Decode Diaspora

1 Fate Primer...... 2 9.3 Consequences...... 9 1.1 Aspects...... 2 9.4 Taken Out and Concession.... 9 1.2 Scenes...... 2 10 Wealth...... 9 1.3 Zones ...... 2 10.1 Selling Things ...... 10 1.4 Actions ...... 3 10.2 Upkeep Period and Maintenance . 10 1.5 Table Consensus...... 3 11 Spaceships...... 11 2 System Generation...... 4 11.1 Stats...... 11 2.1 System Connections...... 5 11.2 V-Shift and Travel...... 12 3 Player Characters...... 5 11.3 Overburn and Extended Travel . . 12 3.1 Aspects...... 5 11.4 Ship Generation ...... 12 3.2 Compel Boxes ...... 5 11.5 Stress ...... 13 3.3 Initial skills...... 6 11.6 Stunts...... 13 4 Skills...... 6 11.7 Space Conﬂict Scenes ...... 13 4.1 Skill List ...... 6 11.8 Repair...... 15 4.2 Assistance...... 6 12 Gear...... 16 5 Stunts...... 7 6 Level Up...... 7 12.1 Non-Combat Gear...... 16 7 Personal Conﬂict Scenes...... 7 12.2 Combat Gear...... 16 7.1 Defence Rolls...... 7 12.3 Personal Weaponry...... 16 7.2 Skill Usage ...... 7 12.4 Ranged Weapons...... 16 8 Fate Point Economy...... 7 12.5 Armour...... 17 8.1 Refresh ...... 7 13 NPCs ...... 18 8.2 Compels...... 8 14 Player Advice...... 18 9 Stress, Consequences, Recovery Rolls and 15 GM Advice...... 18 being Taken Out...... 8 16 Quick Ref...... 20 9.1 Stress...... 8 17 Character Sheet...... 21 9.2 Recovery ...... 8 18 Ship Sheet...... 22

Acknowledgements

VSCA Publishing for Diaspora, elements used under OGL (http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/ogl.html)

Evil Hat Productions for Fate Core, elements used under OGL (http://www.faterpg.com/licensing/licensing-fate- ogl/full-ogl-text/)

Monte Cook Games for the Cypher System, elements used under their Fan Use Policy (http://cypher-system.com/fan- use-and-licensing/)

1 1 Fate Primer

Decode Diaspora uses Fate Core as a base, with many tweaks and additions. Fate is a narrativist system which means that the mechanics are there to support creating a character-driven story, rather than to provide balanced gameplay against progressively more difficult challenges, or to accurately simulate a world (see GNS theory for more). Decode Diaspora’s rules emphasise speculative future technology and economics in order to tell a hard science fiction story, in which people struggle to survive in unforgiving space. The dice mechanic is 4dF, where F is a Fudge die with two − sides, two 0 (blank) sides and two + sides. So you’ll be rolling a result between −4 and 4 with 0 being common and ±4 rare (see here for probabilities). Zero isn’t a very high number, but it’s the target number for any action that isn’t opposed nor particularly difficult. You won’t be rolling unless both your success and your failure can lead to an interesting story. More on that in GM Advice below. You add modifiers to your dice value. The usual modifiers are: Effort, Edge, Stunts and Aspects. Your Effort and Edge come from the Skill the GM (and the table) agrees the roll relates to, e.g. the Close Combat skill for knocking out the sec enforcer before he comms for backup. Edge is free (you paid for it at character creation), Effort is going to cost you something (see Skills below for more). Stunts give bonuses in certain circumstances (see Stunts below). Aspects may be Invoked at the cost of a Fate Point, or they may have Free Invokes that may be used once to give +2. In special circumstances other modifiers may be used (such as spaceship stats) or assigned at the discretion of the GM/Table. This "roll plus modifiers" mechanic is used for every circumstance in the game. The rest of this ruleset elaborates on what modifiers are applied in what circumstances and how to interpret the results.

1.1 Aspects Aspects are phrases that describe the most important details about characters, objects and locations. Using phrases instead of numerical statistics allows different interpretations to arise. This is desirable as using (Invoking or Com- pelling) an Aspect is a major part of play. When an Aspect is Invoked or Compelled it must be narratively justified how it causes the described effect. As such evocative Aspects are more useful (and fun!) than descrip- tive ones. Usually Invoking costs a Fate Point for +2 to a roll or a reroll. A Compel uses an Aspect to justify some exceptional narrative event occurring, and also usually costs a Fate Point. Aspects may have Free Invokes placed on them, in which case using them does not cost a Fate Point. There are several subtypes of Aspect. Boosts are one-use Free Invokes. Your own character Aspects can only be Invoked for rerolls, you can use other players’ character’s Aspects for +2 though. Consequences are entirely-negative Aspects that are the result of damage. A single roll can only use one kind of Aspect once, i.e. one character Aspect, one environment Aspect, one gear Aspect, etc. Free Invokes can always be stacked, however.

1.2 Scenes A scene is the foundational unit of game time, in which the player characters are attempting to achieve some goal.

1.3 Zones When it matters enough to draw the positioning in a Scene, space is modelled abstractly. Space is separated into Zones, which can be traversed (sometimes only if an obstacle is overcome). Two people in the same Zone are eyeball-to-eyeball, an adjacent zone you could lunge out and touch them, further away it is less concrete.

2 1.4 Actions Mechanically, all character actions are interpreted as one of the following Actions. Each Action has four potential outcomes, depending on whether the roll plus modiﬁers is less than, equal to, greater than or much greater than a Target Number set by the Game Master.

Succeed with Style: beat TN with +3 to spare Succeed: beat TN Tie: same TN Fail: less than TN

Overcome Defend Used to get past physical, emotional, intellectual, ﬁscal Used when actively trying to prevent another character’s obstacles in your character’s path Attack or Create an Advantage action SwS: achieve your goal, get a boost You roll for Defend once and use the same roll until you S: achieve your goal take an action. T: achieve your goal, at a minor cost SwS: no damage/aspect, get boost F: player’s choice: achieve goal at S: no damage/aspect great cost or fail T: see Attack or CaA (enemy gets boost) F: take damage/aspect Create an Advantage Used to create new environmental aspects or to improve existing ones Counterattack For already-existing aspects ignore the "create aspect" Used when attempting to reverse an Attack action against bit, just add the free invokes your character SwS: aspect created with 2 free invokes GM Note: End conﬂicts quickly, and dramatically S: aspect created with a free invoke SwS: as attack T: you get a boost instead of an as- S: as attack pect T: take damage x2 F: player’s choice: fail to create as- F: take damage x2, enemy gets pect or you create it but the EN- boost EMY gets a free invoke

Attack Purchase Used to inﬂict Stress, Consequences and Take Out an- Used when attempting to acquire an item or service (see other character see Wealth below) SwS: do damage, optionally reduce by SwS: get item with an additional stunt 2 to get boost or aspect with free invoke on it S: do damage OR heal a wealth stress box T: get a boost S: get item, get boost related to F: no damage, see Defend and item Counterattack (as enemy suc- T: get item ceeds in one of those) F: get item, take wealth stress

Move In general a PC can move a Zone and make another action, or they can Move twice. Moving through obstacles may require an Overcome roll. Only matters in time-critical scenes, e.g. combat.

1.5 Table Consensus If at any point a ruling or narrative detail is in doubt (commonly the validity of a Compel) each player including the GM (the table) votes, and what the table votes is fact. Ties are broken by the GM.

3 2 System Generation

Each player (including the GM) has two star systems to create. Each player names and determines the attributes for their systems. Giving systems names so that each has unique initials is convenient. Systems have three attributes, each graded on a scale from -4 to 4: Technology, Environment and Resources.

Technology Environment Resources 4 On the verge of collapse Many garden worlds All you could want 3 FTL mastery Some garden worlds Multiple exports 2 FTL use One garden and several survivable worlds One significant export 1 Exploiting the system One garden and several hostile environments Rich 0 Exploring the system One garden world (and perhaps additional barren worlds) Sustainable -1 Atomic power Survivable world Almost viable -2 Industrialization Hostile environment (gravity but dangerous atmosphere) Needs imports -3 Metallurgy Barren world (gravity, no atmosphere) Multiple dependencies -4 Stone age No habitable worlds at all No resources Tech Levels are mostly self-explanatory, except for T4. This is the point at which a civilisation is surpassing our current understanding of the universe to the point that we would no longer consider what they are capa- FTL ble ’hard’ sci fi. But, as we are primarily interested in The gist of FTL is that its limited to two points 5 As- hard sci fi stories, we also stipulate that at that level of tronomical Units (AUs) above and below the barycen- technology a civilisation is about to disappear. Perhaps tre (usually a star) of a system. At those points it is they have created a grey goo scenario, or an AI singu- possible to travel FTL or instantaneously to a select larity is imminent, or through dimensional research they few other systems by the use of some essentially mag- have discovered a paradise or horror that will soon lead ical device. As such the connected systems may not to a mass exodus. be even remotely close in the universe, or know which Environment represents how easily humans can live stars in sky are their neighbours. This is the only on the bodies (planets, moons, asteroids) in the system. part of the rules to make a concession to ’soft’ sci fi Technology such as habitat domes and space stations (though Tech Level 4 civilisations and objects may may mitigate this. A system with low tech and hostile blur the line as well). It could be equally viable to environment is an interesting story waiting to happen. have the setting be entirely within a single star sys- Resources can represent many things, but some com- tem with each player generating planetary systems or mon ones are: water, food/farmland, fissionables (for asteroid belts instead of star systems. lower tech levels without cold fusion), metal-rich as- Arbitrary FTL between points takes away a great deal teroids (a metal-rich planet is less valuable due to the of the pressures that drive conflict in a hard sci fi set- energy needed to get it out of the gravity well), and ting, you needn’t worry about r-mass, fleet logistics reaction-mass. or the sheer vastness of space (even in-system) when Feel free to liberally interpret any of the descriptions, you have magical engines. Confining the setting to e.g. Environment 4 could denote a ringworld about the a small number of systems also discourages the "ad- star. Any 4 or -4 is interesting and improbable, and venture of the week" on a previously-unheard-of and likely unnatural. never-mentioned-again planet that is so common to If no systems have T2 or higher give the system with space opera. Actions in a closed system have conse- the lowest sum of stats and the one with the highest sum quences that will have to be dealt with. T2, otherwise there will be no inter-system interaction. Or just run with it. Each player gives each of their systems two Aspects describing them and the civilisation/s living in them.

4 2.1 System Connections

Arrange the systems’ initials in a line, in a random order From left to right the owning player rolls four Fudge dice for system connections. − the system is connected only to the one on the right. 0 as − and one additional system to it’s right (the closest with no connections). + as − and two additional systems to it’s right (the closest and second closest with no connections). There’s no point rolling for the last two systems. Players then give each of their systems one additional Aspect related to it’s relationship (political, economic, etc) to the other systems. For example the 21st century Sol system would be something like T-1E1R1 with Aspects: Heavily Balkanized, Filled with Microprocessors, Apparently Alone

3 Player Characters 3.1 Aspects High Concept: the gist of your character in a single short phrase. Trouble: what always gets in the way of everything going smoothly. A weakness, vice, enemy, illness or obsession Background: what part of the character’s past remains central to their lives? A reputation, childhood experience, training or something about their homeworld Relationship: what about some other character (NPC or PC) or faction keeps them often in your character’s thoughts? A friendship, debt, nemesis, infatuation or rivalry. Perspective Aspect: the player to your left describes an anecdote about your character from their character’s perspective. A shared adventure, opinion, rumour, fear or hope

Keep in mind that Aspects are what give the GM and other players hooks to engage with your character, so the more varied and interesting they are the better. They indicate to other players, especially the GM, what sort of problems you’re interested in having your character run up against. This goes double for your Trouble. An Aspect with no potential downsides is hard to derive drama from, a character beset by adversity is an interesting character. See Player Advice below for more.

3.2 Compel Boxes Tick these oﬀ once the associated Aspect has been Compelled (i.e. you or someone else suggested a bad thing to happen to your character because of that Aspect, you accepted and got a Fate Point for it, see Compels below). Once all PCs have all ﬁve of their boxes ticked they all Level Up at the next opportunity. Someone holding you back? Maybe you should Compel them.

5 3.3 Initial skills

18 Points, spend as follows: All skills are considered to have 1 Effort and -1 Edge 1 Point for +1 Effort by default, representing the the character is untrained in that skill but is still generally competent. The first Edge 3 Points for +1 Edge in a skill takes it from -1 to 1. The first Effort take Edge 3 Points for +1 Refresh from -1 to 0. Apart from initial untrained skills Edge 5 Points for +1 Stress Box may never exceed Effort.

4 Skills

Skills have two values, Edge and Effort. Edge is a passive bonus to using a skill, Effort is the ability to push yourself. When attempting an action in which the Skill is relevant you get a +1 to your roll for each Edge in that Skill, and may spend up to your Effort score in Stress to get a +2 for each point spent. Edge and Effort may stack. E.g. a PC has Edge 1 Effort 2 in a skill, when rolling on it they get a +1 and may mark a Stress Box for a +3, or spend two for a +5. GM Note: if someone is spending Effort on something it means they care a lot about this roll. Make sure the result, whether it is a success or failure, is an interesting one.

4.1 Skill List

Fitness[1] Charm Resolve[1] Provoke Assets[1] Empathy Close Combat Piloting Ranged Combat[2] Craft Tactics[3] Computer Survival Engineering Alertness Science[4] Investigate Medical Stealth Culture[5] Deception

[1] Fitness, Resolve and Assets are the catch-all Skills for the Health, Mental and Wealth Stress tracks respectively. [2] includes vehicular combat, i.e. spaceships. Specialisation [3] catch-all combat defence skill. Agility is not very ef- If your character concept is someone who is good at fective at dodging out of the way of incoming fire. Piloting submarines but not Spacecraft, put an Effort [4] important usage: plotting trajectories through a star or two in Piloting and take a Stunt (see below). or planetary system. [5] Each Edge represents one additional System you are familiar with, note which. PCs start with 1 Edge (for their home system). Edge can only be used in familiar Systems, Effort can wherever.

4.2 Assistance PCs can assist other PCs if they give up their turn to give the action a +1. The assisting character can spend Effort up to their Effort in the appropriate skill, each Effort spent in that manner gives the action an additional +1 (NOT +2 as Effort does for your own actions). Edge gives no bonuses when assisting. If an Assisted roll fails all assisting characters are affected by the result. E.g. a in failed Defence roll all defenders would take damage or gain an temporary Aspect.

6 5 Stunts

Stunts consist of a Name and a Description. In general Stunts allow you to give your character special rules or a rule exception for certain circumstances which you want your character to be particularly specialised for. To give an indication of the sort of stunts you could make here are some description templates: Get +2 to [Roll] when performing [Action] in [Circumstance] Get +2 to [Roll] when using [Skill] for [Specialisation] Once per session you [can use narrative power] You can use [Skill] in place of [Other Skill] for [Action] You can spend a Fate Point to do [unusual powerful nifty thing] at will [Not particularly powerful thing] is always true Some examples: Lightning Spear of Odin: +2 damage when Attacking using your lightning spear Master Chef: +2 to Arts when cooking Spymaster: Once per session may be informed about an enemy’s plans, actions, or position by a contact Pretty Please?: Use Charm in place of Assets when Purchasing Tinkerer: May spend a Fate Point to assemble exactly what you need from parts on hand Endless Daggers: Always has a knife on their person Though most anything is possible, talk it out with the table. Very powerful Stunts may be taken for the cost of two Stunts i.e. two Refresh.

6 Level Up

Erase all Compel boxes on your Aspects (think about if any of them are no longer relevant, or if something else is now more important and should be an Aspect instead). Pick one of the following: • assign +2 Eﬀort, +1 Edge to Skills of your choice • assign +2 Eﬀort, get +1 Refresh or Stunt • get +1 Stress to a stress track of your choice.

7 Personal Conflict Scenes 7.1 Defence Rolls If you roll Defence at any point the dice stay on the table until it is your turn again, rerolls are still valid. Any modifiers from your roll due to Edge, Effort or Aspects do not remain, but must be re-calculated at the next attack. If you roll a -4 you bet everyone will be following up on your mistake. Any Counterattack action is made with your Defence roll as a modifier.

7.2 Skill Usage You cannot use a Skill more than once in a round. If you Attacked with a skill, you must Defend with a diﬀerent one. You cannot Defend with the same skill twice.

8 Fate Point Economy 8.1 Refresh You begin a session with your Refresh of Fate Points. If you had more than your refresh last session they do not carry over. Refresh is 3 minus one for each stunt taken over 3. That is you can have up to 3 stunts without lowering your refresh. E.g. if you have 1, 2 or 3 Stunts you have 3 refresh, if you have 4 Stunts you have 2 Refresh, if you have 5 Stunts you have 1 Refresh, etc. You cannot have more than 2+Refresh Stunts, i.e. you must always have at least 1 Refresh. More Stunts represent a more specialised character, more Refresh a generalised and ’lucky’ one. Fate Points can be spent on the following things:

7 • Invokes, an environmental or an enemy’s Aspect can be invoked for a +2 to a roll or a reroll. • Self-invokes, one of your own Aspects can be invoked for a reroll. • Compels, any Aspect can be justified for some narrative event to occur. Fate Points can be gained in the following ways: • At the beginning of the session you start with Fate Point equal to your Refresh. • The GM Invokes an environmental or one of your own aspects to gain a +2 against your character. You gain this Fate Point after the current scene ends. • You accept a Compel. You gain this Fate Point after the current scene ends. • By Conceding a conflict. You gain a Fate Point and an additional one for each Consequence taken that scene. Although the scene may not be over, it effectively is for your character, so you won’t get to use them till the next scene.

8.2 Compels At any point you can suggest a Compel (a narrative bad thing based on an Aspect) for yourself or another PC for free. If its seconded, the GM offers the player a Fate Point if they accept the Compel. If they do not, they must pay a Fate Point to the GM. If the player being offered the Compel has no Fate Points they must accept the compel. Often a player puts their character into a bad situation without needing to be Compelled or thinking to Compel themself. In this case retroactively awarding a Fate Point and considering the decision a Compel is completely valid and encouraged. If however a player suggests a Compel on a NPC they must offer the GM a Fate Point (who is also free to refuse and give the Compelling player a Fate Point). Some common forms of Compels are: • You have aspect in situation, so it makes sense that you’d decide to . This goes wrong when happens. • You have aspect and are in situation, so it makes sense that, unfortunately, would happen to you. Damn your luck. • Because you are in an environment that has aspect it just so happens that happens. Dang yo. The unexpected arrival of NPCs who love/hate the compelled character is also a personal favourite.

9 Stress, Consequences, Recovery Rolls and being Taken Out 9.1 Stress Stress is either spent for using Eﬀort or lost as the result of taking damage, one box for one point of Eﬀort or damage. There are three Stress tracks: Physical, Mental and Wealth. When you only have one Stress box left in a track you take -1 for all rolls related to that track until you can Recover. This stacks if multiple Stress boxes are reduced to 1. If you take Stress and do not have enough boxes left, and are unable or unwilling to take Consequences, you are Taken Out.

9.2 Recovery To regain stress boxes a recovery action must be taken, at which point you roll and gain back stress equal to the roll, treating negatives as 0 (after applying modiﬁers. So if you roll -1 add 1 from an Edge in Medicine, the result is 0). Stress boxes are cleared right to left, so if you have a full track you will need to fully recover the track before losing your ongoing −1. There are three recovery action available each day (or before a character rests for eight hours or so). Each recovery takes longer than the last, and must make sense within the narrative to occur. All recoveries are available again after a Full Rest. If the PCs are out of danger and have enough time available don’t worry about recovery, just clear all Stress. An exception is Wealth Stress, which may not be recovered by usual means. If an Upkeep Period passes in which the character has taken no Wealth Stress they recover one box. An item may be sold to clear all boxes equal to and below it’s Cost value. Finally the operating of a spaceship (or other venture) may positively or negatively aﬀect your stress. See Wealth below.

8 9.3 Consequences A PC has three Consequences: Mild, Moderate and Severe, which may be spent to reduce incoming stress by 2, 4 and 6 respectively. NPC may have more or less. A PC may choose to take a Consequence when taking Stress, they are never forced to (though the lower-case consequences of being Taken Out are non-optional). Consequences grant a free Invoke once per Scene and reduce the associated Stress Track’s maximum by one until it is healed. This stacks for multiple Consequences. A Mild consequence can be healed at the soonest opportunity (the next Upkeep Period). The soonest a Moderate Consequence can be healed is at the beginning of the next session. The soonest a Severe Consequence can be healed is at the beginning of the next session after that, i.e. the rest of the session it is inﬂict and one full session afterwards. Provided the conditions above are met, all Consequences heal at the next Upkeep Period. A healed Mild Con- sequence is gone (the player may like to note a scar) and a Moderate one becomes a Mild one (change wording as appropriate). Severe Consequences heal to Moderate ones only if an Upkeep Period passes in which the associated Stress Track is not used. Again, Wealth is an exception.

9.4 Taken Out and Concession If a Stress hit would exceed the number of boxes in a track and the player is unable or unwilling to take Consequences to mitigate the Stress, they are Taken Out. This means the character who inflicted the Stress gets to decide what happens to your character. This could be you flee, become a gibbering wreck, go into bankruptcy and have you assets seized or you die. When a Conflict starts the table should decide the stakes, if its a fight to the death you will know it. At any time during a conflict scene a character may Concede, which means you lose the conflict i.e. you do not get what you want but you get to narrate how, provided the winning party agrees. Additionally you get one Fate Point and an additional one for each Consequence taken this scene. You still lose, but retain some control over what happens, unlike being Taken Out. Spaceships can also be Taken Out. If the spaceship was related to a character’s Stunt is cannot be destroyed, unless the player agrees, in which case the character immediately gains one additional Refresh and a Fate Point, and can acquire a replacement Stunt at the soonest opportunity.

10 Wealth

Purchasing an item is an Assets Skill check against the Cost of the item. Regardless of success or failure, the character gets the item. A failure does generate hits on their Wealth stress track equal to the number of negative shifts. As always, a character can take a Consequence to reduce or remove the number of hits. A character who has taken a hit on his Wealth track and maybe a Consequence demonstrates the lengths he has gone to in order to ﬁnance the purchase. They’ve made enemies, got a bad bank loan, stolen from their boss, borrowed from their mum, and generally set themselves up for catastrophe so of course they get the item! Cost Example 1 Hotel (per day), close combat weapon 2 Non-powered armour, pressure suit 3 Slug thrower, single passage ticket to another system 4 Vehicle (ground), energy weapon 5 Interface vehicle, vehicle (spe- ciality) 6 Civilian spaceship, a nice house, powered armour 7 Huge house with servants, min- ing rights to uncharted asteroids 8 Military spacecraft

9 The Tech Level of an item and the place it is Purchased changes it’s Cost by the diﬀerence between them. i.e. a Tech Level 2 item bought in a Tech Level 1 System Costs 1 more, in a TL 3 System it would Cost 1 less, etc.

10.1 Selling Things When you sell something, you clear the checked Wealth stress track boxes up to the Cost of the item (i.e. counting from the right), less one (less two if the object is stolen or otherwise compromised). Hence selling many small items cannot therefore remove the extremes of ﬁnancial stress, but can provide "breathing room" on the track. Consequences can also be cleared by selling things. E.g. selling a Cost 4 item will either clear three Stress boxes or a Mild Consequence, a Cost 5 item removes a Moderate Consequence, and a Cost 6 item a Severe Consequence. Only if the associated Consequence was caused by Wealth damage originally, of course.

10.2 Upkeep Period and Maintenance For anything a PC owns worth Cost 6 or more they must pay maintenance every Upkeep Period (a month or so), the most interesting case being a spaceship. As a rule of thumb, the first time a ship arrives at a capable Why Take Assets Effort If I’m Going to station and every in-game month that passes during that Pay Stress Anyway? session a maintenance check is made. A maintenance Effort is +2 for 1 Stress, an Assets roll to purchase a check is rolling the ship’s Trade value versus a target of military spaceship (Cost 8) with 0 Edge and no Effort 0, modified by the following factors: paid is guaranteed to give you a Consequence, with • if the station’s tech level is below the ship’s, add Effort you’ll only fill your Stress track. This is the the difference same for Defending against any Attack with Effort. • for each Consequence on the ship, add 1 • if no maintenance check was made last Upkeep Pe- riod, add 2 • if the ship has not been utilising it’s Trade ability (i.e. hauling cargo or passengers), add 2 Some common Aspects/Boosts to be in play here are special cargo or rewards for missions completed. On a tie or success the ship is fuelled, crew and fees get paid and minor repairs are made. Also on a success each shift may remove one stress from a character’s Wealth track, with the ship’s owner choosing who. As per Selling things 4, 5, and 6 shifts (a very profitable Period!) could remove a Mild, Moderate or Severe Wealth Consequence. On a failure the item takes a Consequence unless someone offers to foot the bill. In which case the patron rolls Assets against the degrees of failure on the maintenance roll, with rules as usual for buying things (i.e. the item WILL be maintained, the question is whether the patron will take stress/consequences). Note that some expensive items may not have a Trade value (e.g. power armour) in which case you had best be using them to make dosh, friends and favours or it will quickly become a liability.

10 11 Spaceships

Spaceships are constructed in orbit and are not designed to ever enter atmosphere or gravity wells. The majority of any ship is devoted to storing reaction mass. The centre of thrust is through the centre of mass, so Stealth in Space they are usually symmetrical. They are designed with There is none. Against the coldness of space the heat floors facing opposite the direction of thrust, so that for energy of a ship’s expelled reaction mass and radi- the times the ship is burning the crew have something ators are impossible to miss. Designs that generate like gravity. They have large radiators to dissipate the negligible heat are possible, but not if they contain heat of the engines, life support and weapons via black weapons or humans. Remember, impossibility is the body radiation into space. Any station or ship intended domain of Tech Level 4 ships. to spend a long time in orbit will have a centrifuge liv- Though stealth is impossible, subterfuge is not. In ing compartment or crew trained to live in micrograv- a heavily trafficked powered-down frigates may hide, ity. The profits of trade struggle to break even against and a ship may store cargo in secret that lax or bribed the cost of moving mass against the tyrant of gravity, customs officers may miss. Additionally, sensor reso- and space battles are long drawn-out affairs of second- lution is a factor. A ship can not be invisible, but it guessing the enemy that are over in an instant. It may can hide its precise nature. be the instant you see more missiles launched that you can hope to shoot down, and you wait minutes for death; or it could be the instant you are vapourised by a laser you never knew fired.

11.1 Stats

Spaceship Stats are essentially Skills with Edge. V- Shift may apply any amount of Effort marking Stress off Acceleration (g) the Heat Track (see Space Conflict Scenes below). Missile The g-values are for the usual travel method may apply 1 Effort in exchange for the "Low on Ammo" of burning the engines (accelerating) constantly Aspect being applied to the ship with a free Invoke, or 2 halfway to the destination, then flipping the ship Effort in exchange for the "Out of Ammo" Aspect, with 180 and burning the other way to slow down (as effective Missile rating 0 until you reload. Stunts or ta- this is the fastest possible way to travel long dis- ble consensus would allow for spending Effort in other tances). For short periods engines are able to accel- scenarios. erate much more quickly, which is useful for evasive manoeuvres and the like. At V-Shift greater than 3 the limiting factor is not the maximum possible g, but the ability of the crew to withstand such high g for protracted periods; not to mention ex- tremely high g for combat manoeuvres. Technol- ogy to keep people conscious and effective under high-g is a major avenue of military research.

V-Shift thrust, maximum acceleration (g), manoeuvrability, range. Lasers direct fire capabilities, lasers and mass drivers. Missile indirect fire capabilities, missiles and drones. Electronics comms, sensors, computers, electronic warfare, targeting. Trade cargo space, passenger quarters. Crew quantity and/or quality, could be computer automation. If PCs aren’t at station, determines Ship operation skill modifiers.

11 11.2 V-Shift and Travel V-Shift is an abstraction of how good your engines are, how far and fast you can travel. Normally you want to know about thrust, eﬃciency and how much r-mass you have. We’ll ignore all that in lieu of one number: V-Shift. V-Shift Acceleration (g) Time to 1 AU 0 0.01 14 days 1 0.1 5 days 2 0.5 2 days 3 1.0 36 hours 4 1.5 28 hours 5 2.0 24 hours 6 3.0 20 hours 7 4.0 17 hours Range is how long you can be in space before needing to reﬁll your r-mass. In distance Range always 10 AU, Extended Range is 40 AU. Why do better V-Shifts have shorter (in time) ranges? The time is shorter but the distance is the same. To go faster in space you need to push more mass out of your craft. Higher V-Shift engines may spend less time in space before refuelling, but they get to more places before they need to. V-Shift Range (days) Extended Range(days) 0 140 560 1 50 200 2 20 80 3 15 60 4 12 48 5 10 40 6 8 32 7 7 28

11.3 Overburn and Extended Travel A ship can travel at 1 V-Shift higher than it’s rating for no longer than 5 AU. If so ﬁll the Heat track and give it the Aspect "Low on r-mass" with a free invoke and the ship has eﬀectively V-Shift 0 until it refuels. A ship can travel 2 V-Shifts lower than it’s rating, if so it’s range counts as Extended. E.g a V-Shift 2 ship conserving fuel can travel for 80 days (40 AU) before being "Low on r-mass".

11.4 Ship Generation Build Points = 6+6*TL Tech Level -1 and below cannot build spaceships. TL BP 0 5 1 11 2 17 3 23 4 29 Stats start at zero, can be increased for 1 BP up to TL, 2 BP thereafter. Rank T0 T1 T2 T3 T4 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 4 3 2 2 2 3 - 5 4 4 3 4 - - 6 5 4 5 - - - 7 6 6 - - - - 8

12 Stunts and additional Stress boxes are 2BP apiece. BP can exceed the limit for the Tech Level, but BP over the limit increases the Cost one-for-one. Civilian ships (without weapons) cost 6, Military ships cost 8. As usual, the Tech Level of the Ship is compared with the System to modify the price. Ships should have High Concept and Trouble Aspects, and more if appropriate. A maximum of ﬁve is suggested.

11.5 Stress Ships have three stress tracks: Frame, Heat and Data. Frame is structural, Heat is energy expenditure before components and crew start to fry, Data is the integrity of the ship’s control systems. Frame and Data stress requires repair by the crew or a station. It is cleared after a successful maintenance check, or after successful rolls. Heat stress dissipates over time via radiators. Unless there is some reason otherwise, a full Heat track would dissipate in a day’s time.

11.6 Stunts Some examples: Onboard AI: may spend Data stress as Eﬀort to any ship action. Firewall: +2 Defence against Data attacks. Adv. Medbay: +2 Recovery on board. Smuggler Hold: +2 hiding contraband cargo. Transfer Vehicle: shuttle for going dirtside. Cheap: -1 Cost to buy, +2 Cost to Maintain. Extended Range: x2 Range, no Burn or Overburn. Point Defence: +2 Defending against Missile attacks with Lasers. Overwatch: may Defend other nearby ships with Lasers. Spinal Mounted Railgun: -2 to hit +2 damage with Lasers. High Capacity Magazine: never "Out of Ammo", cannot apply Missile Eﬀort. Again, anything is possible, talk it out with the table.

11.7 Space Conflict Scenes There are some additional rules to resolve scenes involving spaceships such as: chases, races, fights and attempts at boarding. Though the focus is on the ships there is also space for personal heroics (or even vignettes as these conflicts could last days or weeks on lower Tech Levels).

13 The Map

As tracking 3D positions and velocities is tedious we place ships on a 1D 6-Zone map that represents how far the ships are from each other and how far they are from escaping eﬀective engagement/interception range. Ships close together on the map are close in space or trajectory, ships close to the edge of the map are in a position to change their trajectory to be completely divergent to the other combatants’. To be more precise:

• The distance between two vessels is their separation in space. The distance between two vessels does not encode their bearing, heading, or velocity. • The distance between a vessel and the nearest boundary is, roughly, a measure of it’s vector (both direction and magnitude) away from a hypothetical ship at range bar 0.

14 The Sequence Any character who acts in more than one phase takes a cumulative -1 for the round, doing more than one job is hard. Unless there is some reason otherwise, for every task a ship has a NPC crew member who have Edge equal to the Ship’s Crew stat. A Crew value of 0 could represent no crew (in which case the PCs or other established NPCs will have to perform ship functions, potentially incurring cumulative -1s) or a mediocre crew. 0. Detection At the beginning of the scene a crew member of each ship rolls Science to determine intercept/escape trajectories, the highest roll places the first two ships on the map, the next the next two, etc. beginning at the top again if needed until all ships are placed. (good place for a vignette, this phase may take a long time in-game). The winner may also choose to skip the first Position phase. 1. Position A crew member may roll Piloting + their ship’s V-Shift to determine their position value, or they may choose to not use the engine in order to remove 1 Heat stress. If there is no pilot there is no roll, and a Heat stress is removed. Position value may be augmented by applying Burn (a.k.a. V-Shift Effort) and mark Heat stress. Once Burn is declared it cannot be decreased, only increased. Each ship (in descending position value) moves itself and/or other ships, paying the value between the spaces moved on the map from the position value. The total number of Zones traversed this way may not exceed the ship’s V-Shift rating. Any ship moved off the Map is out of the Conflict, they either escaped or are left behind. 2. Electronic Warfare A crew member may roll Computer + their ship’s Electronics to make an Action. Anything you could conceivably use communications, sensors or computer systems for. Hacking enemy systems, targeting a weak point or jamming enemy comms. 3. Lasers A crew member may roll Ranged Combat + up to their ship’s Lasers to Attack. The laser value is 2 less if Attacking a ship at range 3 or greater. A laser attack can not be Defended against, but the roll may still be modified by Aspects or Boosts as usual. If Lasers are used to both Attack and to Defend against Missiles, take 1 Heat stress. 4. Missiles A crew member may roll Ranged Combat + up to their ship’s Missiles to Attack. The missile value is 2 less if Attacking a ship at range 1 or closer. A common result of a negative Attack roll is that the ship now has the Aspect "Out of Ammo", and has an effective Missile score of 0 until you resupply. In response to incoming Missiles an officer can Defend with Lasers. If Lasers were used to both Attack and Defend this round take 1 Heat stress. 5. Damage Control A crew member may attempt an Engineering check to repair Frame stress. All stress boxes up to and including the roll’s value are cleared, so a roll of 3 clears 3,2,1. Whereas a roll of one would only clear the first box (if it is filled). Consequences may not be repaired without an Upkeep Period. Similarly Data stress repair may be attempted using Computer. Heat stress cannot be repaired here (but can be by not using the engines next round). 6. Other Any other action that is reasonably may happen as well (i.e. fighting off boarders), bearing in mind each action past the first a crew member takes gives -1 to all others for the round. Goto 1. until the scene is over. The Sequence ordering is not particularly important (apart from 0. Detection), and indeed in-game it is all happening at once, but it is useful to make sure all the bases are covered.

11.8 Repair Ship Consequences are repaired as per the PC Consequence rules, though of course they also add to the Maintenance roll (to reﬂect the cost of repair expertise and material). This means a Severe Consequence will be around for a minimum of three Upkeep Periods and costing you all that time. Remember that any Conﬂict can be Conceded.

15 12 Gear

Most gear can be assumed to be usually on-hand for a PC. If in doubt ask the table, if the table says no the player can always Invoke an Aspect to make it so their character has the required gear. It is only exceptionally powerful, expensive Gear that we’re interested in modelling via Wealth and Gear rules.

12.1 Non-Combat Gear The most interesting gear is going to be non-combat, with it’s value lying in it’s Aspects and Stunts. It’s Tech Level (probably the same as it’s system of origin) and Cost is determined by the table, though TL+1 Cost for each Stunt and Aspect is a starting point.

12.2 Combat Gear For weapons (Personal, Slug Throwers, Energy Weapons) and Armour, we have some guidelines.

All weaponry have the following stats: All armour has the following: Minimum Range Defence Maximum Range Harm Agility Modiﬁer Penetration Fitness Modiﬁer

Harm increases damage dealt, but does not give a bonus to hit. Defence decreases damage dealt, but is negated by Penetration. Weapons used outside of their Range have -2 to rolls for each Zone the use exceeds the Range by. Agility and Fitness Modiﬁers are penalties or bonuses to using those Skills while wearing the Armour. And of course everything has Cost, Tech Level and may have Stunts and/or Aspects.

12.3 Personal Weaponry Personal weaponry is melee and thrown weapons, useful in low-tech and boarding scenarios.

TL BP Changing the range to be Min 0 Max 1 costs 1BP. -4 2 Increasing Harm costs 2BP apiece. -3 3 Increasing Penetration costs 1BP apiece. -2 3 Stunts and Aspects cost 2BP apiece. Some Stunt ideas: -1 4 Explosive: +2 to Damage if you apply that damage 0 4 to all characters in the Zone. 1 5 Thrown: can be thrown at Range 1-2. 2 5 Some example Aspects: 3 6 Subdermal 4 7 Cheap Base stats: Min 0 or 1 Max 0 or 1 (same as above) l l Harm 0 Pen. 0

12.4 Ranged Weapons Slug throwers are firearms, gauss rifles and crossbows. They make up the bulk of weaponry commonly encountered, though recoil can make using them in microg environments difficult. Energy weapons become more feasible at higher Tech Levels, and are the weapon of choice for combat in no-atmosphere, zero-g environments.

16 Slug Throwers Energy Weapons Build Points = Tech Level + 6 Build Points = 3*Tech Level + 3 TL BP -4 2 TL BP -3 3 -1 0 -2 4 0 3 -1 5 1 6 0 6 2 9 1 7 3 12 2 8 4 15 3 9 4 10 Tech Level -2 and below cannot create Energy Weapons.

The BP cost for increasing stats for either Slug Throwers or Energy Weapons is as follows:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 harm 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 pen. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 min 4 2 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 max -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2

So the base stats for a Ranged Weapon are: Min 2 Max 4 l l Harm 0 Pen. 0 Stunts and Aspects are 2BP each. Some example stunts: Low Recoil: no penalty from ﬁring in MicoG High Recoil: can only be ﬁred every second Round, +4 BP

12.5 Armour Armour ranges from heavy and inﬂexible suits of metal to highly sophisticated powered exoskeletons.

BP = 2*TL + 9 Build Point costs to increase Armour stats are as follows: TL BP -4 1 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 -3 3 Defence - - 0 1 2 3 5 7 9 -2 5 Fitness -2 -1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 -1 7 Agility 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 0 9 1 11 So the default stats for armour are: 2 13 Defence 0 3 15 Fitness 0 l l 4 17 Agility -2

Stunts and Aspects 2BP each: Sensors: +2 to Alertness Jump Jets: +2 to Agility, you have limited ﬂight Pressure Suit: protects against vacuum and supplies the wearer with breathable atmosphere

17 13 NPCs

Recommended: Have set stats. E.g. 3 Atk, 4 Def, +2 when taking action related to Bureaucracy. GM never rolls, Players roll against these static numbers. Adjust for enviro eﬀects (higher ground, better social standing, w/e) and don’t forget about Invokes, Compels and CaA! NPCs have no stress, but a certain number of Consequence boxes. Exceeding their defence score will inﬂict max 1 Consequence. GMs can run NPCs with all the same PCs if they wish. Nobody really likes watching someone else roll dice for 10 minutes though.

14 Player Advice

There’s no wrong way to roleplay, but Decode Diaspora was designed for a certain playstyle: • Metagaming is A-Okay Fate is an inherently meta system. Fate Points are a meta-game currency, they don’t represent anything present in the game world and exist entirely for the players to swing the game in the direction they want it to go when dice hit the table. The primary goal isn’t realism here, its a good story. So its ﬁne if you as a player decide to make your character act in a way according to some information they wouldn’t have - as long as it leads to a better story. Better still if you use the information the player knows but the character doesn’t for some Dramatic Irony. • Play to your Character’s Weaknesses While a character probably doesn’t want to be defeated, downtrod- den and depressed, we as players sometimes do. In most story arcs things get worse before they get better. The Level Up mechanics support this, you need at least 5 Compels which should hopefully be fun complications to your character’s life. See Author Stance in this article for some more elaboration on the point. • Be Explicit about your Creative Agenda You probably have a strong idea about what sort of character you want to play, what sort of scenarios you want to play them in and what sort of story the campaign overall will tell; good, say so! This is implicit in the Character Aspects you choose, decisions you make and the Compels you make and accept. But there’s nothing wrong in saying "Hey guys, wouldn’t it be cool if ... happens to me/you know/eventually". The better players understand each other’s goals for the story the better they’ll be able to play into them.

15 GM Advice

Most of this is for being at the table and running things, preparation is a bit different though it pays to have this stuff in mind then too. All the stuff in Player Advice applies too (and vice versa); GM−Player is a continuum, not a dichotomy. • Rule Zero: Have Fun If you or someone else isn’t then address it ASAP. Ignore some rules, change the environment or an NPC’s behaviour and move on. (If it was rules though let me know so I can change them, I only want fun rules). • Fail Forward When a character attempts something and it fails the result is never "nothing happens". Some- thing bad happens instead: you run out of time, you get noticed, things get worse and the story keeps moving forward. This works too if the pacing stalls and the players are doing nothing or unsure of what to do next, something bad happens that they immediately have to deal with; moving the story forward. • Yes, and When a player asks to do something that’d you’re inclined to say "no" to, instead say "yes, and" or "yes, but" and add in some complications and/or conditions that will move things in the direction you want to go. Nobody likes being shot down, embrace the story going in unexpected directions as its often the most fun for all involved. • Ask for Intentions When a character is attempting to do something and you’re not sure what the result should be, ask the player what they are trying to achieve. You can then adjudicate the result more easily, i.e. they did not get what they wanted to happen, or they did. It is important that a successful action results in something the player wanted to happen, an unsuccessful action may have some positive effects but something they didn’t want should also occur.

18 • Determine the Stakes For every scene and roll know what the point of it is. If its a discussion, who is asking questions and making requests, and what leverage are they going to try to use over the other people involved? If its a ﬁght what are the goals of each side? If its an environmental/puzzle/exploration scene, what do you want to be found out or emphasised? Make sure every action in a scene moves towards resolving it’s purpose, and once its achieved move on quickly to the next scene. If a scene had no purpose to begin with, yet somehow came into being, end it and move it along to the next one. Timeskips are good things. • Make sure the Spotlight is Shared The story is about the PCs, not your NPCs. You want to use the world to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the PCs but do so equally. If one scene concentrates on one PC make sure the next concentrates on another. Ideally design situations so that they interest several PCs, or challenges that require several PCs to overcome. • Consult the Table At every opportunity ask another player or all the players what a narrative detail should be, or which ruling to make. In Fate all the mechanics are open and the story collaborative. Share the responsibility and the fun.

19 16 Quick Ref Rolls value = roll + Edge + Eﬀort + Stunt + Invokes Before rolling decide whether to use Eﬀort, pay Stress or Fate Points. After rolling decide whether to Invoke, justify using a relevant Aspect (cannot be a Character Aspect) and pay Fate Points. Remember Boosts are free.

Skill List

Fitnes Charm Resolve Provoke Assets Empathy Close Combat Piloting Ranged Combat Craft Tactics Computer Survival Engineering Alertness Science Investigate Medical Stealth Culture Deception

Actions

Overcome Defend SwS: achieve your goal, get a boost SwS: no damage/aspect, get boost S: achieve your goal S: no damage/aspect T: achieve your goal, at a minor cost T: see Attack or CaA (enemy gets F: player’s choice: achieve goal at boost) great cost or fail F: take damage/aspect

Create an Advantage Counterattack SwS: aspect created with 2 free invokes SwS: as attack S: aspect created with a free invoke S: as attack T: you get a boost instead of an as- T: take damage x2 pect F: take damage x2, enemy gets F: player’s choice: fail to create as- boost pect or you create it but the GM gets a free invoke Purchase SwS: get item with an additional stunt Attack or aspect with free invoke on it SwS: do damage, optionally reduce by OR heal a wealth stress box 2 to get boost S: get item, get boost related to S: do damage item T: get a boost T: get item F: no damage, see Defend and F: get item, take wealth stress Counterattack (as enemy suc- ceeds in one of those)