What Is A Roleplaying Game?

Role-playing games (RPGs) are storytelling games in which a group of people get together and take part in the telling of a tale. One player, the Narrator, is responsible for describing the world and outlining the basic story. He plays the part of all the minor characters the players encounter, describing their actions and talking with their voices.

The other players are really the stars of the story. All of them have only a single character. They control their character's actions within the guidelines laid down by the rules and the Narrator. They respond to the situations the Narrator creates while acting out the part of their own special characters.

How Do I Create A Character?

Waste World RPG uses a points-based system to allow you to design the character you want to play. You can spend points to make yourself stronger, faster, or smarter. You can buy lots of special powers and equipment. You can make yourself very skilful. Its up to you.

Alternatively, to get you started quickly, you can use one of the pre-generated characters we provide in the rulebook.

How Is My Character Defined?

There are four different characteristics: strength (ST), dexterity (DX), intelligence (IN) and power (PW). They are a measure of how good you are in the general areas of physical strength (ST), hand-eye coordination and reflexes (DX), reasoning power, learning and memory (IN) and using psychic powers (PW).

There are two further characteristics calculated from the starting characteristics. Movement Rate (MR) tells you how fast your character can walk and run. Lifeforce (LF) tells you how much damage you can take.

There are many different types of skill. Skills are a measure of how good you are in one area of expertise such as using blasters or flying aircars.

All starting characteristics such as strength are rated from -3 to +5. All skills are rated from 0 to +9. The higher the score the better.

Every character has characteristics and skills. In addition you might also choose to have special powers such as flight or being a giant. You can also choose to possess special equipment like cybernetic arms or eyes.

Lastly there are disadvantages: these are things that work against your character. Rather than costing you points to buy, these give you additional points to spend.

How Do I Succeed In Doing Things?

Most normal actions, such as walking across a room, succeed automatically. Sometimes though, you will need to roll dice. You only do this when there is a dramatic purpose for you doing so, or when there is some doubt about whether you can succeed at whatever task you are attempting.

Almost every important die roll in Waste World is made using a twenty-sided dice (D20). Almost all rolls follow the same format.

You roll the dice and you add any positive modifiers that might apply such as a high characteristic or skill that applies in the situation. You then subtract any negative factors that might apply. if the result is greater than 10 you have succeeded.

If the result is 10 or less you have failed. The amount you roll greater than 10 tells you how many successes you have. The amount you get less than ten is the number of failures.

For example, you are driving your skimmerbike over a rough patch of desert during a sandstorm when suddenly a huge boulder looms out of the gloom. You wrench the controls to avoid it: will you succeed? Fortunately, you have a DX of +2 and drive (skimmerbike) skill of +4. This gives you a big positive modifier. Unfortunately, the weather conditions are extremely bad and you are only reacting at the last second so there is a negative modifier of -4.

You roll the dice and get 9. You add 6 for your skill and DX. This gives you a total of 15. Then you subtract 4 for the negative conditions. This gives you a final total of 11. Subtracting 10 from this gives you a total of 1 success. You dodge the rock but only just.

How Do I Hit Things?

In almost exactly the same way as you succeed at anything else. You roll a D20 and add your DX and your skill with the weapon you are using. You subtract any negative modifiers that might apply such as for range or your target being in cover. You look at your total and subtract 10. If the result is positive you have hit your foe.

The situation is complicated by the fact that your foe might be able to dodge or parry your attack. To do so, he must roll a D20 and add his DX and dodge skill (or weapon skill if he is parrying) then subtract 10 from his total to find out how successful he was.

Any successes he gets are subtracted from your successes, possibly reducing the effectiveness of your attack, or neutralizing it altogether.

For example, you swing your chainsword at your enemy. Your DX is +2, your chainsword skill is +3. You get a total of 15. You have five successes. Your foe dodges. He has a DX of +1 and a dodge skill of +2. He gets a total score of 12. His two successes are subtracted from your five. You now have a total of three successes. You have still hit but the effectiveness of your blow has been reduced. If your foe had dodged with five or more successes, your blow would have been completely neutralized.

How Do I Damage Things?

Easy- the number of your successes is affected by the type of weapon you use. The result of this tells you how much damage you have done.

For example, a chainsword lets you add four to the number of successes you score. This is the amount of damage you do. In the example above, you would have hit and done seven points of damage. (Your three successes plus the chainsword's damage modifier of plus four.)

Your foe now subtracts the rating of any armor from the damage you have done to him. Armor is rated between 1 and 10. This gives you your final damage total.

For example, you have just hit your foe for seven points of damage. He is wearing studded leather armor. This stops one point of damage. Your final damage total is now six. This is subtracted from your foe's Lifeforce.

Every character has a number of Lifeforce (LF) points. These represent how much damage they can take before being wounded or killed. If your opponent had 10 Lifeforce points, you would now have reduced him to four Lifeforce. If your foe had only four Lifeforce points left when you hit him, you would have reduced him to below zero.

Anybody who is on zero LF or below, and takes damage, suffers a critical hit. You roll a D20 and consult the critical hit table to see in what way you have damaged them. You can inflict many different types of wounds ranging from flesh wounds to decapitation.

Designer's notes

 
Return To Central Datacore