SPIDER’S WEB

Acknowledgements

Spider’s Web is inspired by shows like Leverage and Charlie’s Angels, books like
Modesty Blaise, and movies like Mission Impossible.
I’m aiming for serious and gritty but if you want camp, you go for it.
The design of Spider’s Web was influenced by Otherkind dice, My Life With Master,
the Mythic Game Master Emulator, and some design talk on /r/rpgdesign.

There will some day be a long list of playesters

here, hopefully.

The main title is Racing Sans One.

Chapters are Raleway.
FONTS

Section headings are ose n Sans.

The body is set in Rokkitt.
All fonts are freely available on Google Fonts.

Written for Game Chef 2017.

All resemblance to persons living or dead, is purely coincidental or at worst,

parody and all that.

https://exposit.github.io/katarpgs
Copyright by exposit katamoiran.

This DRAFT document was last updated July 4, 2017. If this date is more than two
weeks ago, you should check the website for an updated version.

i
Contents

Acknowledgements i
Contents ii
1 Introduction 1
. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 Actual Play Example 2
3 How To Play 3
. The Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Scene Objective & Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Scene Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Acts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Running a Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. New Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4 Characters 9
. Spider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Agent Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5 Scripted Scenes 12
. Breaking Point Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. General Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Oracles 13
. General Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Actor Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Actor Color Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Actor Independence Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Complications Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Reasons Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Motive: Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Motive: Intent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Motive: Target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Creating New Agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7 Making It Yours 15
. Supernatural Elements, Amoral Heroes, & Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. Beyond Solo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

ii
1 Introduction

Spider’s Web is a solo, narrative, scene based roleplaying game. In it, you take the
role of Spider, a shadowy mastermind who manipulates three agents through spy
missions, capers, and heists.
To play, you will need four sets of six sided dice or an app roller and a good amount of
patience and bookkeeping skills. ou’ll nd it easiest to play if each set is a di erent
color and you have at least six in each set. aper and a pencil will be useful too.

Overview

laying Spider’s Web is a lot like playing any other solo in some ways you narrate
the scene and the events, adding color and asking an oracle for details, and then when
it comes to a conflict between what you want and what the game’s ction says you
can have easily or without conse uences, you roll to see who is right.
EXAMPLE

E AM LE

But it’s also very di erent, in that you are not playing one character, but four. The
mastermind, directly, from the shadows, and three agents, indirectly, using charts
and timers.
When you roll to see how a Conflict plays out, you roll to see which of your agents
succeeds, is hurt, su ers a Complication, or ust snaps under the stress.
Then you roll to see if they do as you ask, or if you’ll need to manipulate them and
what the conse uences for pulling their strings will be.
And you decide how far you’ll go to succeed at the mission, and what you’ll sacri ce
to get there.

Follow the ction don’t plan the world in advance.

Principles

Trust your instincts and sense of pacing.

Ignore nonsense. If a random result doesn’t t with the ction, discard it.
2 Actual Play Example

ACT AL LA E AM LE O E AGE
3 How To Play

At the start of the game, print out pages and these are your character sheets.
lace a die for each Agent, set to their Idealism value, in their ACT s uare, then give
each Agent a single die of their color.
Each game has a Mission Ob ective, and is played in three Acts, each with three
Scenes. A Scene can be as long or short as you want, but each Scene consists of, at
the minimum, a set up, scene ob ective, and scene challenge.

The Mission

our Spider wants this thing, the Mission Ob ective. For money, for love, for power,
you decide why. Whatever it is, your Spider’s willing to put people in danger for it
and people loyal to your Spider are willing to accept that risk.

Mission Objective
Steal the biggest diamond in the world from a museum on the busiest day of the year.
Recover a prototype weapon from a paranoid entrepeneur’s penthouse apartment.
Liberate a kidnapped scientist from an icy base in the Alps.
Convince a wealthy businessman to flip on his criminal kingpin associate.
rotect a nervous geek who accidentally stole vital intel until the extent of the damage is known.
Be on the train when the hand o happens and intercept the package.

Scene Objective & Setting

This is color if you don’t like the options presented, create your own.

Scene Objective Scene Setting

Set up a long con to get dirt on someone The air ducts of a building that’s full of people.
who has what you need. Why’re they here
The code you need is in a locked safe on A train rolling through snow covered moun
the third floor of the mansion. tains. Where’s it going
Shake a few trees and see what falls out. The executive o ices of a prestigious law rm.
It might not look like much, but the ex What time is it
Agent running it knows what you need. The roof, so far up people look like ants.
lant evidence of an incriminating na What’s the weather like
ture on a key asset to enforce coopera A uiet garden, sun dappled and still. Who’s
tion. hiding
Get a backdoor in place on an assistant’s A nightclub on a Friday night. What’s the
cell so you can track it to the meeting. price of admission
Scene Challenge

The Scene Challenge is the Conflict that resolves the Scene. The Scene Challenge
should be the most dramatic and meaningful roll of the Scene and tie directly into the
Scene Ob ective.
If you win the Scene Challenge, you win the Scene Ob ective. arrate how and give
your Spider one point of Weave.
If you lose, you still get the information you need to proceed, but you’re in a worse
position start the next Scene with a randomly rolled Complication.
End the Scene shortly after and begin a new one.

Acts

If you nish Act with more Challenge successes than failures, give each of your
Agents a bonus die.
Do the same for Act . In Act , the stakes escalate from now on every Conflict has
an Element of Danger.
When you reach Act , you have one more Scene to build resources. After that, in
Scene or , the ob ective should be in reach

Interpretation

se all the information you have as color and substance for your narration. Low
Loyalty The Agent’s still angry about enice. igh Savvy That’s someone who
knows someone who’s selling what Spider needs.
Only consult one of the Oracles when you can’t read the answer from the numbers
on the character sheets, the ction as established, and the Conflict dice.
Remember to use all of the information the dice provide when you narrate the outcome
of a Conflict. lay it fast and loose if your eavy’s not in the same room as your
Ghost, she can still hit the re alarm or make a phone call or distract a target.
Take the dice results as an aggregate picture of the situation, not a blow by blow
account of events. ou can sum up an entire scene in one Conflict, if it makes sense
to you, or draw it out a little if that seems more logical.
Don’t be afraid to cover a lot of ground in narration. It’s perfectly ne to run a Scene
on a speeding train through the Alps, then start the next scene in the ducts over a
diplomatic ball in the heart of a ma or city.
Running a Scene

First, establish the scene and which agents are present, and why. Establish the scene
ob ective. Reset Agent Timers and be sure each Agent has at least one die in their
color in their pool.
arrate the scene, asking the General Oracle uestions about world details as needed,
and consulting the Actor Oracle or Actor Color Chart if one of your Agents should
act but you’re not sure how.
When your Agents face a Conflict, a point where they want something but there’s
risk, it’s time to roll.
The four basic Elements of a Conflict are Ob ective, Danger, Complication, and Timer.
There are always three Elements in any Conflict, one of which must be the Ob ective.
Choose the other two and they might be the same type based on which apply best
to the current situation according to the established ction.
Always consider Danger rst.
When you add additional Elements to a Conflict over the standard three, give Spider
a Weave point for each.
Don’t worry about de ning the speci c nature of each Element yet.
Assemble a pool collect one die of the appropriate color for each Agent present in
the scene. If an Agent has more than one die in their pool, you may choose to use as
many or few of the extras as you wish.
Roll, then assign the dice, one per Element. The agent whose color is assigned to
an Element takes the impact of that result. On a , something goes wrong make a
Loyalty Test for that Agent, in addition to any other conse uences of the roll.
If for some reason you don’t have enough dice to ll out a Conflict’s Aspects for
example, if an Agent is facing a Conflict alone , assume you have a pretend die set to
for each unassigned Aspect.
If pretend dice are in play, the Agent with the most real dice in the Conflict takes
the brunt of all pretend die failures. If it’s a tie who has the most real dice, you pick
which one su ers, but this counts as a Betrayal and prompts a Betrayal Test.
Once you’ve assigned dice, narrate the outcome of the Conflict, using the Aspects,
results, and conse uences as part of your ction.
Move one die back into the pool of any Agents who are out of dice. Discard the rest.
Objective

The ob ective is set by the scene and is always part of any roll.
Ob ective is win or lose. If you roll a , you succeed, otherwise, you fail. The
agent whose color is in this category is the linchpin for the success or failure of the
Ob ective.
If the Agent fails, add an extra die of that color to the Agent’s pool.

Complication

A Complication is a twist or unexpected change to the scene that happens immediately

or at least in the very near future .
Complications can be used when there’s no real immediate Danger, or when a Timer
doesn’t seem to be needed.
A Complication is good on a and bad on a . It happens primarily to the Agent
whose color in spent, but might a ect other Agents if they’re in the splash one.
EXAMPLE

COM LICATIO E AM LE

Danger

se the Danger Aspect when something about the Conflict threatens the agent’s well
being, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Subtract the Danger die from six and add the di erence to the a ected Agent’s Trauma.
EXAMPLE

DA GER E AM LE
Timer
A Timer tracks future events, like bombs counting down or guards sweeping the area
or the mastermind’s countdown launch.
se a Timer when there’s something in the ction that should be on a fuse, when it
would be interesting to have something happen shortly but not right away, or ust to
push the action up a notch.
When you set a timer, put a die of the same color as the one you assigned to this
Aspect, set to the number rolled on a Timer s uare, and ot down what it represents.
Each time you roll dice for any reason, reduce the timer by . When it reaches , the
event comes to pass, a ecting the Agent who owns the Timer die.
If what the Timer represents is averted with at least one turn remaining, put it back
into the Agent’s pool as a bonus die.
EXAMPLE

TIMER E AM LE

Loyalty Test
When an Agent’s loyalty is in uestion, roll one of Spider’s dice. If you roll under
their current Loyalty, they do as you ask. If you roll over it, they do as they see t
roll on the Actor Independence Chart.
ou may invoke one of an Agent’s Old Wounds to force the Agent to follow your
instructions. arrate how this works are you calling in an old debt Reminding them
of a weakness Exploiting it
Each Old Wound can only be used once per game in this fashion, but when you use
an Old Wound against an Agent, they lose one point of Loyalty.
If your Spider has an Old Wound, the Agent can hit back, costing you a point of
Weave roll on the Actor Independence Chart to see what they end up doing after.
EXAMPLE

LO ALT TEST E AM LE
Betrayal Test
When an Agent has cause to feel betrayed by you, roll one of Spider’s dice.
If you roll over their current Idealism but under their current Loyalty, they feel be
trayed and angry reduce their Loyalty and Idealism by one each otherwise, choose
one to reduce by one.
EXAMPLE

BETRA AL TEST E AM LE

Failure

When you fail the Mission Ob ective, either because the ction makes achieving it
impossible or because you ust don’t have enough Agents or resources left to pull it
o , stop the game.
our Agents, any who’ve survived, scatter to the winds. our Spider su ers a setback
add an Old Wound to Spider’s character sheet.

Success

If you achieve the Mission Ob ective, you win.

Sure, you might have lost your best Agent and the other two hate your guts and are
only willing to help you out because you know exactly how to push their buttons and
you’re down to your last string to pull , but you win.

New Agents

If you’re starting a new mission and have fewer than three active Agents, you have
two options.
The rst is to bring one of your previously downed Agents back into play. Spend two
Weave points. One Agent of your choice returns, with a new Old Wound. Set their
Loyalty and Idealism to the last known values, plus a d each.
The second is to bring in a new Agent. Create one modeled on one of the existing
Agents or roll a new one up. If you succeeded on your last Mission, you get one new
Agent for free otherwise, spend two Weave to bring a new Agent into play.
4 Characters

Spider
Weave TIMER TIMER TIMER TIMER TIMER
BONE WEAVER SPIDER

Spider runs the show from the shadows.

Start with Weave plus however many Mission Ob ectives Spider has successfully
completed, and that many dice.
It’s up to you whether your Spider manipulates things beforehand or if your Spider’s
got a direct line to the Agents at all times, or a mix of the two, or something di erent.
That’s color for your ction the mechanics are the same either way.

Manipulate
Spend one Weave to give an Agent one of your dice as a bonus die.
If you assign a Spider die to an Element, treat it as that Agent’s success or failure,
aided or hindered by Spider’s information, manipulations, or forethought.
If an Agent fails or is in ured on Spider’s die, make a Betrayal Test.

Bond
Once per Agent per game, spend one Weave to trigger a Flashback Scene.

Scheme
Spend Weave to play dirty. Maybe you did something morally unsavory to stack the
dice in your favor, or maybe you ust ordered your Agent to, but the Target number
goes down by one for one Element, for each point spent, until the end of the scene.
Make a Loyalty check for each Agent who bene ts from the lower Target number,
and reduce their Idealism by one.

TRAUMA TRAUMA TRAUMA

Agents
Savvy Loyalty ACT Idealism Skill
BLUE GHOST SMOKE

Special: Smoke can avert a Timer at left or higher.

Choose one.
Smoke saved your life once but lost a lover in the process. Loyalty , Old
Wound Lost Lover
Smoke belongs to no one. Loyalty , Idealism .
ou don’t trust Smoke, but Smoke is the best you’ve got. Skill , Loyalty .

Savvy Loyalty ACT Idealism Skill

RED HACKER ECHO

Special: Echo can use Savvy a second time.

Choose one.

Echo has a criminal past you promised to expunge and a bad case of homesick
ness. Loyalty , Old Wound omesick
Echo believes in your cause and trusts you to do the right thing. Loyalty ,
Idealism .
There’s nobody better, but Echo is too curious for safety. Skill , Savvy .

Savvy Loyalty ACT Idealism Skill

YELLOW HEAVY CUT

Special: Cut can swap the Trauma gauge for an Old Wound.
Choose one.

ou brought Cut out of a two bit Ma a gutter and back into the game. Loyalty
, Old Wound Trick nee
Cut has seen it all and doesn’t believe in much anymore. Savvy , Idealism .
There’s an art to hitting, like icasso or something, only with more screaming.
Skill , Savvy .
Agent Abilities

Each Agent has six aspects Loyalty, Idealism, Trauma, Savvy, and Skill.

Loyalty
Loyalty is a measure of the Agent’s trust in you. It ensures that the Agent will follow
your orders, but the higher the Loyalty, the harder they take betrayal.

Idealism
Idealism increases the chances your agent will distrust you if you do something shady.
The lower an Agent’s Idealism, the more often they will act independently. When you
begin play, set a Timer turned to the Agent’s Idealism on the Agent’s character sheet
over the word ACT .
When this Timer triggers, roll on the Actor Independence Chart and interpret the
results as the Agent acting on their own.
Then reset the timer.

Trauma
Trauma measures how many wounds the Agent has taken.
The Trauma gauge is full when it reaches if it goes any higher, the Agent is dying,
captured, or compromised. Either way, they’re out of the game permanently, unless
you pull some strings.

Savvy & Skill

Savvy is a measure of how much the Agent knows about how people work, and how
sophisticated they are when dealing with others.
Skill measures how good they are at their ob.
Once per game each, swap out an Agent’s die result on a Conflict roll for their Savvy
or Skill value.
When you do this, narrate how Savvy or Skill a ected the roll make it part of the
ction.

Special Ability
Each Agent has a uni ue special ability, usable once per game.
5 Scripted Scenes

Breaking Point Scenes

If an agent’s Idealism or Loyalty are at , a Breaking oint Scene is triggered if:

Trigger Result
Agent gains Trauma Bolt Scene
Agent su ers a negative Complication Temptation Scene
Agent fails at an Ob ective opeless Scene

Bolt
arrate how the Agent is given the opportunity to flee the mission entirely, and make
a Loyalty or Idealism check, whichever is higher. If you succeed, the Agent sticks
around add one to either Loyalty or Idealism, your choice.

Tempt
arrate how the Agent is given the opportunity to indulge a vice or virtue that will
take them out of the action for the rest of the mission.
Make a Loyalty or Idealism check, whichever is higher. If you succeed, the Agent
turns down the temptation add one to either Loyalty or Idealism, your choice.
ote that turning down the temptation doesn’t mean they don’t indulge it ust means
that they don’t let it distract them from completing the mission.

Surrender
arrate how the Agent has reached a point of hopelessness and is given the opportu
nity to surrender to it by refusing to pursue the mission any longer.
Make a Loyalty or Idealism check, whichever is higher. If you succeed, the Agent
regains heart add one to either Loyalty or Idealism, your choice.

General Scenes

Flashback
A flashback is an interrupt scene between an Agent and another ma or character,
either an Agent or Spider. Other Actors might be present, or not, that’s up to you.
arrate or play out the scene, then choose one ma or player gets two bonus dice, the
other none, or they each get one.
6 Oracles

General Oracle

Frame a uestion, then pick the outcome that you think is most likely to be correct.
Roll all of Spider’s dice.
If any two dice match, you predicted the outcome successfully. Take the face value of
the matched dice and compare it to the Complications Chart to see if there’s a twist.
Otherwise, go with the opposite outcome and use the lowest die showing as the value
of the Complication Chart.

Actor Oracle
The Agent acts to complete the mission in the best way possible. Add a to one die in the next
Conflict.
The Agent uses skill or experience to further the mission. Restore one use of Skill or Savvy.
The Agent relies on luck or a gamble to achieve the goal. Add a bonus die to their pool.
The Agent is distracted by a personal flaw or foible. Subtract from one die in the next Conflict.
The Agent is distracted by an old experience. Add an Old Wound of your choice.
The Agent sees an opportunity to enrich themselves and takes it. Remove a bonus die from their
pool.

Actor Color Chart

The Agent makes a flippant remark.
The Agent shares a retirement dream or life goal.
The Agent is unkind or impatient with an ally.
The Agent mentions something from their or Spider’s past.
The Agent expresses the reason they are here.
The Agent seriously uestions their life choices.

Actor Independence Chart

The Agent pursues the goal as expected.

The Agent free es and does nothing. They don’t contribute dice to the next Conflict in this Scene.
The Agent ghts or is aggressive, provoking a new Conflict or adding a new Danger to the current
one. Their die can only go to Danger.
The Agent flees, retreats, or otherwise attempts to escape. Don’t use their dice on the next Conflict
unless it’s related to escaping.
The Agent loses a point of Loyalty roll again on this chart, ust once.
Betrayal the Agent sabotages one of the other Agents. arrate why and how, then initiate a Conflict
for the sabotaged Agent this one doesn’t contribute any dice.
Complications Chart
something breaks gear windfall
someone notices and hinders someone notices and helps
hindering factor comes to light helpful factor comes to light

Reasons Chart

Friendship Resentment Greed Lust ealousy Envy

Love ate Loathing Despair Bitterness Fear
onor Duty Trust Loyalty Idealism aivete
Bravery Remorse Guilt Desire Obsession Integrity
Revulsion Weakness Strength Terror Torture anity
Sel shness udgement Betrayal engeance Rage Grief

Motive: Action Motive: Intent Motive: Target

to possess illicit person
to consume inappropriate thing
to destroy dangerous place
to rescue pure
to impress means to an end
to secure to secure

Creating New Agents

Roll d / for each stat. Roll or choose a Codename, Role, and Special ability. Seter
mine the three stat ad ustment options and choose one.
Role Codename Special Abilities
ITTER O E use Skill twice
FACE C ER give up a bonus die to give a point of Weave
T IEF SLICE turn anyone’s Complication roll to a
GRIFTER FO turn anyone’s Danger roll to a
BRAI C ASE take a free bonus die
TEC AR ER move a Timer to someone else

For each ad ustment, roll a d . Read a as a , as a , as a , and as a .

Ad ust Loyalty, add an Old Wound.

Ad ust two gauges of your choice.
Ad ust Savvy and Skill.
7 Making It Yours

Supernatural Elements, Amoral Heroes, & Camp

Spider’s Web is deliberately vague about the setting, characters, and genre of
the game. This is deliberate, to leave as much room for you to discover the
world and to include elements that you en oy as possible.

Spider’s Vampire Hunters

C ART FOR MI I CAM AIG

Spider’s Villains
C ART FOR MI I CAM AIG

Spider’s Angels
C ART FOR MI I CAM AIG

Beyond Solo

If you’d rather play as a group, divide the game into three types of role
Gamemaster, Spider, and Agent traditional player .
In this case, Spider still has the abilities listed under Weave and can also directly
order the Agents to do things, employing Loyalty Tests and Breaking oint
Scenes as usual.
The Gamemaster assumes the responsibility for de ning Scenes, adding color,
creating Conflicts, and assigning Aspects.