of importance. For example, at a means that they're that much more
military fort, you might note the familiar with the setting, which is always
commanding officer, a captain who deals nice to see.
with civilian mercenaries like the Stars,
You can give each Star a plot and ask
and a friendly trooper who always seems
them to come up with places. You can
to know what's going on.
have them zoom in on places you've
As with everything else in the process, already come up with. You can show them
you don't need more than a name and a your premise and ask them each to invent
one or two-sentence description of their a plot and all subsequent elements. You
role and personality—just enough that can sit the whole group around a table
you can portray that character on short and ask everyone to chip in one place per
notice. You can always go back and flesh plot and one person per place. There's no
them out more if they look like they're right or wrong way to build a world.
going to become an important recurring
character.
Zooming In
Whenever you're not satisfied with the
level of detail in your world, pick a place
and zoom in. Repeat the four steps, using
the chosen place as your new premise. If
you had a kingdom, pick one city and
develop it further. If you had a city, flesh
out a neighborhood. Keep the original
plot in mind as you write new ones, but
feel free to introduce new subplots and
side-plots to go along with it.
Sample Setting: Cowboys in Fairyland
In the early 19th century, settlers in on the The tone of Fairyland is “Western,”
American Frontier began to stumble extended into a more fantastical setting.
across what the native tribes referred to You’ve still got your cowboys and rugged
as Ghost Valleys—portals to another farmers, saloons and railroads, dusty
world. A world of dark forests, soaring frontier towns and distant, decadent
mountains, bottomless canyons, and cities “back home.” Heroes tend towards
endless plains, where all of nature is being brave, forthright, and honest;
brighter and fiercer so much more alive. villains cruel and scheming and the
An empty world inhabited only by gunfight at high noon is a widely-accepted
“primitive” fairies. means of settling disputes. Settlers,
explorers, and cattle-drives cross
Over the next few decades, settlers
impossible natural terrain; native tribes
poured into Fairyland. The new world
fight back with strange magic, and
was much more fertile and hospitable
mystery lies around every corner.
than the Great Plains and the Southwest,
and if it was already inhabited…well… the The Land of the Fairies
fairies weren’t human, and they weren’t Poets have called Fairyland “a dream of
Christian, and their magic did them little nature,” and not without cause. While no
good when faced with hot lead and cold individual element would be out of place
steel. in our world, in Fairyland, things are
taken to extremes. Forests are denser,
Now it’s 1897, seventy years after the
mountains higher, rivers deeper and
first Ghost Valleys were discovered, and
canyons wider. There seems to be no such
millions of humans have settled in
thing as a small rainstorm in Fairyland—
Fairyland. Manifest Destiny continues
the sky is either full of sun or full of
with no end in sight as a never-ending
thunder, and blizzards rarely drop less
stream of Homesteaders and explorers
than a foot of snow. Plants and animals,
poured into Fairyland, in search of new
too, mirror those in the real world but
lives and wealth, carving out vast new
grow faster, larger, stronger—and within
territories and driving the native tribes to
a few generations, so too do those
near-extinction
imported from our world.
Not content with being extreme, the The Ghost Valleys

landscape of Fairyland is also The three known Ghost Valley, and their
unpredictable. The normal laws of nature destinations, are:
that govern where forests and deserts
and mountains should be simply don’t  Gateway, in Kansas, leads into a
apply. An explorer might step out of a heavily wooded region, where
tropical rainforest directly into an arctic everything from lush rainforests to
tundra or encounter a prairie face-to-face arid thorn forests swirl and blend
with an ocean. into one another, split by the
occasional massive river.
Even the seasons get in on the act.
Summers are hotter and winters colder,  Manifest, in the Wyoming
to be sure, but that’s only the start. Their Territory, opens onto a sweep of
lengths vary wildly; one “year” summer vast mountains, mineral-rich rocky
might be only six weeks long; the next, it deserts, and wide and almost
might last thirty. Spring and fall are aggressively fertile valleys.
barely felt, appearing more as a transition  La Puerta, in the Utah Territory,
than a time in and of themselves. By fairy typically sets travelers onto an
custom—one increasingly being adopted archipelago of small islands, each
by human settlers--there are only two one with a wildly differing biome.
true seasons, “growth” and “wither.” The Ghost Valley itself is typically
Most curiously of all, the three known located on one of the larger, more
Ghost Valleys—Gateway, Manifest, and La tropical islands, but explorers
Puerta—don’t always seem to lead to the regularly find themselves
same place. Particularly in the early days scattered across the archipelago.
of the Valleys’ discovery, there are A Brief History of Humans in Fairyland
credible reports of explorers and would- Before the coming of Westerners, native
be settlers emerging scattered across peoples believed Fairyland to be a sacred
Fairyland, far from the mapped areas place—often, it was held to be the original
around the Valleys’ usual destination. world, of which ours was a pale reflection.
Even more unusually, this phenomenon In some traditions, it was totally taboo;
seems to have stopped in both Gateway for others, it was involved in manhood
and Manifest, after railroad tracks were ceremonies, a place where hunters would
laid from one world to the next. La Puerta prove their mettle against larger, more
remains un-anchored, however, and the dangerous beasts.
US government has banned the building
of any railroads through it until all its
potential exits have been mapped.
As colonizers pushed west, several Price was lucky enough to have emerged
American Indian tribes fled into in an unusual destination, a massive
Fairyland, hoping that American settlers valley full of warm lakes and swamps, and
would either not pursue them or wind up immediately set about building a city he
in different places than they did. Some named New Richmond. Contact was re-
have been re-discovered, often having established in 1873, with the New
formed close alliances with elf and goblin Confederacy proving to be eight hundred
tribes; others are still lost in the wilds. miles away from Gateway, a thousand
from Manifest, and apparently
Westerners first discovered the Ghost
unreachable from La Puerta—far enough
Valley that would come to be known as
way to make a renewed assault a difficult
Gateway in 1826, in the territory that
and divisive question.
would one day become western Kansas.
In the early days of its discovery, Several skirmishes and raids have been
Fairyland was seen as a sort of wild fought, but hundreds of thousands of
unknown—a place where explorers or bitter Southerners and other malcontents
adventurers would vanish for years at a have since made their way to New
time, returning with strange tales and Richmond. Still, the United States has
exotic trophies. While some settlers did never recognized the New Confederacy
make the trip, it wasn’t until the 1850s, and considers them to still be rebels,
and the bitter conflict over the Kansas- while now-President Price still claims
Nebraska act, that Gateway truly became independence, and so a cold war still
a flashpoint. Conflicts over what territory simmers in Fairyland.
the new lands would belong to, and
In the aftermath of the war, the United
whether or not slavery would be allowed
States government laid claim to all of
there, only accelerated the conflict
Fairyland, and the Homestead Acts lead to
between abolitionists and slaveholders,
a flood of new settlers. Gateway,
and the Civil War began in 1859, two
Homestead, and La Puerta—swollen by
years early.
travelers into huge cities on both sides of
The western campaigns were more the Valleys—remain the only large cities,
intense than in our world, with both sides with all lands within two hundred miles
fighting an extended struggle for control considered to be part of their titular
over Gateway, and it was in Confederate Territories. New Richmond, meanwhile,
hands at the end of the war. Rather than considers everything within five hundred
surrender, the Confederate general miles to be theirs, though they have only
Sterling Price led twelve thousand settled a fraction of that.
soldiers, five thousand camp followers,
and two thousand slaves through the
Ghost Valley into Fairyland.
Within that radius, hundreds of small The Fairy Races

towns, farming communities, and mining Thus far, humans have encountered three
operations flourish, much as you’d expect distinct species of fairy: dwarves, elves,
from any number of Westerns, differing and goblins, each wildly different from
only in scenery (though you could also the next. However, all three races possess
very easily have a pirate motif in the La magic, and all three have a Vulnerability
Puerta Territory). Tragically, this extends to iron and steel, meaning they take an
to the way human settlers treat the native additional two Damage from any such
inhabitants. Fairies are rarely seen as weapon (see “Flaws” in Chapter 7 for
anything more than particularly clever details). Because this grants them a bonus
animals, or at “best” bloodthirsty experience point, playing a Fairy with
barbarians. Humans will deal fairly with only minor powers does not cost any
fairies right up until they want something additional XP.
they’re not being offered, at which point
Dwarves
they have no qualms about using their
Dwarves are only slightly shorter than
superior technology to kill or exile any
humans, generally falling between five
tribe that gets in their way.
and five and a half feet tall, but are
Outside the Territories, anything goes. considerably stockier, and with metallic
Human settlements exist, of course— bronze skin and eyes like opals. Their
ambitious men and women seeking to heads are taller and thinner, with long
establish the next new official territory, sloping foreheads and large noses. As
oppressed groups such as American they come from a hot climate, they tend to
Indians and blacks searching for a refuge, wear little clothing—beaded leather belts
religious fanatics hoping to isolate and pouches, mostly, although on
themselves from heretics, industrialists ceremonial occasions they add cloaks and
looking to avoid the few existing labor hoods of bright feathers and silver clasps.
laws, Confederate holdouts, and so on.
But for the most part, the farther you go
from the Ghost Valleys, the wilder and
more untamed the land becomes.
In the depths of the jungles, they raise The coming of humans, with their vast
great cities with stout walls, towering numbers and superior technology, has
ziggurats, and vast complexes of stone been a rude awakening for dwarven
both above and below the ground. There, society. While some rationalize them as
tens of thousands of dwarves pack just another sort of fairy, increasing
together as closely as any old European numbers believe humanity to be agents of
city and segregate themselves by Ixmucane, here to wreck slaughter in His
families—all of a city’s soldiers are drawn name. As a result, dwarves are much
from one enormous, sprawling clan, its more likely to be openly hostile to human
masons from another, and so on. These settlers, and several wars have been
cities are ruled by priest-kings of their fought.
triple godhead: Camazotoz, the distant
Dwarven Magic
and temperamental Lord of the Sky; Colel
Dwarven magic is tightly bound up with
Cab, the harsh and unyielding Lady of the
the earth. All dwarves possess the Minor
Earth, and Ixmucane, the dark and savage
Power they call the Touch of Chains—the
Lord of the Forest. They fear their god,
ability make earth, stone, and metal
who are violently opposed to life, and
objects permanently fuse with one
most of their religious rites are centered
another. A dwarf can press a brick to the
around binding the gods’ power and
side of a cliff and have it stay there
appeasing their bloodlust with live
forever, sculpt loose sand like modeling
sacrifices.
clay, and weld bronze sculptures together
Dwarves generally get on poorly with with the brush of a finger.
other races. They see themselves as the
In addition, many warriors lean to
highest of all races, with thousands of
summon Stoneskin, using their magic to
years of history and a sacred duty to
toughen their own skin until it provides
protect the world from the gods and
Armor 1. And the greatest dwarven
expect to be recognized and appreciated
craftsmen employ a second Minor Power
as such. Other races (especially humans)
known as Fingers of Clay, letting them
see them as violent barbarians who pack
reshape earth, stone, or metal as if it was
themselves together like rats and kill
as soft and pliable as modeling clay.
their own children in the name of
“religion.”
Elves Elven Magic

Elves are tall, fair, and whipcord- Elven magic is all about their connection
slender—they regularly top six feet, but to their tribe’s totem animal. The five
rarely are more than a hundred fifty largest peoples, and their totem abilities,
pounds. Still, they’re fantastically strong are listed below, but many more exist. In
and tough for their size, and can easily addition, all elves have a Trivial Power
overpower a human twice their size. enabling them to communicate
Their ears are large and mobile, similar to empathically with their totem animals,
a horse’s, and they have amber-colored exchanging strong emotions and even
eyes with massive, vertically-slit pupils. images with a successful Wits Checks.
They dress in a utilitarian fashion,
wearing the hides of local animals dyed to  Horse: A Minor Power enabling
them to run as quickly as their
blend into their surroundings.
partners, and with the same sort of
Humans like to say that Elves are closer to endurance. Members of the Horse
Nation automatically win footraces
beasts than men, an insult not entirely
and similar contests against
without truth. Elves see themselves as no anyone without a similar ability.
different from any other animal, and so
strive to leave as little impact on the  Wolf: A Minor Power granting
world as possible. Elves live nomadic them the olfactory abilities of their
namesake. Members of the Wolf
existences, constantly travelling and
Nation can identify individuals by
adopting their lives to their surroundings. scent, follow a days-old trail by
Because of this, their society is very nose alone, pinpoint enemies in
loosely organized and widely variable. pitch blackness, and similar such
Tribes can be anywhere from several feats.
dozen to several thousand individuals,
 Alligator: Armor 1 granting them
bound by anything from tight family ties the armored hide of their totem.
to simple proximity, and lead by a single
huntmaster.  Hawk: A Minor Power boosting
their vision to the level of their
Elves don’t have a religion, as such. raptors. Members of the Hawk
Instead, they seek to become closer to Nation can pick out a hare in the
nature. Each elf, upon reaching adulthood, brush from a mile away and count
the fibers on a man’s shirt from
chooses one animal they particularly
across the street.
identify with. They strive to emulate their
totem animal’s mannerisms and behavior,
and in exchange, their magic gives them
some of the beast’s abilities.
 Bear: A Minor Power granting Goblins prefer to settle in hot, rocky

them the strength of a grizzly, areas, where they build intricate
enabling them to lift and carry settlements out of fire-baked brick. While
almost a ton, kick down a sturdy they lack the magic of the Dwarves, their
wooden door without need for a
architecture is even more impressive for
check, bend a steel bar with an
effort, and out-muscle anyone it. Rather than building outwards, a
without a similar ability goblin’s instinct is to build up—their
automatically. cities, built against the highest cliffs they
can find, feature dozens of terraces and
Elves often travel with totemic
towers stacked one atop the other.
Companions, and the most attuned can
Thousands of goblins can live along a
develop their gifts into a Moderate Power
stretch of cliffs less than half a mile long,
granting them a full telepathic connection
in what an outsider would describe as an
to nearby animals—they can
impossible tangle of buildings.
communicate effortlessly, share senses,
even command them to act against their The same is often said about their society.
natures. Goblins will happily remind you that
they’re fairies of their words—in fact,
Goblins
they’re fairies of many words. To be a
Goblins are, visually, a widely varied race.
goblin is to be part of an impenetrable
While all goblins have tusks, large eyes
web of oaths and obligations and alliances
without a hint of white, and rows of short,
that anyone else would find virtually
stubby spines running down their backs,
impossible to navigate. A Goblin will
other features vary widely. Some can be
never break a promise, once made, but
as tall as eight feet; others barely top four.
will also never make a promise without a
Their skin can be anything from grubby
half-dozen additional clauses and
brown to faded grey to rich green. Some
conditions to maintain compliance with
have oversized arms, or legs, or torsos, or
others.
heads, while others are proportioned
almost normally. They wear lightweight, Unfortunately, as few other than goblins
light-colored tunics, but decorate can understand this, they have a
themselves lavishly with colorful body reputation for being dishonest in their
paint. dealings with other races. Few fairies and
even fewer humans would trust a goblin
without written proof.
To a goblin, life is a small part of a greater Goblin Magic

journey. According to their beliefs, this is Goblin magic is a thing of flames. All
but the third of eight worlds. The First goblins have at least a Minor Power
World was a hell of iron and darkness in allowing them to start and snuff fires
which they are created to serve as slaves anywhere in their eyesight. While for
to fire giants. There was no way to escape most this is limited to flames no larger or
the world, even in death—except for more intense than that of a torch, those
goblins. Goblins poured their blood and with greater talent or training can learn
sweat, their self, into their work, placing to produce bursts of fire from nothing,
themselves into the weapons and allowing them to make ranged and melee
buildings they were forced to attacks with a Weapon 1.
manufacture. With each rebirth, they
The most skilled goblins of all develop
were smaller, lighter, until they could slip
their talents into a Moderate Power of
away into the ice and wind of the Second
total control over fire. This allows them to
World. There, they repeated the process
accomplish feats like making flames leap
until they reached this, the Third World,
from source to source, instantly consume
and they will continue until they are small
a wooden house, extinguish dozens of
enough to escape this one as well.
square feet of brushfire at once. They can
Eventually, they will reach the Eighth
even protect themselves from firearms by
World, a paradise of crystal and light in
preventing gunpowder from igniting—
which they are gods.
though doing so with enough speed and
Because of this, goblins are prolific and precision still requires a check, they can
industrious craftsmen. The grander the effectively roll Will checks to defend
project, the more beautiful the art, the against guns instead of Speed. (For the
more complicated the device, the more mechanically picky, the full trait would be
self they can shed, and the closer they will “Moderate Power (Fire Control), Quirk
be to their next step. Even humans (Use Will instead of Speed to avoid ranged
acknowledge the skill of goblins, who are attacks), Drawback (Quick only works
capable of works as grand as irrigating against firearms),” for a grand total of
deserts, and as intricate as clockwork three XP.)
music boxes.
Half-Breeds
While fairies are not, generally, seen as
equals, nature finds a way. Human-fairy
hybrids, or Changelings, have arisen
almost since the first contact. They tend
to favor their human parent in
appearance, with only subtle hints at their
otherworldly ancestry… except for their
eyes. All changelings have the same,
inhuman eyes as their fairy parent.
Changelings are generally looked down

by both peoples. Fairies see them as
reminders of human invasions and
betrayals; most humans look down at
them as half-alien freaks. Those who don’t
are all-too-often more enamored with the
potential for power than for equal rights,
for Changelings inherit a portion of their
fairy parent’s magic along with their eyes.
While for most this will manifest as little
more than, say, a knack for metalwork or
an unusual skill with dogs, the lucky (or
unlucky, depending on your perspective)
are able to learn their parent’s Minor
Power.
Sample Fractal: The Town of Scorpion Brook
Built mostly of clay and spit at the edge of  Rose Foster: A gregarious, grey-
a vast, broken prairie, Scorpion Brook haired matron in her late fifties,
isn’t a very hospitable place. Two weeks Rose has worked for the Hughes
hard travel from Manifest and almost four family all her life.
days from the nearest railroad line, the  Rick Mason: Rick is a big man—
town probably wouldn’t exist at all if it tall, strong, fat, friendly, and just a
wasn’t for the persistent rumors of silver little bit dumb. He works as a
in the nearby Nsajilee Mountains. ranch hand for Hughes and is
Prospectors stumble across nuggets just always happy to lend a hand.
often enough to keep hopes high, and the  Scott Barker: A wiry, mustachioed
ragged flow of fortune-seekers has kept man with an unsettling fondness
the place just alive enough to still exist. for knives, the fiercely loyal Scott
The hardscrabble farmers and ranchers oversees the lesser workers on Mr.
live in uneasy peace with the Nsajileeto Hughes’ behalf.
goblins just ten miles away, neither group
happy about it. Place 1b: Nsajileeto Village
Goblin settlements tend to be vertical, and
Plot 1 Nsajileeto Village-- built into a collapsed
Scorpion Brook’s self-proclaimed most Cliffside ten miles north of Scorpion
prominent citizen, the cattle rancher Brook-- is no exception. War and plague
Jacob Hughes, has always been a power- have wiped out many of the inhabitants
hungry fellow. He’s claimed land all the since humans arrived in Fairyland, and
way up to the edge of the Nsajileeto now the village is a shadow of its former
territories and still wants more. He’s self.
hoping to drum up enough trouble to get
the goblins run off once and for all, so his  Hastiin: Human at first glance,
herds can access their watering holes. Hastiin’s pure white eyes reveal
her goblin heritage. The son of a
Place 1a: The Hughes Ranch goblin woman and a human
The Hughes Ranch lies at the north edge prospector, she’s become angry
of town, perched on a low hill overlooking and bitter in the face of
the smaller buildings below. It’s not resentment from both races.
exactly pretty, with fake pillars and
peeling paint, but it’s bigger and nicer
than anything else in town.
 Yas: A young goblin with grey skin Plot 2:

and tiny tusks, Yas is a For weeks, travelers and traders on the
quintessential eight-year-old— road to Manifest have been disappearing.
curious about everything and Finally, an injured man arrived with the
utterly fearless. news they’d feared: the legendary outlaw
 Naalnish: A middle-aged goblin of Ana “Black Dancer” Robinson had come to
middling statue, Naalnish is just Scorpion Brook. The sheriff, Chuck
old enough to remember the Buswell, tried to bring her in a week ago
village before humans arrived. He and hasn’t been seen since.
spends his days repairing
Place 2a: Bragg’s Flagg Saloon
Nsajileeto’s network of aqueducts.
The town’s best, worst, and only drinking
Place 1c: Kennian Household establishment, Bragg’s Flagg is little more
Jacob Hughes’ greedy dealings haven’t than a couple tables in a courtyard
been easy on the town. At his hands, the covered by a tent. Bragg’s whisky is good,
Kennian family went from independent though, and he can usually be found doing
farmers to near-homelessness, living in a brisk business.
dirty shack on what was once their own
 Robert Bragg: A spindly man in
land.
his late 30s, Bragg enjoys working
 Artie Kennian: The family the bar whenever he can, trading
patriarch, Artie is a broken man stories and drinking customers
now, reduced to working as a under the tables.
farmhand to the man who stole his  Molly Tingle: Bragg’s business
home. partner, Molly serves drinks, plays
 Marian Kennian: Artie’s wife, the piano, and—on occasion—
Marian is a skinny, strong-willed strips.
woman who’s determined to prove  Morton Stratman: If there’s one
that Hughes stole their land man you can reliably find in the
illegally. saloon, it’s Morton—usually
 Lawton Kennian: Artie’s sixteen- already drunk.
year-old son, Lawton has been
getting more and more wrapped
up in shady doings himself as he
seeks revenge on Hughes.
Place 2b: Sheriff’s Office  Wash Cannan: A traveling snake

A sheriff’s office is never a happy place; oil salesman, Cannan barely
when the sheriff is presumed dead, even escaped Black Dancer’s ambush
less so. outside of town, losing his wagon
and very nearly losing his leg.
 Marshal John Wild: An
Doctor Selar has been caring for
experienced Changeling lawman,
him since.
Wild has come to Scorpion Brook
 Alvin Scholtz: A boy of about
in pursuit of Black Dancer
eleven, Alvin dreams of being a
Robinson.
doctor someday. For now, he
 Dena Buswell: The twenty-year-
hangs around the office and helps
old widow of Sheriff Buswell, Dena
as often as Selar will tolerate him.
is consumed by thoughts of
revenge. A skilled markswoman, Plot 3
she’s trying to convince Marshal Since the first explorations of the Ghost
Wild to let her help. Valleys, firearms have been perhaps the
 Clive Welken: The late Buswell’s greatest advantage humans have held
deputy, Clive would love to take over fairies. But Haloke, one of the
his place—less out of a desire for Nsajileeto Village goblins has been
justice and more for what he could working on her own designs—provoking
get out of the position. excitement among some humans and
angry fear from others.
Place 2c: Doctor’s Office
Tucked above the town’s general store, Place 3a: The Church
Doctor Selar’s practice is new, modern, Every human town has its church;
and almost distrusted by most of the Scorpion Brook is no exception.
town.
 Pastor Andre Bergener: A civil
 Doctor Frannie Selar: A recent war veteran, Bergener has been a
graduate of medical school on the fixture of Scorpion Brook for
other side of the Ghost Valley, twenty years, and a staunch voice
Selar has been struggling to for peace and tolerance.
convince the town to accept new  Lana Piatt: A severe woman in her
advances like “surgery” and sixties, Piatt is notable for two
“painkillers.” things: her dedication to church
and community, and her virulent
hatred of fairies.
 Aditsan: A young goblin carpenter  Roxie Gillman: Lucina’s eighteen-

who stands nearly seven feet tall year-old daughter, Roxie helps her
with huge curling tusks, Aditsan is mother run the boardinghouse
one of very few fairies who’ve while looking for someone,
willingly converted to Christianity. anyone, who might take her away
He’s good friends with Bergener, from Scorpion Brook and back to
and terrified of Piatt. “civilization.”
Place 3b: Gillman Boardinghouse Place 3c: Haloke’s Smithy

Scorpion Brook doesn’t get that many Haloke established her workshop just
visitors, but enough come through that outside of Nsajileeto—originally out of
Lucina Gillman is able to run her business. nervousness about gunpowder, but later
She built a large house just across the because her tribesmen became nervous
street from the saloon, and rents beds to about the reaction her work might
anyone who needs them. provoke.
 Lieutenant Orson Doyle: An  Haloke: A towering goblin

ambitious young man in the Army metalworker, Haloke cares for
Quartermaster Corps, Doyle heard little beyond her crafts. She sees
about Haloke’s experiments from building guns as a technical
his local uncle, and persuaded his challenge that will speed her
superiors to let him come progress towards the next world,
investigate. He’s convinced that nothing more.
goblins can be exploited to make  Clive Weimer: An old bearded
better weapons for less money human gunsmith and longtime
than humans. proponent of fairy rights, Weimer
 Corporal Turner Anderson: A has happily agreed to tutor Haloke
middle aged man who’s served in in his craft.
the army for twenty years,  Shiye: An aging goblin hunter,
Anderson would have been Shiye isn’t very interested in the
promoted long ago if not for his mechanics of guns—but he’s
gambling habit. He’s currently extremely interested in their
under Doyle’s command as his potential to level the playing field
escort. with humans.
Chapter 6: Playing the Game P a g e |96
Chapter 6: Playing the Game
We spent a couple chapters talking about the mechanics of gameplay—the rules and
regulations, if you will. We’re not going to deal with any of that here. Instead, this chapter is
all about advice. Little tips and tricks for role-playing, for running a game, for group
dynamics. Intangible little things, things to help the game move more smoothly. You
certainly don’t have to read it, but if you’ve never played an RPG before, you might find it
helpful.
Group Guidance
An RPG is a group activity, one with its On the other hand, they shouldn’t need to
own weird sets of unwritten rules and be lead around by the hand. They should
social dynamics. Avoiding friction with know the rules, know their characters,
your friends around the table is, perhaps, and have at least some memory of what
the most important thing you can do to happened last session.
keep things fun.
The Director, for their part, is expected
The Golden Rule to be fair and impartial. They shouldn’t
There’s a secret to resolving problems in coddle the Stars, but nor should they be
a game like STaRS (or in life, really). You forced into impossible situations. They
can deal with almost any situation with should never take direct control over a
one little technique: when there’s a Star’s character, nor should they deny
problem, talk it out. Most problems come Stars the ability to make meaningful
from miscommunication and choices about the direction of the story
obliviousness, and oftentimes all you and setting. They should follow the rules,
need to do to fix things is to bring up the keep the Stars interested, and not steal
fact that there is a problem. Even if that’s the spotlight for themselves.
not the case, nothing is going to change if
It’s Only a Game
people don't realize there's a problem.
Role-playing games can be pretty
Don't be embarrassed to speak up—these
important to some people. It’s great if
are your friends you're playing with, after
you’re really engaged with a character,
all.
world, or storyline…but remember, it’s
The Social Contract only a game. Your character isn’t real.
In any group activity, there are unspoken Your setting isn’t real. But your friends,
rules. And despite all the written rules sitting around the table and rolling dice
you just read, RPGs are no exception. with you? They’re real. An imaginary
While most of them can be boiled down to world is never more important than
“don’t be a jerk,” it’s worth taking a your friends. Remember that when the
moment to lay them out: time comes to make controversial in-
game choices, and arguments arise over
Stars are expected to work together,
what to do.
and to share the spotlight. They’re
expected to work with the setting the
Director presents, not against it. When
the Director’s put a lot of work into a
region, quest, or Co-Star, they shouldn’t
ignore it.
Talk About PvP In small doses, that’s not bad. Everyone

Some people enjoy an “evil” game, where should have the chance to show off what
characters steal from and double-cross they’re good at occasionally. But that’s the
each other constantly. On the other hand, key—everyone. If you spend 20 minutes
some would consider it a deadly sin to following the thief, then 20 minutes with
withhold information from the group. If the socialite, then 20 minutes with the
you put both types in the same game, a inventor, that’s fine. Everyone gets the
fight is almost inevitable. chance to shine. But if the thief’s the only
one getting to show off like that, session
The default state of an RPG is
after session, it’s easy to get jealous.
cooperation. Before you do anything to
deliberately harm your fellow Stars’ Be aware of the spotlight. Make sure that
characters, talk about it. Make sure that everyone gets the chance to shine, and
everyone is on-board with that sort of that no-one takes more than their fair
thing. At the very least, whoever your share of game time. If the Director
character is harming needs to be okay doesn’t do it, Stars can. If there hasn’t
with it. They don’t need to know what you been much socialization lately, try a plan
intend to do, if you think that sort of with a talky element. If there’s been a lot
secrecy is important, but you should get of talking, see if you can find someone for
their approval to “steal some stuff” or “try the warrior to mug. If someone’s been
to kill you.” At the very least, make sure sitting quietly and not contributing, then
they’re fine with a little player-verses- suggest a task for their character. Even if
player. You may lose the element of you’re the loudest, most independent Star
surprise, but that’s a small price to pay for at the table, delegate. Everyone deserves
avoiding hurt feelings. a chance to shine.
Share the Spotlight

The most valuable commodity in an RPG
isn’t loot, or Ability Points, or anything
like that. It’s the spotlight. When the
time comes for the thief to sneak in and
open the gates, or the socialite to
negotiate with the king, they’ve snagged
the spotlight. They’re out there doing
important things, while everyone else sits
back and watches.
In- and Out-of-Character Conflict 2. Try not to make it seem like it’s
Gamers are generally awesome folks, but their fault. Most people are fairly
we’re only human. You’ll inevitably get reasonable and will be willing to
into arguments with your friends over all try and make things better once
sorts of things, from “Should we trust this the problem’s been aired. But if
guy?” to “Who’s paying for pizza?” They that doesn’t work…
won’t always be pretty, either. If a fellow
3. Separate. Either get rid of the
Star gets your character killed, or the
person causing you grief or leave.
Director seems to be showing obvious
Gaming is supposed to be fun, not
favoritism, tensions can get pretty high.
a hassle—it’s better to stay home
When that happens, take a step back and and read a book than go to a
figure out who you’re mad at—the game and make yourself
character, or the person. It’s important miserable.
to address the right one. If your character
Play the Same Game
is mad that your friend’s character stole a
“Role-playing game” is a broad idea. To
prized magic sword, you can resolve that
one person, it can mean an intricate ballet
at the table. But if you, personally, are mad
of intrigue and mystery to unravel. To
at your friend, bring that up with them
another, it can mean fighting monsters
face-to-face. Causing in-game chaos won’t
and stealing treasure. A third might want
do anything to stop out-of-game
to tell an epic story, while a fourth might
arguments. When in doubt, remember
just want to joke around with their
the golden rule and talk to your friend.
friends. All of those are totally valid ways
Dealing with “Problem Players” to play, but friction can arise when
Despite everything you do, sometimes people have different ideas of what
you’re stuck playing with a jerk. Maybe they’re supposed to be doing. The talking
they’re stealing from your character, or will bore the guy who likes fighting; the
hogging the spotlight, or cheating. When guy who wants the story will get upset at
that happens, the last thing you want to the guy who prefers to goof around.
do is just suck it up or retaliate in kind. Before you start a new game, make sure
Instead, there’s a simple, two-step everyone knows what things are going
process for how to deal with them: to be like.
1. Talk. Talk to the person causing And once the tone is chosen, don’t make
the problem. The best approach a character that violates it. Don’t bring a
varies from person to person, but paladin into a game of thieves, and don’t
it’s usually better to do so calmly craft a dark back story when everyone
and privately. Tell them what's else is playing clowns. Even if you think
going on and ask them to stop it'd be fun, chances are the rest of the
doing whatever's bothering you. group will just wind up annoyed.
To Be a Star
You Are Not the Main Character Do the Unexpected

Probably the single most important thing One of the biggest advantages RPGs have
to remember when playing a role-playing over video games is that they're
game is that you are not the sole controlled by a person, not a computer.
protagonist. This isn’t a video game, You're not stuck with the obvious path or
where only the character you control the first choices presented to you. When
matters. It’s not a movie or TV show with you run into obstacles, try to think
one “star” and a supporting cast. A role- laterally. Locked door? Find some axes
playing game is an ensemble piece. All and cut through the wall. Guard won't let
of the Stars are equally important to the you in? Forge new orders. Surprise your
game. All of their characters are equally Director. Keep them on their toes. You'll
important to the story. You all have an find the game is much more enjoyable
equal claim on the spotlight. when everyone is being creative.
Taking too much inspiration from main Know the Rules

characters in fiction can be dangerous. The Director controls the entire world.
Protagonists tend to be special. They’re They have to juggle dozens of Co-Stars
heir to vast kingdoms or unearthly with wildly varying powers and abilities.
powers, flush with dark secrets and You only control one character. You owe
unlikely skills, and rich with connections it to the group to understand what you
to everyone important in the setting. can and can't do. Make sure you have a
firm grasp on your Powers. If there are
That’s not you.
any House rules in place that would affect
Oh, your character is certainly special. you, make sure you know what they are.
Games rarely bother to follow everyday You don't need a perfect understanding,
schmucks. But you’re (probably) not the especially if you're new, but you don't
sole chosen one, not the great hero and want to be the guy who's been playing for
their band of followers. Even if that is how months and still has to ask how attacks
the story is being framed, your character work every combat.
is never more important than your
friends'—they may be the focus of the
story, but that doesn't mean they're the
focus of the game.
You Control Your Character Take a moment to think about why you’re
There exists a single sentence that haunts doing this—or at least why you think
the dreams of Directors the world over. your character feels the way they do. Do
One sentence that can bring a game to a you have an interesting story to tell, or
grinding halt, tear apart friends, and are you just bored and want to cause
spark hours-long arguments. One trouble?
sentence that destroys the very ideals it
If you’re approaching things from a story
claims to uphold.
angle, make your point, have your scene,
“That’s what my character would do.” and then find a way to get things moving
again. Allow yourself to be persuaded in-
Sometimes the sentence is spoken to
game. Switch to a back-up character or
excuse bad behavior. Of course, I’ve
take control of a Co-Star for a scene or
betrayed the party—that’s what my
two. Having in-character disagreements
character would do. Of course, I mooned
can be fun, and lead to a more enriching
the king—that’s why my character would
story, but try not to ruin your friends’ fun
do. At other times, it’s used to derail
by taking an hour or two to argue.
adventures. No, I’m not going to leave the
forest—that’s what my character would If you keep having issues, try to figure out
do. No, I won’t help the freedom how the seemingly contradictory
fighters—that’s what my character would behavior fits. Your evil rogue doesn’t
do. betray the party because she still has a
use for them, or because she’s afraid of
While such sentiments are (arguably)
revenge, or simply because she likes
role-playing, they spit on the “game” part
them. Your druid might not approve of
of what we do. Disruptive behavior
cities, but he’s secretly curious. Your
doesn’t get any less disruptive if you can
paladin might hate underhanded tactics
rationalize it. But here’s the thing—you
but recognizes them as the lesser of two
don’t have to be disruptive in the name of
evils. And you know what? Exploring
character, because you’re in control, not
these contradictions usually results in
your character. You’re the one making
more interesting characters.
the final call, not some fictional entity that
exists only in your head. You’re the one
who can refrain from being disruptive
and rationalize it.
But not always. Sometimes characters just Directors can always forcibly start an
don’t fit. Maybe the game took an action sequence of some sort—monsters
unexpected turn, or a personality burst through the door, the ship starts to
developed in a way you didn’t expect. If sink, or whatever fits the situation—but
that’s the case, there’s no shame in even as a Star you're not powerless.
retiring a character and making a new When an out-of-game discussion starts
one. It’s certainly better than continuing to go on too long, try to prod the group
to fight and argue, night after night. Your back into action.
old character can become a Co-Star,
Point out time constraints, call for a vote,
turning up now and then when the group
or even just ask the Director to make
needs an ally—or perhaps even an
something happen. Heck, grab your sword
enemy, if that’s how things end (and you
and kick open the door (though be careful
and the Director are okay with it).
that you don’t upset your friends in the
Don’t Be a Loner process). Even if you make the "wrong"
We all love the brooding antiheroes and choice, you'll have more fun doing than
badass loners, always out there defying discussing.
authority and doing their own thing.
Have Your Own Goals
There’s just one problem: loners make
Directors are awesome people, but
terrible characters in role-playing
they're not perfect. Sometimes, for
games. Think about it—an RPG is a group
whatever reason, the game starts to lag.
event, a cooperative game. All characters
Maybe you bypassed a section of the
are meant to work together and share the
adventure and they've run out of material.
spotlight. That’s impossible if one guy is
Maybe they had a busy week at work and
always striking out on their own. If you
didn't have time to fully prepare.
must play this sort of archetype, find a
Whatever the case, if the Director fails to
reason for them to stick around.
keep the action going, it's up to you.
Keep Things Moving
A good character has goals of their own.
People who've played a lot of RPGs
Everyone wants something, after all, and
sometimes gripe about how long combat
being fictional is no reason your character
takes, compared to other aspects of the
should be any different. In the absence of
game. And while that may be true, there's
other objectives, follow your character's
another common situation that sucks
dreams. If you want to find your father's
time almost as intensely: planning. All too
killer, start asking questions about local
often "What do we do now?" turns into an
cutthroats. If you want to be king, try to
endless cycle of debate, speculation, and
suck up to local nobles. Whatever you
mechanical trivia, a perpetual bickering
choose, don't just sit and wait.
that lasts until someone makes the effort
to stop it.
Directing and You
You Are Not the Boss The Keyword is Co-

The Director is not in charge of the It's easy to get attached to the characters
game. You may be the referee, the world you control. And to some extent, that's
builder and chief storyteller, you may good—your Co-Stars will be more
spend hours out-of-game preparing, you interesting and memorable when you
may be the final arbitrator of what does enjoy using them. Just remember who's
or does not happen, but you are not the the most important character. We use the
most important person in the group. phrase "Star" for a reason—the Stars are
The goal is to have fun and tell a story the main characters, not your Co-Stars.
together. Not your story, but the group's Don’t upstage them, overshadow them, or
story. There’s a reason we choose the otherwise make them feel like bit players
term “Director” instead of more common in their own story. When you have to
synonyms like “Game Master.” The make a choice about who gets the
Director should be a facilitator, not a spotlight, the Stars win every time.
dictator.
Be Flexible
Agency and You The best thing about a pen-and-paper
In that vein, one of the most important RPG is that it's not pre-programmed. The
things a Director needs to do is respect only limit is your imagination, so make
Stars' agency. They are the ones in sure that it's not a limit. Don't lay out a
control of their characters, not you. When single path and force the Stars to stick
a choice needs to be made, they're the with it, come hell or high water. Make
ones who make it. When one of their contingency plans, improvise, do
characters needs to react, they're the ones whatever it takes to roll with the punches.
who decide how. You can describe outside It's the Stars' job to come up with
influences, you can win mental Conflicts, interesting solutions; it's your job to let
but you cannot, under any them. In fact, it's often better not to plan
circumstances, control a Star's a solution at all—that way you're not
character's actions. biased towards an outcome you already
thought of.
But agency isn't just about keeping your
hands off your friends' toys. It's not
enough to present the Stars with choices;
their choices need to matter. Stars
should be able to change the world and
affect how the story plays out—otherwise
they might as well stay home and read.
The Rule of Cool  Stars usually like Co-Stars who

The rules of the game are really more respect them. It makes sense
like guidelines. They're important for when you think about it. Treat
consistency, for fairness, and to make someone well, as an equal rather
sure that everyone's on an even playing than a servant, and they'll
field…but they shouldn't be allowed to probably do the same. Even
stifle creativity. When a Star has a cool important characters can ask the
idea, help them pull it off. Sure, the rules Stars for advice confess personal
probably mean that climbing up the problems, admire past deeds, and
giant's back won't help any, but it's so on. Giving out free stuff doesn't
dramatic enough that it's worth a Bonus. hurt either.
Jumping onto the flying Dragon should
probably be impossibly difficult, but it's  Stars usually hate Co-Stars who
awesome enough that you can probably weaken them. Stealing treasure,
bend them this one time. The specific inflicting curses, destroying
genre of your game will obviously be a beloved vehicles, and otherwise
factor in what’s an acceptable stunt, but inflicting mechanical damage to
the overall point remains the same: the the character provokes more rage
important thing is to tell a fun story, not than a thousand murdered
enforce the letter of the rules. mentors. The numbers on your
character sheet are real, after all.
Provoking Emotions Damage to them angers the Star,
As Director, you'll find yourself not just the character.
controlling lots of Co-Stars. Some you'll
want the Stars to like, others you'll want
them to hate. Unfortunately, it's really
hard to predict which will happen.
Sometimes they'll latch onto a minor
character; other times they'll dislike a
major character purely out of
contrariness. Ideally, present the Co-
Stars as they are and let the Stars'
natural reaction drive the story. If they
like a random barkeep, let him become an
important source of advice, and his bar a
home base. If they dislike a general, let
them get involved in a mutiny. But if you
absolutely must get a specific reaction…
Descriptions are Desirable Sometimes the plan won't be weird,

As Director, you have many roles. One of though. Sometimes, it'll be clever.
them is "TV." Your narration is the only Brilliantly, obnoxiously, defeat-the-entire-
window Stars have into the game-world. adventure clever. Whether by accident or
The only things they know exist are the design, occasionally a Star will come up
ones you tell them about. That means that with a way to accomplish hours of work
having good descriptions is vital, in minutes. When that happens, it's really
especially if you want the Stars to interact tempting to say no. Don't. Stars should be
with the environment in interesting ways. rewarded for coming up with clever
They can't well swing off chandeliers or tactics, even it if means more work for
kick enemies into fireplaces if they don't you in the short term. In the long term…
know such things exist, can they? well, if the group never saw the
material you had prepared, they won't
A good description is short and sweet.
notice if you reuse it later. Just don't let
You want to convey the maximum
them use the same trick twice!
amount of information in the most
interesting way in the least amount of Show, Don’t Tell
time. That last point is vital. People can Ask any writer and they'll tell you the
only absorb so much information, and same thing—it's more interesting, more
there's a certain point where anything dramatic, and more evocative to
further you say is lost. If you can't come experience something yourself than it is
up with good descriptions on the fly, to be told about it secondhand. It's true
write them in advance. It's that for books, movies, even education, and it's
important. true for games as well. Whenever
possible, let your Stars observe events
Expect the Unexpected
firsthand.
Stars are strange, creative people. They
tend to look at simple situations and Admittedly, there are certainly times
come up with complicated plans—and when it's not feasible to show. Time
vice versa. While they might make your constraints are probably the main
brain hurt on occasion, this is generally a limitation—you've only got so much game
good thing. Out-of-the-box thinking is time, after all. Whether or not it's worth it
what makes RPGs so much fun. That's is a call you'll have to make for yourself.
why it's important to go along with
your Stars' weird ideas. That doesn't
mean they have to work, but when your
Stars have a plan, let them try it, no
matter how crazy it sounds or how little
you expected it.
Another common issue is that the Better yet, don't have a single path to
characters physically can't be shown. You success. Instead, try to make sure that
might want to show the capital being every puzzle has multiple solutions, and
attacked, but the Stars are knee-deep in a every mystery has multiple clues. If
dungeon on the opposite side of the you're concerned the Stars will miss
country. It's easy to give up, but there is a something, plan out a place for it later.
solution, albeit one that should only be The Stars will never know that there were
used rarely: temporary characters. To let half a dozen ways to get to the same place.
Stars live through events their main They'll only ever see the one they figured
characters couldn't observe, have them out and feel clever for having done so.
play side-characters for a session. Make
Writing a Plot
them take the role of common soldiers or
You've done everything we talked about
civilians, running in fear from the dragon.
so far. You've opened up the world, given
Let them portray the council of generals,
the Stars agency, and let their paths take
planning tactics, or the squad of assassins
them where they willed. Now how do you
going after the king. When done right, it's
fit a story into all that chaos?
a great change of pace, and a fun way to
emphasize just how special their "real" One way is to be flexible. Plan out key
characters are. scenes and insert them whenever it
makes sense. The pre-planned bits can
Redundancy, Redundancy
form the backbone of your plot, while the
Sometimes, Stars are very, very clever.
overall shape is formed by the Stars'
And other times…not so much. It's not
actions. Go back and rewrite your plot
that they're stupid. It's just that what
regularly to account for in-game
seems obvious to you isn't always
choices.
obvious to anyone else. After all, you've
got all the information in front of you, An alternative is to write no plot, at least
while your Stars are grasping for straws. not in the traditional narrative sense.
Instead, write a villain's plot. Figure out
For a start, never hide vital information
what the bad guys need to do for their
behind a Check. If the only way for the
plans to succeed and have them take the
game to move forward is for someone to
actions they need to accomplish those
find a secret journal, it'll turn out to be
goals. When the Stars interfere, plan the
the night everyone decides to fail their
villain's reaction accordingly. The
Awareness Checks. If you need to get files
resulting mess will probably be less neat
off a computer, the guy playing the hacker
from a narrative perspective but will be
will get sick and miss the session. If the
logical and dynamic as the game goes on.
Stars need to uncover something, just
handle it through narration.
Chapter 7: Expanding the Rules P a g e |107
Chapter 7: Expanding the Rules
The rules we described in the last few chapters represent our best attempt at balancing
complexity and coverage. Every extra rule we include makes the game bigger, harder to
learn and harder to remember. In the end, we'd like to think that we did a pretty good
job—the rules we did include will take you a long way and can cover most situations that
come up in a game.
But sometimes you need something a little more complicated. Sometimes, one of the gaps
in the basic rules is important in your game. That's when you turn to this chapter, and the
time-honored tradition of Homebrewing—making up Houserules to cover areas where
the basic game is lacking.
In this chapter, we'll discuss the tools you can work with, show you how to apply them, and
present a selection of Houserules we've already made to cover some of the more common
situations where the basic rules aren't enough.
Including Homebrew in Your Game
The most important thing about That being said, it's okay to keep details
Houserules is to make sure your group secret, but you still need to communicate
is okay with using them. Rules should the general case: “magic is dangerous, but
never be a surprise, especially if they can I won't say why or how." That way they
have a significant impact on character can make informed decisions about the
concepts. characters that they'll be using for so
many hours of game time.
Imagine that your friend is Directing a
game set in a fantasy setting. You want to When House Rules Fail
play a wizard, and your friend gives you Not every Houserule is a successful one.
the thumbs up. So, you spend some time Rules have consequences, and not always
writing a back-story and coming up with a the ones you expect. A Houserule you
personality, and purchase Abilities and thought was good might make your Stars
Traits with the expectation that you'll be too powerful, or too weak, or just too
relying on your magic. But a few hours annoyed to want to keep using it. But
into the first session, when you get your that's okay—there's no shame in
first Fumble while casting a spell, the admitting that you messed up. If a House
Director tells you that you just caught the Rule isn't working for your group,
attention of some astral demons and change it.
recommends that you and your fellow
That goes for both Directors and Stars.
Stars start running.
While Homebrewing is usually the
Hang on, you protest. Why on earth didn't purview of the Director, the game needs
you tell me that earlier? I'm supposed to to be fun for everyone. If you're a Star,
be a wizard; shouldn't I have known that and a Houserule—or the lack of a
magic isn't safe? Haven't I cast spells Houserule—is making you unhappy,
before? I'd have built my character you're well within your rights to ask
differently if I’d known using magic would your Director to change it.
get me in trouble. I might’ve even chosen
When you do try to change a faulty
a different concept. You just messed up my
Houserule, it’s a good idea to get your
entire character!
entire group involved. Stars and Directors
Gaming is supposed to be a fun can have very different perspectives of
experience, and that sort of argument how a rule works. Even if everyone agrees
isn't fun for anyone. Even if your that a rule is causing you a problem, you
Houserules are meant to be a secret in- might have different ideas about what
world, they shouldn't be secret out-of- parts are broken.
game.
Tools of the Trade
As far as gaming systems go, STaRS Play with Modifiers

doesn't have that many moving parts. Difficulty is one of the main ways the
That makes it simple to play, and it also game affects the Stars. Codifying when a
makes it simple to adapt. All you have to situation gives a Bonus or Penalty can
do is figure out what existing part of the go a long way towards a new set of
system is closest to your goal and twist it rules. You don’t need a complicated set of
until it fits. benefits and penalties for, say, facing in
combat if you can just say “attacks from
Make a new Ability Score
the front are harder, and attacks from
If Abilities represent fundamental aspects
behind are easier.”
of a character, adding new aspects
usually means adding a new Ability Break the Rules
score. A game where wealth is an And then there are the times when the
important aspect of the campaign might rules as written just won't work. While
introduce a “Wealth” Ability, for example. inconvenient, it's not the end of the world.
In a campaign where the Stars are You can always break the rules of the
actively trying to spread their legend, a game, or write new ones, so long as
“Fame” Ability might be more useful. you're consistent about it. This isn't
some sacred document, after all. It's
Make it a Character
important to be consistent in your game,
If you can personify something, you can
so the Stars all know what to expect, but
probably represent it as a character.
beyond that anything goes.
This works particularly well when you
need to define multiple aspects of a
thing—not just that you have a mansion,
say, but that it has a given size, staff, etc.
You'll probably have to combine this
method with the last one to invent some
new and different Abilities—you can
write up an entire kingdom as if it were a
single character, but it doesn't make
much sense to talk about its Intellect or
Physique. Instead, you might grade it on
Size, Wealth, Loyalty, and so on.
Advanced Combat Options
Complicate actions are intentionally Charge

abstract. That lets us avoid the headache Sometimes, your normal movement isn’t
that usually comes from trying to keep quite enough. You might be slowed, or an
track of special rules for grappling, enemy might be too far away. Or maybe
disarming, and throwing foes around. But you’re just mad. As a Major Action, you
with abstraction can come may move a short distance and attempt
homogeneity—if groups aren’t careful an Overcome action with a Penalty.
with their descriptions, it’s easy for every
Disarm
Complication to start looking much the
The basic Conflict rules don’t really cover
same. However, a little complexity can be
being disarmed. One reading might lump
fun, especially if it opens new options.
it under the Complicate action. But if you
With that in mind, here are a few, more don’t find that satisfactory, try this: As a
complicated things you can play with Major Action, you may make an Agility
during physical Conflicts. They go well or Physique Check. On a success, you
with the “Tactical Positioning” rules later knock an item from an enemy’s hands
in the chapter. and throw it up to ten feet away. Or hold
onto it, if you have free hands.
Called Shots
For some players, the rules for attacking Immobilization
are a little too abstract. They don’t want Complicate actions don’t interact with
to just generally shoot a foe, they want to movement as much as we might like—
shoot them in the leg, or arm, or head. In having a Penalty to Speed will cut your
STaRS, the simplest way to model this is movement in half, but that’s about it. If
to combine Damage and Complicate into a you want, a Complication can prevent a
single super-action. If you attempt an target from moving at all, instead of
Adrenaline Surge on an Overcome roll providing a Bonus.
and succeed, you can impose both
Damage and a Complication—one point
of Damage and one round of Complication
per success.
Intimidation  You can allow an enemy to

Trying to scare your foe during combat is retreat about ten feet in a
certainly a reasonable enough direction you choose instead of
Complication. But it’s also one of the few taking a point of Damage. They
plausible types of social attack you can can do this multiple times if you’d
make mid-fight. You can typically use like, but the key is that they’re
Presence to make mental Overcome partially in control of the motion—
attempts mid-fight by intimidating your you can attempt to drive them, but
foes. These attacks may have a Bonus if they can choose to take the
your side looks like they have the upper damage instead.
hand, and a Penalty if your friends look
like they’re losing. They’ll also get a  You can make a Physique check
Penalty if you can’t communicate clearly, to toss an enemy five feet per
though body language can penetrate success, in any direction you
many language barriers. want. They can’t choose not to
take the damage.
Power Attack
It’s pretty easy to simulate a “careful aim”  After hitting with an attack, you
option via Aid. But sometimes you just can choose to turn Damage into
want a big, wild swing and it’s hard to see knockback—about five feet per
how Aid helps you with that. Instead, as a point of Damage given up. Your
special option when making attacks, you Director might limit what sorts of
may voluntarily take a Penalty to your attacks this option can be used
Overcome attempt to deal an extra two with—it might make sense with a
points of Damage on a success. warhammer but not a rapier, or
with a bazooka but not a pistol.
Knockback This might only be available with
In books and movies, people get knocked unusually powerful Weapons or
around in fights all the time. And in all Adrenaline Surges.
sorts of ways, we might add. Thus, we’ve
got a few ideas on how you could make The distances mentioned above are for
that happen in Stars. normal Checks, of course. Adrenaline
Surges should translate to longer
throws and bigger knockback effects.
Sloppy Recovery
Things like being knocked down are a
rather straightforward Complication.
Except, sometimes, for recovery. Why
can’t you just stand up after being
knocked down? Why does it take a check?
The typical answer is “because otherwise
someone might just stab you.” Thus, with
the Director’s permission, you may
recover from a simple physical
Complication without a check—but if
you do, it either takes a Major Action or
allows adjacent foes to make a free
attack against you.
Wrestling
Wrestling is often the most complicated
part of a combat system. Within reason, it
affects the attacker almost as much as it
does the victim. In STaRS, we can
represent it as a special type of
Complicate action. If you impose a
“Pinned” Complication, you also gain a
“Grappler” Complication—even if you’re
in control, wrestling is kind of distracting.
Both conditions make you easier for
people not currently wrestling to hit you,
both prevent you from moving without a
check, and both allow you to make
Physique checks to move or damage the
other. The trick is that the Grappler’s
attacks get a Bonus, and the Pinned
character’s attacks take a Penalty.
It’s not the safest means of fighting,

though. If the Pinned character
successfully resists or removes the
Complication, they can reverse the hold
instead of escaping—they become the
Grappler, and you become the Pinned.
Competence Levels
The basic STaRS rules assume that Anything that requires a higher
everyone is operating on about the same Competence Level is impossible. No
power level. Sure, one Star might be a bit matter how many times they try, a normal
faster than another, but they won’t be person will never be able to outrun a car.
able to run a thousand times faster. In the On the other hand, they also won't fail to
rare event that an exception does crop up, walk across the street—anything that
Powers can be used to model it. And for requires a lower level automatically
most games, that’s perfect. succeeds. It's only if a task is exactly at
your Competence level that you have to
On the other hand, sometimes you want
roll a check.
characters who are all phenomenally
capable in their own specialized fields. A There are five levels of Competence:
game of superheroes, or gods, or even one Pathetic, Subpar, Normal, Exceptional,
where one Star is a mouse, and another is and Superhuman. Characters are
a badger can all benefit from a little assumed to operate at a Normal
codification of just how strong the strong Competence level, unless they possess a
guy is. Trait or something similar altering that. A
character doesn’t have to have a single
Competence Levels
Competence level, either. Different
The solution, as you might have guessed
Abilities, even different uses of the same
from the title of this section, is a concept
ability, can have different Competence
called Competence. Your Competence
levels.
Level determines what is and isn't
possible for you to do—what's so easy Competence and Adrenaline Surges
you don't need to bother rolling, what's Keeping track of Competence also serves
challenging enough to be worth a Check, to codify Adrenaline Surges a bit. With
and what's simply beyond your these rules in play, we can say that an
capabilities. You and Superman can have Adrenaline Surge lets you act as though
the same Physique score, but different your Competence Level was one step
Competence levels. Both of you need to higher. If lifting a fallen tree off a friend
make Checks to lift a heavy object, but for would require Exceptional Competence, a
you that might mean a big dog, while for normal character could manage it with an
Superman it might mean an aircraft Adrenaline Surge.
carrier.
The Five Competence Levels Explained As we touched on in the Difficulty

section, what you should
 Pathetic Competence is reserved designate as "Normal
for such basic tasks that failure is, Competence" has a major effect
essentially, impossible. No-one on the feel of the game. The
should be able to mess up a farther you let Normal
challenge requiring only Pathetic Competence stretch, the more
Competence. No matter how difficult and complicated the tasks
injured they are, no matter how you let normal Stars attempt, the
many obstacles and setbacks they more powerful they'll feel. Crank it
face, Stars will still succeed at this. up high and you've got a big-
Tasks requiring Pathetic budget summer action movie; keep
Competence as so simple you it low and you'll feel more like
don't even think of them as you're in a gritty crime or horror
tasks—open the door, say hello, film.
that sort of thing.
 Exceptional Competence is
 Subpar Competence is slightly reserved for the best of the best,
more demanding. Subpar the baddest of the bad. Tasks
Competence is reserved for the requiring Exceptional
sort of tasks that are second- Competence should be in the
nature…until you get hurt. realm of human ability, but on
Jogging down the street, for the edge of it. They're the kind of
instance, isn't something you'd thing that a normal guy needs
normally need to roll for—unless either a lot of training or lot of help
you'd just broken your leg? (or better yet, both) to accomplish.
 Normal Competence is, well,  Superhuman Competence is,
normal. It's the default level of well, superhuman. Tasks
challenge for the Stars. Tasks requiring Superhuman
requiring Normal Competence Competence are completely
should be possible, even beyond the scope of "normal"
probable, but never so easy that people. If you can't imagine an
there's not a chance of failure. In unpowered character doing it,
some ways, Normal Competence is even in the goofiest of action
the easiest to define—"it's what I movies, it probably requires
can do!"—but in many ways that's Superhuman Competence.
deceptive.
Competence in Conflict On the other hand, if your Competence

We use the Conflict rules when we want Level is lower, you gain an automatic
to inject a little more nuance into the two failures per extra Competence
game, so it should be no surprise that we Level. Again, you still have to roll to see
need to cover a few special cases when it just how badly you did—if you succeed on
comes to actions and Competence. the Check, you don’t suffer any extra
failures, but you’re still getting hit. Don’t
In general, if the Competence level of
forget, though, you can attempt an
whatever Ability you’re rolling is higher
Adrenaline Surge when defending
than your opponents, not only do you
yourself, acting as though you had an
automatically succeed, you gain an
extra Competence Level and potentially
automatic two successes for every extra
nullifying the hit.
Competence Level. That’s on top of your
normal result—you roll merely to see Competence and Characters
how much extra success you have. If we’re opening the doors to characters
with truly superhuman abilities, we’ll
Those automatic successes are enough
need a new Trait: Boost.
to automatically resist Overcome
attempts. If a normal soldier takes a Boosts work much like Skills—each one
swing at a master swordsman with covers between a fourth and a third of an
Exceptional Competence in melee combat, Ability’s typical uses. However, instead of
they simply miss, no questions asked. merely providing a Bonus, a Boost
increases your character’s basic
There’s one special caveat to that: if the
Competence Level for those Checks.
Ability that determines Grace is at a
higher Competence Level than an With a single Boost to, say, “raw physical
attack, each extra level counts as an strength,” your character would be able to
application of Armor, reducing the routinely attempt Exceptionally difficult
incoming damage by two. That same feats of strength, such as lifting a car,
master swordsman might hit a stone bending iron bars, or wrestling a horse to
golem just fine, but that doesn’t the ground.
necessarily mean he can hurt it.
A Boost costs 2 XP, twice as much as a
Finally, your Multiple Overcome or Skill. And for a whopping 4 XP, you can
Complicate actions affect an extra three purchase a Broad Boost, applying to all
targets per Competence Level above uses of the Ability.
Normal.
Competence and Co-Stars

Co-Stars are, mechanically, nothing but
collections of modifiers that say how easy .Improving Your Game: Be Careful!
or hard Checks made against them are. With the introduction of Competence
Just like we can say that all Checks against Levels and Boosts, Stars can potentially
a Co-Star are made with, oh, a double become quite powerful…but that doesn't
Penalty, we can also say that Checks mean they should be allowed to. Imagine
against them require Exceptional a character with Exceptional Competence
Competence. Or even Superhuman, if you in medicine in a game where a major goal
want a truly unbeatable foe. is finding a cure to a zombie virus—he
Co-Stars can require a certain could conceivably whip one up with a
Competence Level to affect just like they single Check, albeit with an Adrenaline
can impose certain Penalties. This can be Surge.
as narrow as a single Challenge Group or If you think that high Competence levels
as broad as “all checks,” it’s really up to might cause problems in your
you. When it comes to non-conflict- campaign, you should feel free to place
relevant abilities, such as a genius’s limits. This can be particularly apparent
Exceptionally scientific skills…well, just with combat skills, where it’s possible to
like we don’t care how much a Power Boost yourself to the point that enemies
should cost, we don’t really need to that challenge you would wipe the floor
worry about Competence in areas that with your friends.
the Stars won’t be opposing—just note
that the Co-Star is incredibly smart and
move on.
Doom Pool and Other Horrors
STaRS is generally set up as a pretty The Doom Pool’s size is not constant.
heroic system. Sure, you can tinker with Instead, it grows or shrinks as the game
difficulty to make heroes less powerful, progresses.
and the Director can do a lot to set the
mood, but RPGs always work best when  At the beginning of each scene,
add a die to the Pool. This
the story and the rules work together, one
happens before the dice are rolled
supporting the other. Thus, here we for the scene.
present a set of house rules for darker
games, intended to create a tense,  Whenever the Stars make things
paranoid experience. worse, add a die to the Pool.
What qualifies as a “making things
Doom Pool worse” is up to the Director, but
Perhaps the most important element of examples include making false
accusations, failing to protect
horror is the tension. Sure, the monster is
innocents, and inadvertently
scary, but not as scary as its absence, the aiding villains.
nagging fear that it could show up at any
minute. That the longer it goes without  Whenever a Star suffers an
you seeing it, the worse its reappearance Injury, remove a die from the
Pool. After all, something bad did
will be. In STaRS, we try to capture that
just happen to cause that Injury;
feeling with a Doom Pool, a ticking time it's probably best to back off for a
bomb counting down to tragedy. At the moment.
beginning of every session, place three
or more ten-sided dice in the center of  Whenever the Stars make things
better, remove a die to the Pool.
the table. These form the Doom Pool.
Again, “making things better” is
At the beginning of each scene after subjective, but easy examples
include saving lives, slaying
the first, roll all the dice currently in the
monsters, and restoring shattered
Doom Pool. If you get three of a kind, relationships.
something during the upcoming scene
goes horribly wrong (and if you get three Improving Your Game— Too Many
6’s, something goes really wrong!). The Dice
Doom Pools can get big. If you don’t
exact nature of the disaster is up to the
have enough dice, it’s okay to roll the
Director, but sudden betrayals, demon ones you have in batches. In some
attacks, and violent deaths are all likely to ways, it’s almost more fun to do it like
happen. Afterwards, the Doom Pool this— it drags the process out,
returns to the starting size. ramping up the tension just that little
bit more.
Depravity While things can get better, it’s a lot

All regions have a Depravity level, easier for them to get worse. Whenever
representing how dangerous the area the group does significant harm to the
is. At low levels of Descent, you could region, or a Star dies, increase the
almost think the area is safe. At high Depravity level by one step. What
levels, demons openly stalk the streets, exactly qualifies as “significant harm” is
and to venture out at night is certain up to the group, but generally it’s not
death. In practical terms, Depravity enough to simply fail a quest. The group
determines how many dice you place in must botch things in the worst possible
the Doom Pool at the start of the game, way, resulting in unnecessary deaths,
as well as how dangerous the things you’ll misery, and destruction. If the child-
face can be—a Region’s Depravity level killer escapes capture yet again, that’s a
corresponds to the typical Competence simple failure. But if the local middle
level of the monsters you’ll find there. school gets burned to the ground in the
ensuing fight, resulting in multiple
Regions "default" to Depravity 3,
casualties, watch that Depravity rise!
representing a typically horrific place to
live. For every higher level of Depravity, Depravity Description
increase this by two; conversely, 1 We’re not afraid, not yet, but
decrease it by two for lower levels. See we’re certainly getting there.
the table at the end of this section for Lately it seems like horror is
around every corner. Is it
examples.
just you, or does everyone
The Stars should be allowed to have some have a ghost story?
effect on Depravity, but it’s difficult. If the 3 They’re out there. You’ve
heard them, late at night.
group makes a major positive
Forget the human violence;
contribution to the region, reduce the it’s the inhuman violence
Depravity level by one step. A “major that scares you.
positive contribution” is a significant, 5 The world’s gone mad.
long-term thing. It's not enough to just During the day the streets
catch a murderer or clear some ghouls are full of looters; at night
out of the graveyard; you have to catch they’re full of monsters. You
had to kill a man yesterday.
the serial killer who's been haunting the
So, what? It’s not like
town for decades or slay the ghoul lord anyone will care.
who rules over a dozen packs across 7 Brother murders brother,
three states. It should take quite a few demons stalk and kill
sessions to change Depravity. openly, and the streets are
red with blood and fire. This
is truly hell on earth.
Dark Secrets Now, you might be wondering why you’d

Trust? The word sounds familiar. It ever try to guess another Star’s Dark
was… a good thing, right? Who knows. Secret. After all, it hurts everyone when a
Right now, trust just gets you killed. Secret is guessed. You’d have to have a
good reason to even try...so, let’s say that,
All characters have a Dark Secret,
if you have discovered another Star’s
known only to them and the Director.
Dark Secret, checks you reroll using
Dark Secrets generally relate to past
your own Secret gain a Bonus. But don’t
misdeeds. Perhaps one Star killed a man
let your guard down— the increased
in a car crash and was never caught,
effect only applies if your own Secret is
another used to worship dark gods, and a
still a mystery. If someone else figures it
third is… not exactly human. Dark
out, the bonus is lost.
Secrets are not pleasant or positive—
they should be things would poison a
character’s relationships if they were
found out.
All Dark Secrets are related to a single

type of Check, based on the nature of the
secret. Our hit-and-run driver might have
a bonus to Checks related to vehicles,
while the cultist might gain a bonus on
Intellect Checks related to the occult.
Three times per session, you may reroll
a Check made using that Rote.
The “may” is important, though, because

Dark Secrets come at a cost. If your
fellow Stars guess your Dark Secret, add
three dice to the Doom Pool and
immediately roll it. Even worse, the
Doom Pool’s starting size is increased
by one at all subsequent sessions. On
the plus side, you can use the bonus from
your Secret freely, without worrying
about your fellow Stars guessing.
Encumbrance
“How much stuff can you carry?” It’s a Backpack

tricky question for a game to ask. Not so Every character has a backpack that
much from the designer’s end—it’s easy can hold between one hundred and two
for us to say “twenty pounds per point of hundred pounds. You can be precise if
Physique. Done!” It’s a lot harder for the you want—the aforementioned 20
Stars to figure out how much everything pounds per point of Physique is a good
they’re carrying weighs and add it all ratio—but it’s probably not worth it. Just
up—then do it again every time they pick remember that your backpack can hold a
something up or use up some arrows. lot. It’s also bulky and heavy.
We’re not playing a video game, where
When wearing your backpack, take a
the computer does all the repetitive math
Penalty on all physical Checks. As per
for us. No one wants to waste their time
usual movement rules, this also means
constantly adding and subtracting. It’s
you move at half speed. To avoid the
irritating, obstructionist, and boring.
penalty, you can drop your backpack as
In practice, most groups use the rule “eh, a Free Action—just remember where you
don’t go crazy.” STaRS defaults to that as left it if you have to retreat! If you need to
well, and it generally works just fine. But get something out of your backpack, it’s
it does lead to an odd phenomenon: a Major Action.
“hammerspace.” Items exist in a state of
A “backpack” doesn’t have to be a literal
quantum uncertainty, simultaneously in
backpack, incidentally. It could be
all available containers until the character
anything from a burlap sack to a
pulls them out and collapses the
magically animated platform. The
waveform.
important thing is that it fits your
If we want rules to deal with character and follows the rules.
encumbrance, we should address both
issues: have a simple way to track how
much stuff you have, and to know where it
is.
Containers Pockets
Since your backpack is so unwieldy, most Lastly, everyone has their pockets.
of the things you need, such as weapons, Pockets can hold a handful of tiny items,
will be kept in your Containers. mostly the sort of things not worth
“Containers” is a nebulous term—it can tracking elsewhere. Keys, cell phones,
refer to sheathes, belt pouches, wallets…really, anything you’re likely to
bandoliers, slings, anything you want to have in your pockets right now.
hang on your person to carry your stuff
for you. Characters can manage one
container for every point of Physique.
Each container must be defined, with its
type and location listed. Knowing where
your items are is half the point, after all.
Containers are not infinite, naturally

enough, but to keep things easy, we base
their capacity on size, not weight (though
the usual “within reason” rules apply). A
single Container can hold:
 One-half of a two-handed item,

such as a sniper rifle or two-
handed sword.
 A single one-handed item, such as

an arming sword or a toolbox.
 Three small items, such as a pistol

or a pair of binoculars. A stack of
tiny items counts as one small
item—a sack of coins, say, or a
couple rifle magazines.
Larger items, such as polearms and rocket

launchers, cannot be carried in containers
at all—you’ve got to use your hands.
Armor can also fill Container slots, if

you want to be harsh. Light armor, such
as a bulletproof vest or mail shirt, counts
as one Container; heavier armor, such as a
suit of plate mail, counts as two.
Flaws
The flipside of special powers is special Ineptitudes

weakness, or Flaws. Each Flaw can be +1 XP
thought of as the opposite of a positive
Ineptitudes are basically anti-Skills.
Trait—instead of providing a type of
Where Skills represent unusual talents in
bonus, they inflict a penalty. And while
a field, Ineptitudes represent unusual
Traits cost Trait Points to acquire, Flaws
weaknesses. Characters may have an
give you points when selected. Each Flaw
Ineptitude in a type of Check, suffering a
grants a character Experience Points
Penalty when attempting them. Look to
equal to the cost of the corresponding
the usual guidance on how broad Skills
Trait.
can be to see how much an Ineptitude can
A word of caution, however. Playing a cover.
character with glaring weaknesses can be
Inability
fun on occasion, and it's generally fair to
+0 XP (Trivial), +1 XP (Minor), +3 XP
grant them a little extra in return. On the
(Moderate), or +6 XP (Major)
other hand, it's easy to think of a Flaw
that won't really hinder you in order to Inabilities are basically anti-Powers. Just
get the extra points. If you use them, like Powers represent abilities above and
groups should make sure Flaws will beyond what humans can normally do,
actually weaken their characters. Inabilities represent the loss of an
ability normally possessed by humans.
Vulnerability
Just like Powers, Anti-Powers are based
+1 XP/Rank
on their versatility.
Vulnerabilities are basically anti-Armor.
Instead of reducing the damage you take,  A Trivial Anti-Power isn’t a
weakness so much as an
Vulnerabilities cause you to suffer an
occasional quirk, such as being
additional two Damage on a failed colorblind.
Defense Check. Luckily, they’re a little  A Minor Anti-Power is only rarely
more specific than Armor. Vulnerabilities a weakness, such as a pathological
are to a specific sort of physical or fear of the dark.
mental attack, though your weakness  A Moderate Anti-Power is
must be relatively common. “Vulnerable significant but has well-defined
limits, such as being blind.
to iron and steel” is reasonable;
 A Major Anti-Power will affect
“vulnerable to kryptonite” is not. You can
nearly everything you do, such as
still have it on your sheet, but you won’t
being quadriplegic.
get any XP back.
Hero Points
One idea that pops up a lot in game design Apologies

is the idea of a "meta-point"—some sort Directors have a lot of power over Stars'
of power unrelated to in-game events that characters. Anytime they want, they can
players can use to alter the rules of the raise the stakes and mess things up for
game. These meta-points are typically the Stars. Most of that's part and parcel of
used as protection against bad luck, the role, but it can seem unfair at times. If
compensation for unfair turns of events, that's how you feel, you might want to try
or to give players more narrative control. this method: Whenever the Director
We don't think that such a mechanism is breaks the normal rules of the game,
necessary for a good game, which is why affected Stars gain a Hero Point.
they're not in the main rules, but they can
Examples of this kind of thing include:
certainly be fun.
Gaining Hero Points  Declaring a character runs out of

ammo—be it bullets, arrows, or
Stars start each session with one Hero
mystic energy—at a dramatic
Point, plus one for every Major Goal moment.
accomplished (see below). Luckily, Stars
can earn more through certain in-game  Keeping a Co-Star going when the
actions. The in-game replenishment is dice say they should have died.
when the magic happens, so to speak.
Players like getting Hero Points, and if  Causing a character's powers to
arbitrarily weaken or fail.
there's a way to get more, they'll tend to
take it. If points are given for good  Bringing a superhero’s rare
descriptions, expect a lot of extravagant weakness into play.
narration. If Stars get points by stealing
treasure, prepare for endless Stunting
kleptomania. Groups should award Hero Every now and again, one of your Stars
Points for behaviors they want to will do something incredibly cool. They'll
encourage. come up with a brilliant tactic in a fight,
trot out a bit of masterful narration, or get
With that being the case, we'll present a really into the roleplaying. When a Star
few different ideas for how to award Hero does something generally agreed to be
Points. Groups should feel free to mix and "awesome," award them a Hero Point.
match the following suggestions, as well
as add their own.
In many ways, this is the simplest, most Minor Goals are short-term things, easily
Pavlovian form of Hero Points: do achieved within a setting. Think of them
something I like, get a reward. If you do as your character's hobbies—things like
use this, try raising your standards as winning duels, talking your way out of a
the game continues to encourage Stars to tense situation, or solving mysteries.
continue pushing their limits. Minor Goals should take some effort to
achieve—more than just saying "I build a
Swashbuckling
model ship"—but they should be
Sometimes you want a particularly over-
possible to achieve while pursuing
the-top action game. Genres like
other goals. Whenever you accomplish a
superheroes, wuxia, or pulp almost
Minor Goal, gain one Hero Point.
demand it! If that's the case, you can try
awarding a Hero Point when a Star Characters aren't static, though. Their
takes an entirely unnecessary risk in favorite activities change over time, and
the name of excitement. Things like their Minor Goals should reflect that.
sliding down a banister instead of taking Stars may rewrite one Minor Goal at
the stairs, diving head-first into a firefight any Minor Milestone.
(with a gun in each hand, ideally), or
Major Goals are long-term objectives,
attempting to catch a projectile instead of
things that can't be achieved without
just dodging it are all prime examples of
extensive effort in and out of game.
behaviors to reward. Of course, you
They're campaign goals, rather than
shouldn't allow the same stunts to be
common pleasures—things like finding
used over and over again—that's not
your parents' killer, overthrowing a king,
nearly as exciting. In fact, stunts should
or becoming CEO of a multinational
need to be bigger and crazier to keep
corporation. Characters begin each
earning points (it also goes without
session with one extra Hero Point for
saying that a Director seeking to run a
every Major Goal they or a teammate
game like this should be extremely
have accomplished (since it's kind of
generous about when they require Ability
unfair that only one Star would benefit
checks and imposes Environmental
from something they all worked towards).
Disadvantage).
Characters often retire after
Character Goals
accomplishing a Major Goal. If not, a new
Suppose you really want to encourage
Major Goal should be picked after the
your Stars to roleplay their characters.
old one is accomplished. Just like Minor
You guessed it—you can use Hero Points
Goals, a character’s Major Goals can
to reward them for acting in character.
change over time. They should be a little
Each Star should draw up a list of four
more permanent, though, so a Major Goal
goals for their character: three Minor
may be changed at any Major
and one Major.
Milestone.
Spending Hero Points Generally speaking, stating a fact

So, you’ve got a nice stack of Hero Points must add to the game, rather than
sitting in front of you, and more flowing in just bypassing a problem. The option
all the time. So, what can you do with is meant to give the Stars more control
them? We recommend letting Stars: over the game’s narrative, not give
them extra power to achieve their
 Reroll: A Hero Point may be used goals. Directors can and should feel
to reroll a Check, though you must free to veto inappropriate uses of
spend it before the Director this power, in which case the Star
narrates the results. retains their Hero Point.
 Aid: A Hero Point may be used
before making a Check to gain a
Bonus, though only once—you
can’t spend multiple points to
make a Check wildly easier.
 State a Fact: You may spend a

Hero Point to make a small
addition to the game. You can't
use Hero Points to remove an
obstacle, but you can use them to
create ways of solving a problem,
to introduce connections where
none existed before, and so on.
For example, one Star might spend a

Hero Point to determine that the
assassin the party is chasing is the
apprentice of the one who killed their
mentor years ago. Another might
spend a Hero Point to determine that,
while lost in the woods, their
character just stumbled across an old
path. A third may spend a Hero Point
so that the chemicals they need to
make a homemade bomb just happen
to have been stored in the same
warehouse.
Mass Combat
The conventional Conflict rules work just Commanding Formations

fine for small-scale skirmishes but If a Star wishes to command a Formation,
imagine trying to keep track of a hundred they must become part of it. The
different enemies. Even at STaRS-level combined Star-Formation is a single
abstraction, rolling a hundred Defense character under the Star's control,
checks and a hundred Resistance checks a using the Formation's Physical Abilities
round would get old fast. Now imagine and the Star's Mental Abilities. The Star
that there are thousands, or tens of may leave the Formation as a Minor
thousands of soldiers on the battlefield! Action any time they wish, at which point
Meanwhile, here you are planning a the Formation regains its original
campaign full of sieges and grand battles. Abilities.
What's a Director to do?
While leading a formation, a Star may
Well, if the rules work best when you substitute a Presence (Leadership) or
stick to a handful of discrete units, why Intellect (Tactics) Check in place of a
not treat every group of combatants as if Physical Ability Check once per Round,
it was a single Co-Star? Or, perhaps, a representing their leadership or tactical
single Formation. skills. The Formation’s size-based
Competence level applies to this check.
Formations
They may also make Presence
Each Formation is a single Co-Star.
(Leadership) Checks to resist mental
Formations have all the normal Abilities
and social attacks. Finally, the
that the soldiers making them up have.
Formation's Morale gains a bonus equal
As a general rule, their Physical Abilities
to the Star's Presence or Intellect,
representing the training and fitness of
whichever is higher.
the soldiers, and Mental Abilities
representing the capability of the Formations and Size
Formation's commanders. A Formation's power is based on its size.
Numbers, after all, do matter, and never
Battles are rarely won by killing everyone
more so that in combat. They’re not
on the opposite side. Instead, defeating an
everything, but it takes a special kind of
army means breaking its morale. A
soldier to win while outnumbered.
Formation has single, special type of
Grace: Morale. All attacks directed at a Armies come in many sizes, but we can
Formation damage Morale, be they sum them up with the following scale:
mental or physical.
Level Reference Managing Formations

Although it’s usually simpler to treat them
Soldier A long warrior as such, Formations aren’t individual
creatures. They’re groups of men, which
Squad A small group of soldiers,
can be combined or broken up at will.
working together.
Three Formations of the same size may
Company Up to a few hundred merge to become a single Formation,
soldiers, with several one size larger than before (See the
levels of command. chart above). The new Formation’s
Abilities are the average of its
Regiment A large, organized force of components. Traits carry over only if all
thousands, capable of three individual Formations have the
overrunning cities. same Trait. If a Star is commanding the
Formation, they may or may not remain
Army A seemingly endless
in command of the new formation,
horde.
depending on their military rank.
Conversely, one Formation may split

Formations gain one Bonus and inflict into three Formations one size larger
an extra two damage for each step than the original, with the same
larger they are than their opponent. A Abilities. If a Star was commanding the
Regiment attacking a Squad would thus original, he must choose which of the
gain a +4 bonus to their Overcome new Formations to merge with.
attempt and inflict an extra 4 damage on a
Additionally, a Formation may deploy
success. Conversely, a defending
any number of Formations that are two
Formation suffers one penalty and an
sizes smaller. Now, obviously there has
extra two damage for each step smaller
to be some limit—even a huge army will
they are than their opponent. It really
eventually run out of soldiers—but that
depends on which side the Stars are on,
limit is high enough that it's not really
and thus who’s making the check. If it’s
worth thinking about as more than a
purely a matter of Co-Star vs Co-Star, just
common-sense sort of thing. These
assume that the larger side wins.
summoned Formations have the same
Abilities and Traits as the original,
albeit with Competencies adjusted to
match their new size.
Player Verses Player
Even in the best groups, it’s bound to There’s only one time when you shouldn’t
happen eventually. One character will allow Opposed Checks—talking. Unless
disagree with another, and their both Stars want a Social Conflict to
respective Stars can’t think of any way to happen, groups should never allow
resolve the argument without rolling Opposed Checks to persuade,
some dice. Heck, in an “evil” campaign, intimidate, or otherwise control
characters might be backstabbing each another Star’s character—not unless
other every time you turn around! While they want to be persuaded. Doing so
serious arguments between Stars should violates one of the fundamental principles
be avoided whenever possible, there’s of the game, and only creates bad feelings
nothing wrong with a little character-on- on the part of the Star whose choices
character violence. Unfortunately, the were just overruled.
basic rules of the game don’t handle
player-verses-player very well—not
without completely invalidating the
abilities of your opponent. Thus, we turn
to homebrew.
When one Star is competing with another,

we have to use a variant form of Check,
known as an Opposed Check. To make an
Opposed Check, both Stars roll a d10
and add their Ability scores. Whoever’s
roll is higher succeeds. Bonuses and
Penalties work normally, and Adrenaline
Surges do not apply.
The “attacking” Star uses whatever Ability

makes sense, as if they were making a
normal Check. The “defending” Star picks
an Ability as if they were defending
against an NPC taking the same action.
It’s important to note that these rules

work for more than just fights. You can
use them for any kind of Check that pits
on Star against another—sneaking
around, a race, even a drinking contest.
Rote Skills
STaRS runs on Ability checks—all other Ability Rotes

game mechanics either modify checks or Agility Acrobatics
Melee Combat
are modified by checks. That makes it Riding
especially important to know exactly Stealth
Awareness Comprehension
what each Ability covers. Otherwise, Perception
ambitious Stars might try to argue Reading People
Searching
Directors into letting them use their best Tracking
Ability for every Check, in one way or Dexterity Catching
Driving
another. While creative solutions are Ranged Attacks
certainly good, constant stretching can Sleight of Hand
Thievery
lead to a mechanically dull game.
Intellect Computers
Crafting
Skills can also be a bit hard to figure out. Knowledge
Just how widely applicable should they Medicine
Science
be? When is a Skill too broad or too weak? Manipulation Commerce
Deception
While we think the advice that we’ve Disguise
Persuasion
given in previous chapters is pretty clear, Taunt
if you find yourself still feeling a bit lost, Physique Athletics
Raw Strength
we’ve prepared a list of Rotes—the main Fortitude
uses of each Ability, perfectly suited for Physical Grace
Wrestling
conversion into Skills. Rotes are not Charm
Presence
exclusive, and certainly don’t cover every Contacts
Intimidation
possible action a character can attempt, Leadership
but they make a good starting point. Performance
Speed Initiative
(To make things a bit easier, we’ve Ranged Defense
Reflexes
highlighted the Rotes every character will Quickness
need to pay attention to) Sprinting
Will Concentration
Magic
Memory
Mental Grace
Self-Control
Wits Animal Wrangling
Bureaucracy
Navigation
Resisting Manipulation
Wilderness Survival
Agility Dexterity
 Acrobatics—Flipping, diving,  Catching—Catching a thrown or
balancing, tumbling, and so on. falling object.
 Melee Combat—Hitting things at  Driving—Piloting a vehicle, be it a
close range, be it with a sword, car, fighter jet, or anything in
your fists, or even another enemy, between.
and avoiding getting hit in return.  Ranged Attacks—Hitting things at
 Riding—Riding horses, camels, a distance.
and more exotic mounts.  Sleight of Hand—Minor feats of
 Stealth—Hiding, moving silently, legerdemain, such as card tricks or
and generally sneaking around. picking pockets.
 Thievery—Picking locks,
Awareness
bypassing security systems,
 Comprehension—Understanding
disabling traps, and similarly
people (as well as animals and
nefarious tasks.
aliens) when you don’t share a
language. Intellect
 Perception—Noticing things  Computers—Hacking,
about the world beyond you. programming, and the like. This
 Reading People—Forming rote may not be relevant in all
impressions of people and settings. If it isn't, it can often be
working out their motives. replaced by "Occult," covering
 Searching—Actively seeking out ritual magic and theoretical
fine detail, like traps and clues. knowledge of the arcane.
 Tracking—Following someone  Crafting—Building and fixing
(or something!) over time. things—and breaking them.
 Knowledge—Knowing about
things, if not necessarily how to do
them. If you don't replace the
Computers Rote, most things
covered by "Occult" would fall
under this Rote.
 Medicine—First aid, surgery, and
medical knowledge.
 Science—Both academic
knowledge and practical
applications.
Manipulation Presence
 Commerce—Buying, selling,  Charm—Making good first
brokering deals, and more. impressions and getting people to
 Deception—Lying or misleading like you.
another person.  Contacts—Knowing the right
 Disguise—Disguising yourself as people at the right time.
someone else.  Intimidation—Scaring people,
 Persuasion—Getting another either subtly or overtly.
person to do what you want  Leadership—Rallying and
through honeyed words. inspiring your allies.
 Taunt—Provoking another to take  Performance—Acting, music, and
a course of action you choose. similar skills.
Physique Speed
 Athletics—Climbing, swimming,  Initiative—Determining if you act
long-distance running, and other before or after your foes.
forms of "pure" physical exertion.  Ranged Defense—Avoiding
 Exerting Force—Exercises of raw attacks from afar.
strength, such as lifting, pushing,  Reflex—Avoiding exploding
and breaking things. fireballs, falling rocks, and other
 Fortitude—How easily you can things that make you leap for
resist poison, disease, and other cover.
such afflictions.  Quickness—Getting things done
 Physical Grace—How many as fast as possible, whether that
physical attacks (anything from "thing" is a physical or mental task.
punches to fireballs) you can  Sprinting—Trying to get
withstand before being injured. somewhere before someone else.
 Wrestling—Grappling with
another character.
Will
 Concentration—Maintaining your
focus on a single task despite
distractions.
 Magic—The default of assumption
of magic or psychic powers is that
they are based on Will, although
the details may vary by game.
 Memory—Remembering past
details and events.
 Mental Grace—How many mental
attacks (trauma, telepathic
assaults, and the like) you can
withstand before breaking down,
and how strong an attack you can
take without getting seriously
hurt.
 Self-Control—Keeping control of
your emotions and reactions and
resisting mental attacks.
Wits
 Animal Wrangling—Training,
calming, controlling, and
otherwise dealing with difficult
beasts.
 Bureaucracy—Dealing with
governments, big corporations,
and anyone fond of excess
paperwork.
 Navigation—Getting from point A
to point B by the shortest, safest
route.
 Resisting Manipulation—Seeing
through lies, honeyed words, and
other social manipulations.
 Wilderness Survival—Surviving
on your own in the wild.
Vehicles
No matter the setting, people are lazy. Vehicles

Eventually, we all want something to do Vehicles are also Companions, albeit the
the moving for us, be it a horse or a cheaper version. As non-sentient
spaceship. A lot of the time, you won't creatures, usually lacking in hands,
need any fancy rules to deal with them— vehicles generally have just three
you just hop on your horse and ride into Abilities: Agility, Physique, and Speed.
the sunset. But if you get into a fight while As non-sentient creatures, vehicles don't
on your horse, at the very least you'll get Actions of their own—their driver
want to know how it affects your must "donate" his own Actions for a
movements. vehicle to move or attack.
Mounts In a fight, it usually takes a Minor Action

As we touched upon in the Traits section, to enter or exit a vehicle. Once inside,
mounts are Sentient Companions. As Stars use the Vehicle's Abilities in place
such, they have a full set of Abilities. Most of their own, so long as their checks are
creatures who are willing to tolerate a related to what the vehicle is actually
rider work on a different scale than doing (if you’re reaching out the window
humans—they tend to have lower mental to stab someone, that’s probably not
capacities and higher physical ones. using the vehicle’s Agility).
As sentient creatures, Mounts can take Track characters' location inside a

Actions in a Conflict, just like you. On the vehicle normally. Sometimes that just
other hand, they're not totally means knowing who's on the left side of
independent, since they've got you the car and who's on the right; other
strapped to their back. You and your times, especially with large vehicles like
mount share Minor Actions, but you ships, you'll wind up with an entirely
each get your own Major Action. To keep separate map.
things simple, your mount acts on your
Vehicles in a Fight
turn. In many cases, mounts use their
Attacks and Complications target the
Major Actions to Sprint, greatly extending
Vehicle by default. Even if it's possible to
your mobility, but some war-trained
see the riders inside, Stars' Defense
mounts might prefer to make attacks of
Checks are get a Bonus when inside a
their own.
vehicle (and their attacks take a Penalty
It generally takes a Minor Action to get when shooting at enemies inside
on or off your mount, although a Director vehicles).
might allow you to make a Speed Check to
speed things up.
Enemies can attempt to enter your

vehicle. Usually, that means a Minor
Action to open the door or swing over the
side, just like you. If there are obstacles,
such locked doors, guardrails, or a friend
holding the door shut, it takes them a
Major Action, and you may attempt a
Physique Check to resist the boarding
action. If circumstances are reversed, and
you’re the one trying to get in, boarding a
hostile vehicle generally takes a
Physique Check.
Pilot Skill
A nice ride is all well and good, but there
are times when the rider's skill is
important, too. Once per round, a Star
may use their relevant Ability in place
of one of their mount or vehicles. This
might be Agility while riding a horse,
Dexterity when driving a car, or even
Intellect if piloting a vast spaceship.
Character Sheet P a g e |135
Character Sheet
Character Creation Cheat Sheet P a g e |136
Character Creation Cheat Sheet

In most campaigns, characters start with 3 XP to spend on Abilities, and 3 XP to spend on
Traits. Abilities begin at 5, and you can gain more XP by voluntarily reducing Abilities, on a
1:1 basis.
For maximum speed, try one of the following distributions:

 7, 6, 6, 4, and the remaining scores at 5
 7, 7, 6, 4, 4, and the remaining scores at 5
 7, 7, 7, 4, 4, 4, and the remaining scores at 5
 6, 6, 6, and the remaining scores at 5
Trait Cost Effect

Ability 1 Point per rank Increase your Ability rank by 1, to a maximum of 7.
Increase
Ability -1 Point per rank Decrease your Ability rank by 1, to a minimum of 3.
Decrease
Trait Cost Effect Example

Armor 1 Point per rank Decrease Damage received by two Plate mail: Reduce all Physical Damage
by 2
Companion, 3 Points or more Gain a sidekick with half as many XP as Bruno: A loyal wolf follows you around.
Sentient you, rounded down.
Companion, 1 Point or more Gain a special vehicle with half as many Batmobile: A high-tech car.
Vehicle XP as you, rounded down
Drawback -1 Point Trait loses about half its utility in one Dream Magic: Your Moderate Power
way or another. (Transmutation) only functions at night.
Power, Free A thematic ability with little effect on the Thick Fur: Doesn’t need a coat to stay
Trivial game. warm in winter temperatures.
Power, 1 Point A single “spell” with little versatility. Gust of Wind: Can generate short,
Minor intense blasts of wind
Power, 3 Points A versatile-but-limited power, or a set of Air Magic: Can perform many spells
Moderate thematically-related “spells.” involving air.
Power, 6 Points A broad set of “spells” or powers, Elemental Magic: Can perform a huge
Major capable of achieving most tasks. number of spells, all based on the four
elements.
Skill 1 Point Gain a Bonus to certain Checks Street Magician: Gain a Bonus on
sleight-of-hand type Checks
Quirk 1 Point Use one Ability to do things Brawler: Make melee attacks with
Physique
Variable 2 Points per rank Gain one XP which may be re-assigned as Mad Science: You can make inventions,
Trait a Major Action, within thematic limits. equipment worth one XP.
Weapon 1 Point per rank Increase Damage dealt by two Claws: +2 Physical damage
Index P a g e |137
Index
Abilities Broad Boosts, 116
about, 8, 18–20 Builders, 58
Absent, 18 Called Shots, 111
and Character Creation, 10, 46 Challenge Groups, 65
and Experience Points, 10 Changelings (in Fairyland sample setting), 90
and Houserules, 110 Character, 46
and Rote Skills, 8, 129–33 advancement of, 10, 60–61
vs. Skills, 50 Cheat Sheet, 137
and Successes during Conflict, 25 and Companions, 10, 48
and Vehicle Companions, 134 and Competence Levels, 116
See also Checks; specific abilities Creation of, 10, 43–53, 135
Action Economy, 70 Gameplay, 101
Actions, 27 Goals, 125
See also Free Actions; Major Actions; Minor Traits, 47
Actions Charge, 111
Ad-Hoc Modifiers, 13 Checks
Adrenaline Surges, 8, 15, 112, 114 Ability Checks, 8, 9, 12, 25, 30, 40, 129–33
Agility (Ability), 19, 34, 131, 134 and Absent Abilities, 18
Aid (Major Action) and Aid, 31
about, 9, 31 and Complicate, 30, 32
and Enemy Actions, 32 vs. Conflict, 24
and Environmental Conflict, 41 and Co-Stars, 63
and Hero Points, 126 and Flaws, 123
and Modifiers, 14, 31 and Hero Points, 126
and Physical Conflict, 34 and Injury, 22
and Social Conflict, 37 and Modifiers, 13
Alternative Grace, 41 Opposed Checks, 129
Anti-Powers, 123 Successes, 25
Anti-Traits. see Flaws Combat. see Conflict
Area Attacks, 34 Companions
Armor, 10, 47, 53, 64, 122 about, 48
Attack, 8 and Character Creation, 10, 48
See also Conflict; Environmental Conflict; Social Non-Sentient, 10, 49, 53, 134–35
Conflict Sentient, 11, 134
Awareness (Ability), 19, 131 Competence Levels, 114–17
Backpack, 121 Complicate (Major Action)
Bonuses, 13, 128 about, 9, 30
See also Modifiers and Competence Levels, 116
Boomers, 58 and Enemy Actions, 32
Boosts, 116 and Environmental Conflict, 41
Boss Battles, 68 and Houserules, 111
Index P a g e |138
and Injury, 9, 22 Dexterity (Ability), 19, 34, 131

and Modifiers, 14 Difficulty, 15, 13–18
and Physical Conflict, 34 Director
and Social Conflict, 37 about, 6
and Vehicle Companions, 134 Advice for, 96, 104–7
Conflict and Co-Stars, 104
about, 8, 24 and Houserules, 109
vs. Checks, 24 and Modifiers, 13
and Competence Levels, 116 and Plot, 107
Enemy Actions, 32 Disarm, 111
Environmental, 39–40 Discounts, 10, 52
Free Actions, 8, 27, 32, 121 Doom Pool, 118–20
and Houserules, 111 Drawbacks, 52, 56, 60
Initiative, 26, 27, 33, 36 Dwarves (in Fairyland sample setting), 85
Mass Combat, 127–28 Elves (in Fairyland sample setting), 87
and Mounts, 134 Encounter Design, 69
Physical, 33–35 Encumbrance, 121–22
and Setting, 79 Enemy Actions, 32
Social, 36–38, 129 Enigmas, 59
See also Aid; Attack; Complicate; Move; Major Environment, 14
Actions; Minor Actions Environmental Conflict, 39–40
Containers, 122 Experience Points (XP)
Core Rules, 8, 11 and Abilities, 10
Co-Stars and Character Creation, 10, 46, 47
about, 6, 62, 63–67 and Companions, 10
and Competence Levels, 117 and Milestones, 10
Constraints of, 70 and Traits, 10, 47
and Directors, 104 Fairyland sample setting, 82
and Modifiers, 14, 63 Flaws, 10, 123
and Stars, 105 Formations, 127
Creating Opposition, 62 Fractal World building, 80
Creation of Worlds, 73–81 Free Actions, 8, 27, 32, 121
Cultures and Setting, 78 Game Master. see Director
Damage Gameplay, 6, 96–97, 104–7, 108–13
and Armor, 10, 48 Genre, 15, 48, 76
and Complicate, 41 Giants, 69
and Dangers, 39 Goals, 39, 125
and Grace, 9, 21, 34, 36–38, 64 Goblins (in Fairyland sample setting), 88
and Overcome, 9, 29, 32, 34, 36–38, 40 Grace
and Taken Out, 9, 21–23 about, 9
and Traits, 53 Alternative, 41
and Vulnerability, 123 and Competence Levels, 116
and Weapons, 10, 23, 47 and Co-Stars, 64
Dangers, 39 and Damage, 9, 21, 34, 36–38, 64
Dark Secrets, 120 and Health, 21–23
Death. see Taken Out and Social Conflict, 37
Defense Checks. see Checks See also Mental Grace; Physical Grace; Group
Depravity, 119 Conflicts
Index P a g e |139
Group Conflicts, 37 Minor Actions

Halfbreeds (in Fairyland sample setting), 90 about, 8
Health, 9, 21–23 during Conflict, 27, 32
See also Injury and Mounts, 134
Hero Points, 124–26 Move, 9
Homebrew, 109 and Non-Sentient Companions, 49
Hordes, 69 of Vehicle Companions, 134
Horror, 118–20 Walking, 28
Houserules, 109 Minor Powers and Character Creation, 10, 47, 49
Immobilization, 111 Minor Threats, 63
Immunities and Resistances, 48, 59 Missing Abilities, 18
Inability, 123 Moderate Powers and Character Creation, 10, 49
Ineptitudes, 123 Moderate Threats, 63
Initiative, 26, 27, 33, 36 Modifiers
Injury about, 8, 13
about, 9, 22 Ad-Hoc, 13
and Co-Stars, 64 and Aid, 14, 31
and Minor Milestones, 60 and Complicate, 14
and Modifiers, 13, 14 and Co-Stars, 14, 63
Recovery from, 23 and Houserules, 110
Taken Out, 9, 21–23 Mood, 76
Intellect (Ability), 19, 127, 131 Morale, 127
Intimidation, 112 Mounts (Sentient Companion), 134
Items, 122 Move (Action Varies), 9, 28, 32, 33, 36, 40
Knockback, 112 Multiple Actions, 32, 37
Magic, 56, 77, 133 Multiple Aid, 31
Major Actions Multiple Complicate, 30, 32
about, 8 Multiple Modifiers, 13, 15
Aid, 9 Multiple Overcome, 29, 32, 34, 116
Complicate, 9, 30 Names and Setting, 79
during Conflict, 27, 32 Non-Sentient Companions, 10, 49, 53, 134
and Mounts, 134 Opposed Checks, 129
and Social Conflict, 36 Opposition, creating, 62
Move, 9 Overcome (Major Action)
Overcome, 9, 29, 34 about, 9, 29
Major Threats, 63 and Competence Levels, 116
Manipulation (Ability), 19, 37, 132 and Damage, 9, 29, 32, 34, 36–38, 40
Maps, 78 Enemy Actions, 32
Mass Combat, 127–28 and Environmental Conflict, 40
Melee Combat, 19, 131 Multiple, 29, 32, 34, 116
Mental Abilities, 18, 49, 127 and Physical Conflict, 34
Mental Damage, 9, 22 and Social Conflict, 37
Mental Grace, 9, 20, 21, 37, 41, 133 Overpowering Threats, 63
See also Will (Ability) Penalties, 13, 121, 123
Milestones People and Setting, 81
about, 10, 61 Physical Abilities, 18, 127
Major, 61, 125 Physical Conflict, 33–35
Minor, 9, 23, 60, 61, 125 Physical Damage, 9, 22
Index P a g e |140
Physical Grace, 9, 19, 21, 34, 41, 132 Sprinting (as action), 28
Physique (Ability), 9, 19, 21, 122, 132, 134 Stars
Pilot Skill (Ability), 135 about, 6, 100–103
Places and Setting, 80 and Ability Checks, 12
Player vs. Player, 129 and Character Creation, 43–53
Plot, 80, 107 and Co-Stars, 105
Pockets, 122 and Directors, 104–7
Power Attack, 112 expectations of, 96
Powers and Modifiers, 14
Anti-Powers, 123 Player vs. Player, 129
and Character Creation, 10, 49 and Social Conflict, 36
and Co-Stars, 63 Structure and Conflict, 26–27
and Magic, 54–60 Stunting, 124
and Skills, 50 Successes, 25
Trivial, 49, 87 Super Speed, 59
See also Minor Powers; Moderate Powers; Major Super Strength, 58
Powers Surprise attacks, 33
Premise and Setting, 80 Swashbuckling, 125
Presence (Ability), 20, 37, 132 Tactics, 70
Problem Players, 98 Taken Out, 9, 21–23
Producers, 6 Terrain, 71
Quirks, 10, 50, 53 Timers, 41
Races and Setting, 77 Traits and Trait Points (TP)
Ranged Defense, 132 and Character Creation, 10, 47
Recovery, 23, 60, 113 and Co-Stars, 63
Rote Skills, 8, 129–33 Discounts, 10, 52
Rounds (Conflict), 26 and Drawbacks, 52
Rules, 8–10 and Flaws, 123
Sentient Companions, 134 Quirks, 50
Setting, 73–81 Summary sheet, 53
See also Environment Variable, 51, 53, 57
Skills Trivial Powers, 49, 53, 87
vs. Abilities, 50 Trivial Threats, 63
and Character Creation, 10 Turns, 8, 28–32
and Magic, 56 Variable Traits, 51, 53, 57
and Modifiers, 14 Vehicle Companions, 10, 49, 53, 134–35
and Powers, 50 Vulnerability, 123
Rote, 8, 129–33 Walking, 28
Sloppy Recovery, 113 Weapons
Social Conflict, 36–38, 129 and Character Creation, 10, 47
Social Contract, 96 and Co-Stars, 64
Speed (Ability) and Damage, 10, 23, 47
about, 20, 132 Will (Ability), 9, 20, 21, 37, 133
and Move, 28 See also Conflict
and Overcome, 34 Wits (Ability), 20, 37, 133
and Speed Checks, 8, 26 World Creation, 73–81
Super Speed, 59 Wrestling, 113
of Vehicle Companions, 134
Index P a g e |141

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e Tabletop Roleplaying System

Unusual Co-Stars ........................................................................................................................................... 69

What Do You Need to Read?

1. Start with below. They'll give you a

2. If that doesn't satisfy you, the most

3. Next up should be Chapter 2:

4. Move on to Chapter 3: Character

The Rules in Brief

Once a conflict has begun, there are four  Against Complications—When an

Character Creation  Weapons let you deal an extra 2

Chapter 1: The Core

 Abilities are how we represent your character’s basic attributes—strength,

Life would be dull if we always succeeded, When Do You Roll?

Too Many Modifiers? Obviously, there are still some limits to

Well…exactly that. If you’re making a

As a caveat, Adrenaline Surges can

Difficulty and Genre Hollywood Action

Example With the information he learned, John

At the core of every character you’ll find Categories

Wits is used to see through social

 Will determines your Mental

Taken Out Injury

Most of the time, we don’t bother to tell Improving Your Game—Calculating

For example, let’s say John Wild has an

Actions Improving Your Game—More (or less!)

The overall point here is that it's not too

Conflict has broken out, initiative has  Sprinting: "Sprinting" means

Overcome (Major Action) A Multiple Overcome means making

Overcoming a challenge requires a

By default, an Overcome only affects a

To Complicate the situation, make an

Just like with Overcomes, you can attempt

A successful Complication lasts for one

Your Enemy's Turn

On the other hand, the second most The Four Actions

 Overcome actions might as well be When attempting an Area

Example of Physical Conflict

John makes his Speed Check and

But there's still one more foe, who uses

Now it's John's turn, and the fight

Physical battles aren't the only things you Structure

 Overcome actions are Group Conflicts

Now it's John's turn, and he decides to try

Just like Goals can be thought of as The Four Actions

Kicking off an Environmental Conflict  Overcome actions are direct attempts

 Complicate actions are more Feel free to establish custom Grace

Suddenly, the Director declares that an

John takes off at a dead run, rolling two

Rocks begin to crash around him as

Back on John’s turn, he tries a Wits

Chapter 3: Creating a Character

Part 1: Planning Your Character

What Do You Do? Where Did You Come From?

Fitting In quite enough of a power hit, or too much

Part 2: Building Your Character

Abilities represent the most basic aspect The Seven Traits

While technically two separate Traits,

In a normal Conflict, the Damage you deal

Weapon and Armor Traits of the same Companions

Apart from the setting and your Quirks