STOCS Lite - Modern Day Roleplaying

© Copyright 1994 - 2003 Eoin Connolly, Rob Brennan and Eric Nolan. All rights reserved.

Published by Wasteland Games

Game Design: Eoin Connolly, Rob Brennan, Eric Nolan.

First Edition ­ Version 1.5

Dedicated, as always, to the watchers.

Playtesters: Steve 'look the scientists have been lying to us for years' Blair, Tony 'they must all line up perfectly' Maguire, Dave 'it's in a plastic bag somewhere' Earls, Garvin 'how did they lose?' Campbell, Paul 'oh pleeease put me in' Kavanagh, Tony 'hug the rock' Walsh, Padraig 'oo oo oo' Bracken, John 'Howard Hughs' McHugh, Cian 'mexican bandito' Merne, Martain 'graaaaass' Morley, Joh 'tarmac? or macadam? or blacktop? no it's important' Clavin, Alan 'laard' Ray, Neil 'is this on double time and a half?' Farrow, Simon 'i am the voice of reason' Holt, Conor 'get me a helicopter or chocolate gets it' Browne, Mile 'run silent, run deep' Blair, Duck, Ivor, Andy, Phil, Lynne Patterson, Rob Smith, the lord high Melkwert for allowing us to remain in deep cover, Morelli's Extra Strong coffee Emporium and everyone we forgot (or left out on purpose).

STOCS and STOCS lite are trademarks of Wasteland Games, our huge legal department is on the lookout for illegal and amoral usages of these terms; so be careful, after ten years locked in a small cupboard they get a bit wild when we let them out among people.

INTRODUCTION

STOCS lite exists in order to provide a set of rules that can be used to introduce roleplaying to beginners , to run quick games without needing to explain complex rules to players and for people who prefer a more free form approach to their gaming and feel hampered by the overly complex rules in a lot of games today. This free form approach should encourage roleplaying and lighten the referee's work-load. STOCS lite should run smoothly and quickly, the few game mechanics and rules arbitrations that come up in play will be quickly sorted out, interrupting the flow of the game as little as possible.

The system is suitable for a wide range of modern day role playing settings. Playtests concentrated on espionage, general weirdness and government conspiracy settings. Other situations are also possible, such as modern day mercenary work or investigations of occult activity.

The rules themselves follow a traditional format, however the skill system presented is very general in nature. We feel that this gives the characters a more flexible, fuzzy definition. The heart of character creation is still in the character completion subsection where life is injected into the bare numbers. It is during this stage of character generation that each character becomes an individual.

Although the combat sections seem to dominate when reading through STOCS lite, the rules play smoothly and are unitrusive in play. Character wounding is the most involved subsystem, because it is a complex model of the real world effects of wounding. This is important because being injured is one of the most important things likely to happen to your character and this area is very weak in most games.

A number of examples of applications of the system are provided in the final miscellaneous section. Expansions include a section on converting additional firearms to the system. We feel that players knowing that their character is using a superb Glock-20 10mm pistol as opposed to a 'heavy auto pistol' adds to the atmosphere of certain games (even if there is no game difference). Remember that all of these rules are just guidelines and anything that you disagree with should be altered to suit your own tastes. Have fun!

WHAT IS ROLE-PLAYING?

Basics
Role-playing involves a group of people 'acting' out the parts of characters in a story. Each player assumes the role of one of the characters (known as Player Characters - PC's) and decides what that character does in the various situations that crop up in the course of the story. One person in the group determines the outcome to any character's actions and also plays the roles of those characters in the story not played by the people in the group (Non Player Characters - NPC's). This person is called the Referee and the referee almost always has to come up with the bare bones of the story in which the characters are participating.

This story is called a scenario; the difference between a scenario and a book or film is that a scenario has no definite ending or set sequence of events. For example, Bram Stoker's Dracula would be a very different book if Harker had gone to the castle and upon suspecting the truth about Dracula, begged him to make him immortal. A referee can never know exactly what the characters are going to do and should not try and block any characters actions if they will destroy the story (as long as these actions are sensible to the character). Some referee's prefer not to work everything through, but just get the bare bones of an idea and then improvise from then on. Other referee's like to have everything planned out from the start. Neither approach is perfect. Some referee's are excellent at improvisation but players can sometimes feel that the lack of a coherent structure means that huge plot holes can appear. Referee's who like to work everything out before-hand can find their entire story destroyed by an action they had never even considered. We recommend a bit of each. It's best to put a bit of thought into a game beforehand and during the game be prepared to think on your feet.

Games normally take the form of a dialogue between the referee and the players, the referee describing the environment and taking the parts of other people in the game world. In the course of play you, the player, deal with events which affect your character. These range from the minor (buying something in a shop) to the major (avoiding death at the hands of a homicidal maniac). Unlike other types of games, which are competitive, role players tend to co-operate to achieve common goals. The players interact with the referee and each other in order to attain these goals. While short and even long term goals can be completed successfully in games, there is never any 'winning', as in real life.

Different styles of play
During the course of play different things can be emphasised, such as violent conflict, characterisation or investigation. Investigative play often revolves around the piecing together of clues which lead to the location of an adversary or information. Combative games often concentrate on tooling up with weapons of mass destruction and dealing death to your enemies on a grand scale. This may sound like fun but provides little variety and gets a bit dull after a while (admittedly some never tire of this but modern medicine has made it possible for such people to function normally in society). Problem solving can also be an important aspect of games, for example, the players may have to devise ways of avoiding arrest in an Orwellian setting.

For some, the most important aspect is development and exploration of the character, this can mean developing a sense of the characters place within the game society, his or her family, hopes and ambitions. Some people become more interested in who they are rather than what they do. Usually games take the form of a mix of the above with different players preferring different combinations.

Refereeing
In many ways the most important player is the referee. It is vital that the referee tries to animate the game world. This is done through the use of colourful descriptions of locations and people as well as the effects of the character's actions.

The referee can have a very strong influence on the style of play, but a referee who takes no account of his or her players desires will soon have no players. The referee is the one who devises the plots and situations that the characters find themselves embroiled in. This means that even when a commercially available adventure is to be played, the referee must do some preparatory work before the game is run.

The referee is not the opponent of the players. Just because the referee controls the main antagonists in the game does not mean that he or she is a bad person. A game is a collaboration between the players and the referee; the more co-operation, the better the game will be. This does not mean that the referee never puts up a fight or does evil cruel things to the players. Even a soap opera has conflict and a story without conflict is not exciting or interesting. There's an important distinction between conflict and violence, however, but it's good to make the players feel that their characters lives are in danger every once in a while (just to get the juices flowing - never more alive etc.).

Campaigns vs. Scenarios
This is linked to the styles of play issue. A scenario is a simple limited adventure to achieve short term goals, usually within a couple of game days or weeks, rather like a TV series episode. A campaign can be a series of scenarios linked only by a common set of player characters. Most TV series follow this format.

It is also possible to have long term goals and character development as important parts of a campaign. Most people prefer to play campaigns but the time required can make this difficult. Players often like to play 'one-offs', scenarios set in different backgrounds with novel situations, which would be too limiting to play on a regular basis. Experience has shown that short campaigns provide a happy medium, where three or four linked scenarios provide scope for character development and a sense of a larger game-world.

Customising STOCS lite
Due to it's fairly coherent core, customising STOCS lite to your own needs is fairly simple. We will attempt to give some examples of ways in which to alter the system to bring it more in line with your gaming style. All of these suggestions are not rule alterations, merely ways in which the system can be changed. Don't feel that you have to change things for changes sake and if you have any severe problems or brilliant ideas then send us a letter with an SAE and you'll get a reply back as soon as we can feasibly write it (laziness and natural sloth aside). Examples of changes are below.

If you think the game is not lethal enough, subtract 1 or 2 from the character's DL's. You can also make it less lethal by doing the opposite, something which should keep any gun-bunny players happy.

If you want your players to have more skills, then give them more Skill Points. If you want your players to be better than average people then let them have three quirks instead of two. Alternatively, you could let your players get away with blue murder when they are choosing their quirks. If a player wants their character to be bullet-proof then let them have a quirk which gives them this power. The quirks are intended to be as weird as the referee feels is suitable for the game being run.

The skill list is the place where the most customisation will take place. It has been left incomplete to allow players to come up with any skill they feel their character should have. The skill list given is merely a guideline to how skills should be written down. Don't limit the character's skills to the list given in the rules. If a player feels that their character should have a certain skill then the player and the referee should come to an agreement about the areas the skill covers and which General skill it should be a specialisation of. It is best if any new skill is a specialisation, the general skills are flexible enough to allow most skills to slot in fairly easily.

An example of this would be a player who wants their character to be able to plant bugs and tap phones. The character wants the one specialisation to cover all of these skills, the referee wants it to be two or three skills. After a bit of persuasion (the player cites the example of the Firearms skill which allows a player to fire anything from pistols to HMG's), the referee backs down and says it is one skill called Surveillance. The player thinks it should go into Engineering as it is a fairly technical skill and while the referee agrees (and is in a fairly fluffy mood), they end up making it a specialisation of Criminal. The player is very happy with this arrangement and vows never to bad-mouth the referee again.

Dice Conventions
This role-playing game uses dice to determine if an action is successful. The types of dice used in this game are the ten-sided die (called a d10) and the twenty-sided die (called a d20). These strange and exotic pieces of plastic can be bought at most game shops. Don't feel you have to make the players roll dice for every action. If you think they'd probably succeed, and if it's not very important, then just tell them they've succeeded and get on with the action.

SECTION 1: CHARACTER GENERATION

There are three elements to any STOCS lite character; attributes, skills and personality. Attributes define how strong, quick, smart etc. the character is. The character's skills tell you what abilities the character has, how well the character can drive a car or how well the character can use a computer. The last, and most important, element of any character is the character's personality. The personality of the character is what makes him or her stand out from the crowd. A character with a personality will be remembered for far longer than the character who was merely a vessel for certain abilities.

When generating a character, think about the end product and work your way towards it. Re-roll the basic attributes until you get ones that suit the character. Be warned that referees won't be too happy about players who want a character whose lowest attribute is 16. If you want a superhuman character, arrange a sneaky deal with the referee.

Example:

More emotion! More pathos!

The referee for the night has asked for young business-type characters. Gun-crazed psychopaths with a fondness for high heels will not be tolerated. Eoin (the player) decides to generate a corporate executive for a large law firm. He wants the character to be a corporate warrior, a high flyer, someone who lives their life for the company. He wants a character who works hard and plays hard; who's solid and reliable but not afraid to step over others on his route to the top. This is a character who only takes crap from authority figures. In a moment of extreme Hollywood cliché, Eoin has the character come from a 'deprived' background, something he doesn't want all the other executives to find out. He has told everyone that his family died in a bizarre hostage-taking incident in South America. He has taken this to the extreme of lying to the law firm he works for, so if the truth (father in prison for murder and sister on run from FBI) were known he would lose his job and probably never work again.

Basic Attributes
Physically, a character is defined by six basic attributes. These are generated by rolling 2d10 six times, re-rolling ones and then assigning them to the attributes below as desired.

STR	Strength is a measure of the physical power of the character
CON	Constitution is a measure of the character's toughness and resilience
DEX	Dexterity is the physical agility and speed of the character
WIL	Willpower is the mental fortitude of the PC
INT	Intelligence is the mental aptitude of the PC
EDU	Education is the amount of learning the character has amassed, whether through formal means (schooling, university ) or simply the school of life

The next step is to calculate the character's DB and DL. The DB is the Damage Bonus of the character. The DL is the Disability Level of the character. This is explained fully in Section 3.

DB (Damage Bonus)	STR -10
DL (Disability Level)	(STR+CON) /4

 

Example:	Joseph Henkel
	Eoin rolls Joseph's attributes. The dice-rolls are 11, 13, 8, 17, 14, 15. He allocates them as follows: STR 8, CON 13, DEX 11, WIL 15, INT 14 and EDU 17. Joseph is not a terribly physical character and all the racquetball in the world will make up for that. He has a DB (Damage Bonus) of -2 and a DL (Disability Level) of 5, about average.

Skills
Skill points are used to buy both general skills and specialisations. A character has skill points equal to the total of INT+EDU+10. Skills range from 0 to 20. Most skills has a base level of 3. The referee may nominate some skills as having no base. Skills may be bought at 4 levels of additional proficiency. The costs are as follows:

Proficiency	Bonus	General Skill Cost	Specialisation Cost
Amateur	+2	1	½
Trained	+4	3	1
Professional	+6	7	3
Expert	+8	13	7

Specialisations - All skills have specialisations. These are specific skills within the field of the general skill. For example, Firearms is a specialisation of the general skill Combat. Specialisations have a base equal to the level of their general skill. The best approach is to buy a lot of specialisations, a high general skill is great but very expensive.

The skill list given is in no way exhaustive, there will always be skills that a player will want the character to have that are not present. Many specialisations will have to be agreed upon by the referee and player. The key is to determine which general skill the desired skill would be a specialisation of.

Example:

Joseph gets some skills

Joseph has 41 skill points. Primarily, he wants high levels in both Business and Law. He takes Professional (+6) in Arts (34 skill points left) which gives him a skill of 9 in all things relating to the Arts. He then takes Trained (+4) in Law (33 skill points left) and Professional (+6)in Business (30 skill points left). This gives him a skill of 13 in Law and 15 in Business as well as his skill level in Arts of 9. More than respectable. Joseph now needs a Racquetball skill. There is no such skill on the skill list so the referee decides it is a specialisation of the general skill, Physical. Eoin then fills in the rest of Joseph's skills. Joseph can use computers and drive a car, he has some Physical skills and a bit of Rural and Urban Survival.

Skill List

Character Completion
To round out your character follow the four steps below. This will give the character that necessary third dimension to make it an individual person that may hold some surprises for the other players.

1. Key aspect of personality. Is your character loyal, sensible or scheming, etc.? Beware of fleshing out this too much as this will stunt the characters natural development during play.
2. A secret. This is something the character would not want anyone to know. It needn't be a secret of global dimensions, but it must be important to the character.
3. Two quirks. These are oddities particular to your character. They can have some bearing on the game, such as 'He is a light sleeper', but their main function is to give you a character with something different to everybody else. A quirk, where appropriate, has a maximum of +5 bonus to die rolls.
4. A flaw. This is something you would prefer your character didn't have. An example could be heavy debt or drug addiction.

SECTION 2: THE SKILL SYSTEM

The skill system is based on skills which are between 0 and 20. The referee determines which skill is applicable and the player must roll less than or equal to that skill on a d20. A roll of 1 is always successful. A roll of 20 is always a failure.

Tasks
Whenever a character needs to do something it is called a task. Sometimes these can be roleplayed tasks, in which case the referee and the player roleplay out a situation and base the result on the roleplaying with no reference to skills of dice rolls. More often a characters skills or attributes are important.

Some tasks are automatically successful. Depending on the skill of the character and the urgency or difficulty of the task the referee should decide if there is any point in rolling dice (which would slow down the action). For example a competent (Trained) driver should not have to roll dice to drive down to the shops. However an unskilled driver would have to roll to check for minor accidents.

If a task needs to be rolled, the basic rule of rolling a d20 under the characters skill or attribute is used. However the skill or attribute can be modified. In some cases the referee may assign a difficulty level to a task. These are defined below.

Difficulty Level	Skill Modifier
Easy	+5
Normal	+0
Hard	-5
Very Hard	-10

A time may also be assigned by the GM to some tasks. If the referee allows it the character may spend more or less time than required. The chance of success is modified as below. These multiplications are always the last modification to be made.

Time Spent	New Skill Level
x ½	½ Skill
x 1	Normal Skill
x 10	Double Skill

Criticals
When resolving tasks normally a character either succeeds or fails. However there are also two additional possible results, Critical Success and Critical Failure.

A Critical Success is an outstanding success, this means that the task has been completed either more quickly or better than expected. A Critical Failure is a spectacular failure. Not only is the task not completed as hoped but it is botched in the worst possible way. Tools might be broken or cars might be crashed.

While some tasks have defined effects for Criticals most do not. It is the responsibility of the referee to decide what happens in the case of Criticals - be careful not to go too far overboard, remember that 10% of all tasks will result in a Critical.

When resolving tasks a roll of 1 is a Critical Success unless the characters chance was 1 or less, in which case a roll of 1 is a simple success. A Critical Failure occurs when a player rolls a natural 20, unless the characters skill was 20 or greater in which case a roll of 20 is a simple failure.

Example:

The Break In

Fred is attempting to break in to a house and needs to pick the lock on the back door. The referee asks the player to roll against Fred's Criminal(Lockpick) skill of 11. The player rolls a d20 and a result of 11 or less is a success. Later, Fred wishes to open a safe. The referee decides that this lock is particularly difficult so assigns a task difficulty of Hard (which is a -5 modifier) and states that it will take Fred 10 minutes to attempt the task. Fred is in no hurry so he then decides to take his time (100 minutes). His chance of success is then; skill 11 - Difficulty Hard = 6, doubled to 12. A 12 is rolled which is a success, barely. The safe clicks open and wiping the drool from his chin, Fred reaches in for the goodies. Two armed men burst in and point automatic pistols at Fred. He surrenders.

Opposed Rolls
Opposed rolls can be used in cases where one skill or attribute is actively pitted against another. Examples include car racing (Drive skill vs. Drive skill), sneaking (Stealth vs. Perception) or kicking down a door (Characters STR vs. Doors STR). This game system uses opposed rolls for all armed or unarmed melee combat.

The referee decides when an opposed roll is appropriate. Generally they are used when it is clear that two people are competing directly and the referee wants to heighten the tension. To make an opposed roll you must be able to say that a certain two attributes are the key to the task and then one roll is made to decide the result. Who makes this roll is also decided by the referee. Generally the player will make the roll (they like rolling dice), however sometimes the referee will make the roll if they want to conceal the NPC's skill or for other sneaky reasons.

To determine the success number of an opposed roll take the two skills or attributes and subtract the smaller from the larger. This gives you the skill difference. A large difference is good for the person with the higher skill and bad for the person with the lower skill. The success number for the opposed roll is equal to 10 plus or minus the skill difference (plus if the person rolling has the higher skill, minus if they have the lower skill.

Example:

Armed Conflict

Fred is participating in an Arm wrestling competition and the referee decides that this should be resolved using opposed rolls. Fred is quite strong (STR 12). In the first match his opponent also has a strength of 12. The difference between the two is 0 so Fred's chance is 10. He makes it easily with a 3. In the next match his opponent has a strength of 8. The difference is 4 and Fred is higher so his chance is 14. He rolls a 3 again and wins. Finally he is pitted against an opponent with a strength of 16. The difference is 4 again but this time Fred is lower so the difference is subtracted to give a chance of 6. A roll of 8 means he has failed. His arm crashes to the table.

Example:

Fred gets caught

Fred is tied to a chair. He had the misfortune of breaking into an intelligence agency's safe house. Convinced Fred is an enemy agent, they have sent in Mr. Williams, a very polite little man carrying a small black bag. At first Fred tells some amazing lies, rolling his Social(Inter-personal) of 12 against Mr. Williams' Social(Inter-personal) of 15. Each time he tells a lie, Mr. Williams has a 13 in 20 chance of spotting it. After a while, Mr. Williams reckons he has the truth but is probing deeper to find out more. Fred has stopped answering questions (he has done covert work against this agency in the past) so Mr. Williams takes out the hairdryer. To keep quiet, Fred's player is rolling Fred's WIL of 9 to see if he can resist answering. He must roll this to avoid answering any of the questions. He can still lie but the more burnt he gets, the more likely it is that Mr. Williams will spot the lies.

SECTION 3: COMBAT BASICS

Combat Rounds
Time in combat is measured in Combat Rounds. Each Combat Round represents a few seconds of action.

Optionally at the start of the combat round each player must state what their character will be doing for the entire combat round, starting with the player with the lowest DEX. This option can slow combat down a lot so only use it to add tension to some particularly nerve-biting moment.

Order of Combat
The order in which people act in a round is from highest modified DEX down. Appropriate (cumulative) modifiers to DEX are listed below:

Firearm ready	+5
Performing any movement	-5

In melee combat the person with the longest prepared weapon always goes first in the initial round of combat with a new opponent. As an obvious exception to this, firearms in melee still fire according to their modified DEX, regardless of how long their opponent's weapon is.

Movement
The maximum number of metres a human can move in a round is 10m. Every -1 AAM (see later) reduces this by 1m. Conscious characters can always crawl. The following table shows movement rates per round.

Crawling	up to 1 metre
Walking	up to 5 metres
Running	from 5 to 10 metres

If a character makes any attack, be it projectile or melee, and moves during the same round, the attack and movement are considered to be simultaneous thus all such attacks occur at DEX modified by -5. Firearms hit chances are also modified by movement (see Section Four).

Panic
Characters and NPC's may become panicked by certain events. To check for Panic roll WIL without any modifiers or be panicked. The effects of Panic are that the character is at -5 to all activities for 1d10 rounds, they lose any firing position held and aiming time is wasted. Panicked characters and NPC's generally do not act in the most sensible of ways, what they actually do is down to the individual players and the referee. Characters need not make more than one panic check in a round and need not make any check if they are already panicked. Panic can be seen as either being scared ("Oh Shit, they're shooting at me. I don't wanna die!!") or stunned ("I've been shot! Is it bad? Oh God, I'm afraid to look.").

Damage
A characters resistance to damage is rated by their disability level or DL. This is (CON+STR) divided by 4 as indicated in the character generation section. When a character is injured, the damage points inflicted is divided by the DL of the character. For every DL points of damage taken you get -1 AAM (All Activities Modifier). This is a negative modifier to all rolls.
All damage in this game, whether it be small-arms fire, melee weapons or simply falling, is randomly calculated by using d10's. When rolling damage a 9 or a 10 on a dice indicates that an additional d10 is to be rolled. Additional d10's can subsequently generate even more damage.

Damage and Hit Locations
Hit locations (if used) specify whereabouts on a persons body they receive damage. There are 6 main hit locations (see table below), and where you are hit can cause various effects. Most notably affecting how much damage you get but also affects armour and limb disabling.

Damage points done to the head are doubled. Damage points to limbs are halved. Any armour is taken into account before the location multipliers come into effect.

It is possible to aim at a specific location of a target using To Hit Modifiers (with either Melee or Firearms combat, see Sections 4 and 5). If this is not done Hit Location is randomly determined on the table below.

1	Head
2	Right Arm
3	Left Arm
4-8	Torso
9	Right Leg
0	Left Leg

Limb Disabling
If a PC sustains a -3 AAM wound to a limb location, the limb is considered to be disabled, (ie: useless). A disabled limb cannot be used for 2d10 days.

Critical Hits in Combat
Critical successes with any combat attack do double damage before either armour or location multipliers are calculated. A critical strike to a limb automatically disables the limb, an injury which will take 2d10 days to heal. Optionally, a limb is broken if a critical strike hits it and does enough damage to disable it. Broken limbs take 2d10 weeks to heal.

Damage Effects
Whenever a character takes damage points the following steps are carried out. We do not keep track of the actual damage points inflicted, only their effects.

1. Calculate AAM.
   The damage points inflicted are divided by the DL of the character. This result is the AAM for the wound. When a character receives a -10 AAM (or greater) in a single wound, he is dead instantly. AAM's received are cumulative, all wound AAM's are added together to give the total AAM which is noted on the character sheet.
2. Check for Unconsciousness.
   This result is only possible when a wound AAM of -3 or greater is sustained. In this case roll CON - total AAM. A failure means that the character is unconscious for a number of rounds equal to the amount the roll is failed by.
3. Check for Eventual Death.
   If the wound was caused by an unarmed combat attack it's AAM is halved from this point on (ie: for this check, for the panic check and before adding to the characters total AAM). If the wound AAM is -3 or greater the character may die. Roll a d10. If the result is greater than the wound AAM, the character will live and is in no danger of dying from the wound sustained. If the result is less than or equal to the wound AAM, the character has sustained a CLASS II wound and will die in 1d10 hours. If the result is equal to or less than the wound AAM - 5, a CLASS I wound has been sustained and the character will die in 1d10 minutes. For a more detailed explanation of CLASS I and II wounds, see Wound Stabilisation in Section 7.
4. Check for Panic
   A character who receives a -3 or greater AAM must roll WIL - 5 or be panicked.

Armour and barriers
Armour is divided into 2 categories, personal armour and barriers. You wear personal armour and a barrier is something you use as cover.

Whenever you are hit on a location which is covered by armour, first multiply the AV of the armour by the Armour Multiplier of the weapon and then subtract the result from the damage points inflicted.

Attacks have Armour Multipliers as follows:

Type of Attack	Armour Multiplier
Pistol Rounds	x2
Rifle Rounds	x1
Shotguns	x4
Melee/Unarmed	x1

Personal Armour AV's
Type	AV	Notes
Helmet	15	Covers Head
Kevlar Vest	10	Covers Torso
Concealable Armour	5	Covers Torso
Hi-Threat Vest	30	Covers Torso, Made up of inflexible ceramic plates

Barrier AV's
Material	AV	Notes
Partition Wall	8	Plaster with wooden slats
Brick Wall	40	One block thick
Door	8	Light wooden door
Bullet-proof Glass	12	Stronger varieties exist
Steel Plate	50	Armoured car material
Tree	30	Varies with thickness

Example:

Fred's Vest

Fred is again out of the hospital and based on his previous experiences is now wearing a Kevlar Vest. For reasons known only to the Dark Master a lone gunman pull a pistol and shoots him in the back. This does 24 points of damage to his Torso. Since his vest covers the torso he multiplies its AV(10) by the Armour Multiplier of the weapon (x2) and gets 20. The damage is reduced by 20 leaving only 4 points of actual damage. His DL is 5 so the shot does no real harm. Fred breathes a sigh of relief (while diving for cover)

SECTION 4: FIREARM COMBAT

The stats used for firearms are as follows:

Ammo	This is the type of ammunition the weapon fires
ROF	This is the rate of fire of the weapon
MAG	This is the magazine capacity of the weapon
WT	This is the weight of the weapon in kilograms
RNG	This is the effective range in metres
RCL	This is the recoil of the weapon

Example weapons will be given later.

Range
The distance from the firer to the target is the range. At less than 3m the range is Point Blank. The Effective Range for a weapon is defined by its RNG stat. Long Range is up to RNGx5 and Extreme Range is up to RNGx10.

To Hit Procedure
To hit a target in firearms combat, roll your skill or less on a d20. There are modifiers which can affect the roll. All modifiers are given as straight additions or subtractions to the skill. All modifiers are cumulative.

To Hit Modifiers
Normal fire requires adopting a firing position, this may not be possible due to surprise or movement; if so, use the hipfiring modifier. In addition all fire in melee counts as hipfire.

-5	Firer Running
-5	Target Running
-5	Hip Firing
-5	Off-hand Attack
+5	Shotgun
+5	Autofire
+5	Full round spent aiming
-5	Poor Visibility
-10	Bad Visibility
-5	Long range
-10	Extreme range
+10	Point Blank (< 3 metres)
-10	Very Small target (Head)
-5	Small target (Limb/Torso)
+0	Average target (Human)
+5	Large target (Car)

Rate of Fire
The ROF is the maximum number of effective single shots the weapon can fire in a round.

A weapon capable of full automatic fire will be noted by a FA placed after the rate of fire. Instead of firing single shots a fully automatic weapon can fire a burst once a round. A burst may consist of up to 30 rounds, but not more than the remaining rounds in the weapon.

Firing more than one bullet at a specific target causes the target to make a panic check. It is possible to take 1/2 normal time or x10 time to modify the Combat skill roll.

Normal Fire
Up to the ROF in shots are fired in a round. The first shot receives no penalty, but the second and subsequent shots get a minus equal to the recoil (RCL) of the weapon.

Autofire
Automatic fire is firing a burst into an area in the hope that some bullets will hit. It may be used to fire at multiple targets. Because you are assumed to be firing at an area and not actually at specific targets, autofire gets a +5 bonus to hit. Autofire is less effective at long range (RCL increased by 5) and at extreme range can only be used to cause panic checks.

If the burst has hit the target(s) each of the bullets in the burst is assigned by the player to one of the targets in the area hit. Roll one d10 for every 3 bullets assigned to the target. Each die result over the weapon's recoil is a hit on the target by one bullet.

Example:

Guns! Guns! Guns!

Fred has a MAC-10 (RCL 4). His Firearms skill is 11. The ROF is 2FA so he can fire 2 single shots or a burst of up to 30 bullets. Two armed men run around a corner 6 metres away. He fires a burst of 18 rounds at them, 12 bullets at the first and 6 at the second. His chance to hit with the burst is 16 (Skill 11 plus the Autofire Bonus of +5). He rolls a 14 and hits with the burst. As you roll a d10 for every 3 bullets fired at the target, Fred's player rolls 4d10 for the first man (12 rounds) and 2d10 for the second (6 rounds). He must roll over the RCL of the weapon (4) to hit with one bullet. For the first target he rolls 6, 0, 9 and 1. This is a hit with 3 bullets. For the second target he rolls 9 and 1. This is a hit with 1 bullet. After damage has been worked out both men must make panic checks at -5 (fired at by more than one bullet).

Shotguns
These are area effect weapons and so they receive a +5 to hit, however shot spread means that damage is halved at long range and no damage is caused at extreme range.

Reloading
It takes a round to load 2 bullets or a magazine into a weapon.

SECTION 5: MELEE COMBAT

In melee combat the player divides his or her skill between attack and defence each round. The characters skill is divided between the two in any way desired. At the start of each round the character decides how the skill is allocated. Only one attack can be made by a character each round but they can defend against multiple attacks. The points put into defence last the entire round and take into account how much generally defensive the character is being. Each attack defended against after the first reduces the defence of the character by 5.

Example:

Fred takes his oil

Fred is squaring off against Bill the Strange. They have thrown away their pistols in an act of overt machismo which Fred is beginning to regret. Fred's Combat(Unarmed) skill is 14. His player places 8 into defence and 6 into attack. Fred's defence against the first blow this round is 8, his defence against a second blow (Bill might not be alone) would be 3 and his defence against a third blow would be -2 etc. Of course, if Fred was being attacked by three people he would be exercising his Run-Away-Very-Quickly skill.

Attack & Defence
Melee attacks are resolved using opposed rolls, attack skill versus defence skill. It is possible to still make an attack, even if your Attack skill is 0, just as you can still defend (albeit very badly) if your initial defence is 0. If you cannot defend against a blow (for example, if you are drawing a weapon or trying to use a firearm) your defence is 0.

Hit Locations
Firearms can aim at specific Hit Locations using the to hit modifiers in the Firearms Combat section, it is possible to aim at specific locations using a melee weapon but the modifiers are significantly different. These modifiers take account of the fact that an opponent will be moving and defending themselves. The modifers are -

-10	Head/Neck
-5	Torso/Limbs

Damage
In melee combat the amount you make the skill roll by is added to the damage you do. This is in addition to the damage generated by the weapon as well as the character's own Damage Bonus. This means that large amount of damage can be inflicted by melee weapons with a good roll.

Example:

Fist Fight Escalation

Bill and Fred are still duking it out when Bill shows his true colours and produces an iron bar. Fred wishes he had a second gun and mentally prepares to die. Bill, who has a Combat(Melee) of 10 attacks for 8 and defends for 2. Fred is the fastest and attacks Bill with his attack of 6. Bill defends with his defence of 2. The difference is 4 in Fred's favour giving him a chance of 14. He rolls a 5 which means he succeeds by 9 doing 9 extra points of damage. Fred's player rolls a d10 for Unarmed Combat damage plus Fred's DB of 2. The die roll is 7, meaning that Fred has done 18 (7+2+9) points of damage to Bill's (quick roll of dice for location) leg. Because Fred has made an Unarmed attack, his damage is halved after checking for Knockout, and the result (9 points, an AAM for Bill of -1) is used to check for Eventual Death and Panic. Bill is still standing after the rather pathetic low, sneaky kick and he gets ready to hit Fred with an attack chance of 10 (attack 8 versus defence 8).

Opponent Unaware
If an attack is made against an opponent who is unaware of the attackers presence or who is unable to turn to defend their rear the attacker gets a back attack bonus of +10.

Clever Move
This is an optional, but highly amusing, rule. If a player comes up with an inventive or clever attack, (ie: one you (the referee) hadn't expected, give a bonus of between +1 to +5. To offset this unexpected bonus, if a player does the same clever move twice, hoping for the same bonus, give them a penalty of -1 to -5. Say they are making a 'predictable move'. This should help put more life into melee fights. Don't expect players to come up with a clever move every strike (or even every fight), let them come naturally.

Example:

Fist of God

Bill has missed with the crowbar. Fred realises that this run of good luck cannot last for ever. He desperately needs to end the fight before Bill the Strange buries the crowbar in his head. In a flash of inspiration, he points behind Bill and screams, "What the hell's that!" The referee would not normally let such a ridiculous move take place, but Bill is not the brightest of antagonists so he turns around to see the interesting thing. Fred obligingly swings a hay-maker at Bill's jaw. The referee has given Fred a +5 to his strike and Fred's player has put all of Fred's skill into attack, giving him an attack of 14, +5 for the cunning move, -10 for aiming at Bill's head, giving a total skill of 9. Bill's defence is 2 this time as well, so Fred's chance to hit is 17. He rolls a 3, doing an extra 14 points of damage. He rolls 6 on his damage d10. Adding his damage bonus of 2, Fred does 22 points of damage, doubled to 44 points because it is a head hit. Bill has a DL of 6, so he rolls CON (15) - 8. He rolls a 17 and slumps to the ground, unconscious for the next 9 rounds. Fred grabs his gun and runs for it before Bill wakes up (with a -4 AAM and a very sore jaw). Next time, Bill will not fall for Fred's sneaky trick. No sir.

Thrown Weapons
Unless a thrown attack is prepared it counts as hip-firing. Preparing for a full round is the same as aiming with a firearm. A single roll is made to hit, the amount the roll is made by is added to damage, as for a melee weapon (grenades are an exception obviously). Effective range (RNG) for thrown weapons (throwing knives, grenades) is STR in metres. Maximum range for thrown weapons is RNGx4.

SECTION 6: ADDITIONAL COMBAT RULES

Explosions
All explosive devices have a danger radius associated with them. Within this radius explosions have two damage causing effects, blast and fragments. In addition, any character within the danger radius must roll WIL or be panicked. Characters who are prone half the blast and frag values. Underwater explosions double the Blast Radius and halve the Frag Radius. The damage of the fragments is also halved.

Blast severity is a set number, inside the blast radius a character takes this amount of damage points. Out to twice the radius, 1/4 of this value is taken. Blast causes damage mainly by concussion and cannot be protected against by armour. If the blast does not kill the character instantly then being blown into walls etc. can cause falling damage.

Within the fragment radius the stated number of fragments hit the character. Out to double the radius characters take 1/4 the amount of fragments. Fragments do 2d10 points of damage each and have an Armour Multiplier of x4.

Grenades
While there are many different grenades out there, they generally fall into three main types.

Type	Blast/Frag	Radius	Weight
Offensive	20/0	4m	0.5kg
Defensive	16/4	8m	0.5kg
Stun	8/0	2m	0.5kg

Designing Firearms
STOCS lite weapons statistics can easily be generated for whatever weapons you would like. The first step is to find a technical description of the weapon for reference, the WT and MAG can be gained from this. The ROF is then determined by referring to the following table (multiple cases may apply):

Type	ROF
Revolver	1
Bolt/Pump Action	1
Semi-Automatic	2
Full Automatic	FA
3 round burst capability	3

Damage and recoil are found by reference to the ammunition type table. Ranges can be extrapolated from the example RNG values given and information from technical manuals on the weapons in question.

Ammunition Type Table - Pistol Rounds
Calibre	Damage	Recoil	Notes
.22 LR	2d10+5	1	Also used in rifles
.25 ACP	2d10+0	0
.32 ACP	2d10+5	1
.38 Special	2d10+10	2	Common Police round
9mm Parabellum	2d10+10	2
10mm	2d10+15	3
.45 ACP	2d10+15	4
5.7mm	2d10+20	2	Used in the FN P-90
.357 Magnum	2d10+20	5
.44 Magnum	2d10+25	6

Ammunition Type Table - Rifle Rounds
Calibre	Damage	Recoil	Notes
.303	2d10+35	5	WWII round
.30-06	2d10+30	5	Hunting round
5.56mm NATO	2d10+25	3	M16 round
7.62mm NATO	2d10+35	5	European Military round
7.62x39mm	2d10+30	4	Soviet, AK47 round
5.45x39mm	2d10+25	3	Soviet, AK74 round
4.7mm	2d10+25	3	Caseless, G11 round
7.62x54mm	2d10+35	5	Soviet heavy rifle round
12.7mm	2d10+50	7	Normally used in HMG's (and extreme snipers rifles)
.60 DSF	2d10+60	7	21cm long round, fires tungsten flechette

Ammunition Type Table - Shotguns
Calibre	Damage	Recoil	Notes
20 Gauge	2d10+15	4	Buck shot
12 Gauge	2d10+30	6	Buck shot
10 Gauge	2d10+35	7	Buck shot

Example Firearms

* These prices are only given as guidelines as these weapons are generally not for sale

Example Melee Weapons

SECTION 7: MISCELLANEOUS

In the following section the term 'Medical' is used to indicate either Paramedic (first aid) skills or a doctor's training.

Healing
Under ordinary circumstances a characters AAM reduces by 1 every week. Care by a medic and a lot of rest allows the healing of 1 additional AAM per week. Strenuous activity and/or poor living conditions can reduce healing to 1 AAM per month.

First Aid
Performing Medical successfully on a character reduces the character's AAM by 1 (this can only be obtained once each time a new injury is suffered, and after that the only way to get AAM back is through natural healing).

Wound Stabilisation
There are three types of Eventually Fatal wounds, CLASS I, CLASS II and CLASS III. The first two are obtained through injury of some sort, the third is a by-product of a mortal wound healing or a result of a disease or illness.

CLASS I (massive blood loss/trauma) wounds are the most severe. After sustaining such a wound an unaided character will die in 1d10 minutes. A stabilisation attempt takes 1 minute and reduces the wound to a CLASS II wound, which must then be stabilised as a seperate task.

CLASS II (internal bleeding, wound complications) wounds are the next type of wound. After sustaining such a wound, the character will die in 1d10 hours. A stabilisation attempt takes 1 hour and reduces the wound to a CLASS III wound, which must then be stabilised in turn.

CLASS III (wound infection, fever etc.) wounds are the last type of wound. A CLASS III is the result of a CLASS II wound being stabilised or some other unusual cause, and cannot be gained directly from an injury. After sustaining such a wound, the character will die in 1d10 days. A stabilisation attempt takes 1 day and means the character involved will live and is out of danger. For a stabilisation attempt to take place, the patient must be resting for the entire day. The medic need not spend every waking moment on the patient, treatment in this case, means keeping the wound clean and keeping an eye on the patient. A medic can simultaneously treat up to six such patients.

Due to the importance of medical equipment, if a character attempts a stabilisation attempt without medical tools that character's skill is at -5. This is quite a harsh ruling so be prepared to be flexible in what counts as 'medical tools'. Examples include: A first aid kit, antibiotics, pain-killers, a sharp knife, clean bandages or compresses and a fully equipped trauma theatre. When treating CLASS III wounds, medical tools can include shelter from the elements, bed rest and perhaps even warm food as well as drugs.

Example:

I'm bleeding, Mother! Save me!

Fred receives a CLASS I wound. He has 4 minutes to live (referee rolled 4 on a d10). A colleague performs Medical on him (rolling Paramedic skill) and succeeds. This has taken 1 minute. Fred now has 1d10 (3) hours to live. Fred's friend puts him in a car and drives him to a doctor (this takes nearly an hour). The doctor has time for two attempts. She succeeds on the second. Fred now has (another random d10 roll) 9 days to live. The doctor keeps him in a back room and treats him every day. Each stabilisation attempt now takes one day and requires total rest. The doctor succeeds on the fifth day (the referee tells Fred's player that Fred was running a severe fever and it was touch and go for a while). Fred is now out of danger.

Death
A character with an eventually fatal wound whose time has come must roll CON-Total AAM or perish. If this roll is passed the character has pulled through and begins to heal. As stated earlier, a Wound AAM of -10 or more causes instant death. Note that it is possible for a character's total AAM to exceed -10; a character only dies instantly if they receive a -10 or greater AAM in a single blow.

Other Ways to Die

Falling
Every metre fallen means 2d10 points of damage, success in an Athletics task means the character can effectively reduce their fall by up to 3 metres. Being pushed backwards out of a window might make that a very hard Athletics roll. This damage is evenly divided among 3 random locations.

Suffocation
After 6 combat rounds from the start of the suffocation, a character must make a CON roll every round, at a cumulative -1, to remain conscious. If the suffocation continues after the character loses consciousness, death results in CONx2 rounds.

Drowning
A swimming character makes a Physical(Athletics) roll every 10 metres. Difficulty can depend on the speed of the water. If a roll is failed the character is assumed to make no progress that round and another roll is made next round. If two Physical(Athletics) rolls are failed in a row, drowning starts. As soon as drowning starts, a cumulative -1 is taken off the Physical(Athletics) skill each round. Drowning has the same effect as suffocation. Treading water is an Easy task.

Non Player Characters
These are the people the players meet, talk to and try to get the better of inside any role-playing game. The referee role-plays all of these characters. A referee's job is to make these characters seem real and involved in the game world. An NPC who seems to exist only when the players are looking will not be believable and the characters will fail to empathise with that NPC.

Good NPC's will improve a game as much as good characters. There is no point getting your players to generate interesting characters with personalities if everyone the meet in the game is a one dimensional cardboard cut-out. This doesn't mean that all NPCs have to have fully fleshed out motives and personalities. Learn to give individuals tags which help you to get their personality across. Example tags are: 'Incessant gambler', 'Always talks about his wife and kids', 'Constantly mooching for loose change' or 'Loves to drink to excess'. These are excellent for bit-part characters (those who will only have a small part to play in the game), at the same time making them instantly recognisable and allowing the players to interact with them. The more players interact with an NPC, the more rounded and the more of a real person the NPC becomes. As in films, suspension of disbelief is very important and the more you can immerse the players in the game world, the more they will enjoy it.

More important NPC's require more work. Some need to be as detailed as a player character, with a background, goals which they want to accomplish, quirks and flaws. These NPCs also need a personality. There is no point in having an important NPC who is merely a physical description with a funny accent.

After this important ground-work, give the NPC a motivation. Decide why they do what they do. Are they betraying the players in order to get the money to pay for their child's expensive operation, or are they merely greedy and uncaring?

The method of establishing an NPCs attributes and skills is very simple (an NPC's personality is generally more important than their size or driving ability). The only information needed when assigning numbers to an NPC is an Aptitude. This is a number between 4 and 20 and describes all their stats. This number can also be the level of any important skills they might possess or another Aptitude can be given that describes their skill level.

Example:

Rob the seedy information (and TV set) broker

This is a character that Fred has found useful for providing information or illegal services. Rob is not particularly smart or strong, so we give him an Aptitude of 12, about average. This is also the level of any relevant skill areas such as Physical or Social. However, Rob's main speciality is Urban Survival, his contacts and street knowledge, so we give this a level of 16. Rob's tag is 'always trying to sell some piece of junk his brother pulled off the back of a truck'. He's a fairly cheery soul but will quite happily break your legs if you try and mess him around

Character experience
If the GM desires he can award each player a couple of experience points after each adventure. Normally 0, 1 or 2 points would be awarded, the number being based upon the player's contribution to the game. Character skill levels can be increased by the expenditure of experience points in the same way as the skill points used during character creation. Experience points cannot be used to increase general skills, (ie: only specialisations can be purchased). To raise the level of expertise in a skill already acquired, simply pay the difference in skill points between the old level and the new one.

Example:	Experience
	To raise a Professional specialisation to Expert would cost 7-3 = 4 experience points