Basic Rules

Hit Points and Basic Combat

Beings have one or more hit points. Weapons do SINGLE damage by default - that is, being hit by a weapon causes you to lose one hit point. You don’t need to call this when you strike with a weapon, but you may if you wish to make it clear that you intend to cause a point of damage.

Noncombat Characters

Some players may be unable to take part in physical combat or not wish to for personal reasons. In this case, they should make the organisers aware so that they can brief other players to not attack them. Instead of attacking a non-combat character, you should call damage against them once per second once you are in range to make an attack. (If someone mistakenly thinks you are a noncombat character and tries to do this, politely correct them and continue.)

Wounds and Dying

If you are reduced to zero hit points, your character is now incapacitated. You can’t fight and can only stagger around. You should make it clear that you’re wounded, incapacitated and (mostly) helpless. If you regain hit points, you cease to be incapacitated.

Range

• Touch range is close enough that you could reach out and touch the other character. This does not require you to actually touch them, and you should not touch another player unless you already know they’re comfortable with you doing so.
• Close range is five metres. This is generally the range for spells and small arms fire.

Under Pressure

Some skills can only be used when not under pressure. If a combat encounter is occurring, you are always under pressure. Some other situations may count - in this case, a ref will inform you.

Appropriate Roleplaying

Some skills require appropriate roleplaying. This means that you should act out doing something appropriate to the effect of the skill - for example, with the Field Medicine trait, you can restore a ruined limb with appropriate roleplaying. Examples might include acting out a healing magic spell that you know, tying bandages around the affected limb, or breaking and re-setting the bone. If you’re doing an effect requiring appropriate roleplaying on a willing target, they are expected to follow your lead as long as doing so isn’t an issue for them.

Calls

This is a list of the calls that you might hear and what they mean. A call is a word or phrase with a specific OC meaning. If you hear it directed at you, your character takes a specified effect.

Calls might be: Used alongside a melee attack, to indicate that the call is associated with that strike. Used with a description of a character. E.g. “You in the blue hat! TRIPLE!” Used as an area of effect - see the MASS modifier.

STOP THE GAME

This is an “emergency stop” call to indicate that there is an OC reason to halt gameplay and sort something out. This can be used for any hazard, not just injury. Lost glasses, a player panicking OC, or someone looking like they’re about to fall backwards over a log are all valid reasons to use the call.

RESIST

This call is used in response to being targeted or struck by another call, to indicate that you haven’t been affected by it.

ZERO

This effect deals no damage. This can be used if sparring in-character for deliberately non-damaging strikes.

SINGLE

This effect deals one point of damage. This is the default for melee weapons, and can be omitted unless it’s needed for clarity.