...consists of a game moderator (GM) describing a situation, you asking clarifying questions, then telling what your characters do.
As the result, GM adjusts the situation and the process repeats.
If failure is possible, GM may ask you to make a roll of some difficulty ranging from fair to brutal.
To do that, roll dice based on a relevant aspect, ranging from poor to excellent.
“+1 to x” means that value x increases by 1. Bonuses don’t stack! +2 to x plus +1 to x equals +2 to x.
“3dx keep 2” means “roll 3 6-sided dice and keep any two”.
| Difficulty | Roll at least |
|---|---|
| Fair | 4 |
| Hard | 6 |
| Brutal | 10 |
| Aspect | Dice |
|---|---|
| Poor | 1d4 |
| Average | 1d6 |
| Good | 1d12 |
| Elite | 3d6 keep 2 |
Advantage reduces difficulty by one category. Being prepared increases an aspect by one rank. Disadvantage and blindsidedness have the opposite effect.
Aspects are divided into skills and basic aspects. One basic aspect is good, the rest are either all average or one poor, one average and one good.
One skill is average and two are good.
One of good skills has a specialisation which is elite.
Each character has three features, which are any combination of active, passive and material.
When something really bad happens to your character, they suffer stress. After they take their 7th point of stress, they become decomissioned. For each additional stress taken, they lose an aspect rank.
It has the following primary design goals:
And the following secondary design goals:
It achieves primary goals the following way:
Core rules establish gameplay loop so that a person who doesn't know what TTRPGs are can understand the big idea. They establish basic character attributes in terms of how equipped are they to deal with the forces, external and internal. Finally, they establish a basic resource for the game: stress. Now, by gust generating vectors of basic attributes, people can enjoy "lawful" roleplaying!
We enable variance at the core system level by having two simple-to-understand dials:
We have two dials instead of just one to add a tool for players to have an impact on variance in "advantage / disadvantage" and "preparedness / blindsidedness", which alter each of the two dials. If players are actively taking actions or otherwise seek advantegous position, it helps to create varied play, where an optimal action in one situation is drastically different from one in a similar situation, but with slightly different initial conditions. Two dials also famously address the problem of systems like Gumshoe, where skills and skills alone predict the outcomes of actions, no matter how difficult something is or becomes during play.
Non-linearity is an important tool to weigh outcomes and set the "probabilistic tone". We're using non-linearity only for "elite" aspect level in order for the jump from probability of succeeding on "difficult" tasks would jump more between "good" and "elite" skill levels.
We have stress, squares, tactical movement, flanking, all the good stuff you'd expect. Also, since vast majority of characters have exactly 6 "HP", it adds a simple mechanism for target selection. Introducing a collection of combat moves, each of which is a viable option and disseminating those among the players allows for even bigger space of options which yield interesting, dramatic and predictable tactics!
Aside from the rules listed in the left pane, there are some additional rules that can increase the resolution of your play.
Above all, we hope that Icy NSR is easy to pick up and use to run your NSR-style game, even while running for complete beginners. Focus on what's important and enjoy the ride!
A character may choose to make calculated rolls with the following additional effects rules:
Any character can gain advantage by giving two preparedness tokens to the opponents. The only other way to gain these statuses is to spend a token from the party's pool.
At the end of the each turn, remove one token of each kind from the pool.
Mnemonic to remember what applies to what: "ABPP: gaining Advantage is Brutal (difficulty) for Poorly (aspect) Prepared".
For each character, at the begnning of the scenario, add the amount of preparedness into the GM's pool equal to their rank.
Opponents that are enemies of the character, can spend a haven turn to add the amount of preparedness against an active enemy equals to their threat level.
At the baseline, the higher the rank of the character, the more enemies they have. The highest baseline rank of their enemies equals to their own rank and the highest baseline threat is "nemesis".
| Level | Threat | Rank | Enemies |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Nobody | Nil | - |
| 1 | Nuisance | Minor | 1 |
| 2 | Enemy | Major | 1/2 |
| 3 | Nemesis | Mega | 2/4/6 |
At any point, suffer 1 stress to add 1 prep to the pool.
Characters can spend a move to convert an advantage token into preparedness token or, at any point, convert two advantage tokens into a preparedness token.
At any point, character can spend prep to learn an answer to a question they can plausibly figure out in the situation.
Before rolling initiative, spend any amount of prep to increase the result by that much.
Spend 4 advantage to take another combat action in this round. If you're not in combat, take another full action.
Spend 6 advantage to bring in one asset of yours that is elsewhere as a reinforcement.
8: Elite 7: Good 6: Average 5: Poor. Character creation rules apply.
2 threat = 1 prep.
3 threat = 1 prep + roll or 2 prep.
4 threat = 2 prep.
Determination = take stress.
Reroll 1d20 on [condition] = reroll 1d6 on Elite rolls [general skill].
When ~ buys additional dice = when ~ uses prep.
Create trait = choose one: pin, free move, fear. Any target gains this condition until your next turn.
Moving assets = you have 6 tiles per move to move any number of assets.
Voice = charm