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version 3.301
Introduction
| What Makes A Technothriller?
| The Character
| Skills
| Experience "Gunfire tried to catch him, failed to connect solidly. A bullet tugged at his jacket, punched through under his left arm. He felt a sense of outrage. The gaddamned jacket was Hong Kong silk, it had cost him six hundred dollars!" - Tom Clancy, Net Force Introduction Stray Bullet is an action-filled roleplaying game in the technothriller genre. The term "technothriller" was coined in the eighties, largely because Tom Clancy's novels could not be placed into any existing category. Nowadays, a lot of authors write novels that belong to the the technothriller genre. Dale Brown, Stephen Coonts, Harold Coyle, Richard Herman Jnr, Steve Pieczneik (with Tom Clancy) and Patrick Robinson are all good examples of technothriller authors. A note: this game is an old-fashioned "pen, paper and dice" roleplaying game and not a computer game! If you have played games like AD&D, Call of Cthulhu or Shadowrun you know what I mean. What Makes A Technothriller? As the name implies, a technothriller is a suspense story with emphasis on technology. Those are the two most obvious aspects, but there are several other defining attributes as well. Technothriller heroes, for example, are never Rambo-types - they are ordinary cops, soldiers, criminals, teachers and others who happen to be intelligent, perceptive, resourceful and determined. Technothriller plots revolve around drug-trafficking, espionage, gang violence, organized crime and terrorism in its many forms, to name a few. Technology is of course a vital component of any technothriller's plot and theme, technothrillers are dotted with high-tech office towers, expensive cars, and the latest in computer and military gear. "There is a set of sights on the 203 but you don't always have time to set it up and fire. It was the case of just take a quick aim and get it off. The weapon 'pops' as it fires. I watched the bomb going through the air. There was a loud bang and showers of dirt. I heard screaming. Good. It meant they were bleeding, not shooting - and they'd become casualties that others now had to attend to." - Andy McNab, Bravo Two Zero The Character Stray Bullet uses 8 traits, traits are your character's essential qualities. Traits show what a character can do, how strong he his, how agile etc. The traits are: Appearance rates the characters physical attractiveness. If a character for example has got 2D+2 (the highest possible) in Persona, he could probably lead an army or run a big company, and he would do it very good (with the skill command he would do it even better). A character with 1D in Persona would probably be bossed around by even his own little sister. When creating a character you have 20 Character Points (or CPs) to distribute among your Traits, and 20 Skill Points (or SPs) to distribute among your Skills. If you want you could sum up the points and place them wherever you want. The cost for buying traits and skills can be found in the table below.
Skills Below are a couple of skills to choose from. Skills should be fairly self-explanatory, and there is no description of the different skills. Other skills could easily be made up by the player or the Gamemaster. Academics (separate skill for each academic field), Athletics, Arts, Awareness, Brawl, Bureaucracy, Command, Dodge, Drive, Endurance, Engineering, Etiquette, Intrusion, Investigation, Intimidation, Interrogation, Language (one skill for each language (your skill in your native language is the same as you have in Intellect)), Legerdemain, Martial Arts, Medicine, Melee, Perform (separate skill for act, sing, dance etc.), Pilot, Pistol, Rifle, Savvy, Science (separate skill for each field of science), Stealth, Streetwise, Subterfuge, Survival etc... Below is a list of professions and skills that are important if you want to be successful in what you are doing.
Body Guard: Law Enforcement, Streetwise, Awareness, Drive "All this way to be shot by a bloody bullet from Birmingham." - Corporal Storey in Zulu Dawn (1979) Experience Everyone wants to get better at something they do. This is also true in Stray Bullet. Any character can increase their Traits and Skills, by trading in Experience Points. Experience Points are gained after a game session. Between 1 and 3 Experience Points should be rewarded for good roleplaying and coming up with inventive ideas. The player can raise a skill one step (from 1D to 1D+1 for example) by spending one Experience Point. Traits are harder to raise, the player must spend 4 Experience Points to raise a Trait one step. A trait can not be raised higher than 3D (it's not possible to have a trait that high from the beginning of the game). Skills have no limit, you could raise them how high you want. "These are brand new; we just got these in. That's a good gun. Just touch the trigger, the beam comes on and you put the red dot where you want the bullet to go. You can't miss. Anything else?" - Gun shop clerk in The Terminator (1984) Flesh Out Your Character! Since this is a roleplaying game it is recommended that you flesh out your character a bit. Describe his background, personality, personal connections, important events in his life, his posture and expression. Your character should not be just numbers on a paper. Here’s ten questions that can give you a good start toward understanding your character’s background: How old is he? Where was he born? What did his parents do for a living? What religion did his parents practice? What was his relationship with his parents like? Where did he live as a child? Was anything happening historically during his childhood? How did he spend his time as a child? Was he happy as a child? How did he decide what to be as an adult? And here are another ten questions that can help you define your character’s personality: Are there any adjectives which embody his personality? Does his personality remind you of an animal or object? What are his goals and motivations? How far will he go to achieve his goals? What does he fear most? What does he love most? How competitive is your character in various aspects of his life? What are his best and worst qualities? How does he act when he first meets men? Women? How do they react to him? Example Characters Name: Victor Ortiz. Profession: Pilot/hit man. Date of Birth: June 24, 1965. Place of Birth: Miami, Florida. Height: 5'8". Weight: 160 pounds. Hair: Brown. Eyes: Green. Complexion: Medium. Sex: Male. Race: White. Nationality: American (Puerto Rican descent). Scars and Marks: He has a one-inch scar on his right shoulder blade.
Background: Victor grew up in sunny Miami and soon got into trouble with the law. He was a gang-banger as a kid and was arrested for a burglary. Victor was sent to jail, there he made connections with criminal elements. He quickly built up a reputation of being a loyal and trustworthy man. When he got out of jail he was hired by a Colombian drug-dealer. He moved to Colombia for a few years, where he picked up his pilot-training. He started working as a hit man and pilot for the drug cartels. Personality: Stubborn, loyal. Trigger-happy (he loves his .380 Ingram M11). He loves the rush of flying a plane at low altitude and the adrenaline rush of doing a "hit". He is outgoing and likes meeting new people. Most people like him, but some tend to think he is greedy. Name: James Wong. Profession: Hit man. Date of Birth: April 28, 1974. Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California. Height: 5'10". Weight: 158 pounds. Hair: Brown. Eyes: Gray. Complexion: Medium. Sex: Male. Race: Asian. Nationality: American (Chinese descent). Scars and Marks: Scar on chin, tattoo on right upper arm.
Background: James grew up in central LA. His father owned a small laundry. But his father was also a high ranking member of the 14 K Triad. James father didn't want his son to join the Triad, but when James father was killed by another Triad he joined the 14 K Triad so he could take revenge. James' career as a hit man began. Personality: Power hungry. Cold and ruthless. "They just shoot a bullet in their head, and then retract it. It's just BOOM-shht-BOOM-shht." - Franklin in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Rules of the Game Like almost all roleplaying games Stray Bullet uses dice, in this case they are six-sided and you probably need three or four of them. When performing a task you roll a number of dice and compares that to a Target Number (or TN) assigned by the GameMaster, if the roll is greater than or equal to the Target Number, the action is successful. If it is lower than the TN, the action fails. When a character uses a skill the GM decides which trait and skill best suit the situation. For instance, if the character is shooting with his sniper-rifle, the use of his Perception and his rifle skill would probably be the most suitable. Instead of Perception you could use Dexterity, but Dexterity is probably more suitable in a gunfight with a pistol or a submachine gun. Traits and Skills can be combined in various different ways, you could for example use Intellect and dancing to recognize a certain style of dancing, Dexterity and dancing for dancing fox-trot without stepping on your partners feet or Stamina and dancing to perform a strenuous dance with audience As said before, the Target Number is assigned by the GameMaster. The higher the TN, the more difficult the action would be to accomplish.
"Which bullet has my name on it? The first or the last?" - James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) Combat To keep track of time in combat we divide the time in Combat Rounds (or just rounds). A combat round is about two or three seconds long, in that time you could usually do one action (shoot with a weapon, take cover, run a couple of meters, reload your pistol etc.). A combat round has got four phases, phase 1: determine initiative, phase 2: statement of intent, phase 3: action phase and phase 4: resolution phase. Phase 1: Determine Initiative. Every player rolls his dexterity, the one that rolls the highest acts first in the round, the second highest goes next, and so on. If a player rolls 12 or higher he gets an additional action that round (i.e. he has now got two actions). Phase 2: Statement of Intent. The players tell each other what their characters generally intend to do in the round, the GameMaster tells the players what any NPCs are going to do. Phase 3: Action Phase. If a player chooses to attack someone he rolls the appropriate trait and skill, the defender rolls dexterity (and dodge/martial arts skill, if any), if the attacker rolls higher than the defender, it's a hit.
Phase 4: Resolution Phase. Note wounds, impairment or anything else that is important on the character sheet. "One bullet against my six?" - James Bond in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) Wounds and Healing Every character has got 10 hitpoints, If you get damaged in combat you loose hitpoints. The more damage the character takes the harder it is for the character to perform physical and mental actions.
A character heals 1 hitpoint per week if he receives medical attention, double that time if the character gets no medical attention but rests at home. Triple healing-time if the character gets on with his life as normal. Damage Table You always add your Strength trait when rolling for damage from melee weapons and in hand-to-hand combat. Ranged weapons add 2D to the damage (a 7.62mm bullet is 4D+1, not 2D+1).
Other Stuff Stray Bullet should be fast, action-filled and not bogged down by a lot of rules, tables or dice-rolling. It should be aimed at roleplaying not ruleplaying. It's very much up to the Gamemaster to decide what benefits different equipment give (lasersights, scopes etc.). Roll your dice, if you roll high it's good, if not - it's bad. Or if you want, skip dice entirely. I don't think I ever will play a rpg without dice or somekind of random element (I like dice). But it can be done. If you like rules, here are two rules that could be useful, maybe... Damage from falling: A character takes 2D of damage from falling 3 meters (roll Stamina as usual), add 1D of damage for every second meter above that. Autofire: A character with an assault-rifle, SMG or other rapid firing weapon can choose from firing a short burst, normal burst or long burst. A short burst fires 1D divided in two bullets, a normal burst fires 1D+2 bullets and a long burst fires 2D+1 bullets. Roll damage separately for each bullet (not normally needed unless you are related with Superman :).
Weapons Here are some examples of weapons that can be used in the game. If you want more, buy Guns and Ammo or search the web. To make things easy, range for pistols/revolvers is 50 meters, range for submachineguns is 100 meters, range for assault rifles is 200 meters and range for sniper-rifles is 300 meters. Raise the Target Number if you shoot on a distance longer than that. Triple the range to get the maximum range of the weapon. Beretta 93FS is a 9mm caliber pistol made popular in movies (ever seen Lethal Weapon?). The Berreta packs a 16 round magazine, probably enough to pop a couple of cops before you are shot down. Fabrique National Five-seveN is a semiautomatic handgun with a 20-round magazine. The Five-seveN fires the same powerful ammunition as the FN P90. The pistol weighs 0.608 kg (1.2 lb.) with empty magazine. Heckler & Koch Mk23 is a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol with an overall length of 9.65 inches (16.56 inches with suppressor attached). With a 12 round magazine, the handgun has a weight of 3.22 pounds (1.46kg). Heckler & Koch MP5K is a extra-short version of the MP5 submachine gun. It has no stock but it has got a foregrip that adds to its stability. The MP5K is used by many counter-terrorist groups around the world. The magazine holds 30 rounds in 9mm caliber. MAC Ingram M10 fires the .45 ACP round. It's a very common weapon around the globe. It has got a 30-round magazine. FN P90 5.7x28mm is a compact submachinegun designed and manufactured by Fabrique National Herstal SA of Belgium. It has got a 50-round magazine that mounts on the top of the weapon. The recoil is brisk but very smooth. Uzi is probably the most well-known submachine-gun in the world, as seen in movies and TV-shows. The magazine holds 30 bullets in 9mm caliber. 5.56mm M16A2 is a very common assault rifle. Used by the US-army and other military forces around the globe. The magazine holds 30 rounds. 7.62mm AKM is a popular assault rifle in the ex-soviet states and other countries around the world. It has got a 30 round magazine. It's maybe not known for it's reliability. 12 gauge SPAS-12 is a common shotgun. The guns is loaded with 8 shotgun shells. H&K PSG-1 Sniper is a common sniper rifle with police forces around the globe. The gun is loaded with 3 7.62mm rounds. Barrett M82A1 "Light Fifty" is a very heavy rifle loaded with 11 .50 BMG rounds. You don't want to get hit by a bullet from this one... "Bullet-resistant?! What ever happened to bullet-proof?" - Lenny Nero in Strange Days (1995) Armor If you are hit by a bullet you add the Armor Value (AV) of any armor to your Stamina-roll. Armor Piercing bullets halve the AV. Leather jackets and similar "armor" has an AV of 1. Class I armor has an AV of 2. Class I armor is flexible and easy to hide, they are often in the form of bullet-resistant T-shirts. Class II armor has an AV of 1D. Class II armor is semirigid or rigid. Most bulletproof vests are Class II armor. Class III armor has an AV of 1D+2. Class III armor is semirigid or rigid. Vests with inlays of metal or several layers of kevlar are Class III armor. Class IV armor has an AV of 2D. Class IV armor is rigid and heavy, full body police armor for example. Due to the bulk of this armor, movement is severely reduced when wearing this kind of armor. Target Number is increased one step when wearing this kind of armor (from Easy to Average, and Average to Hard etc.). "Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing around. You get thirsty. You spot a little brook. You put your little deer lips down to the clear water - BAM! A fuckin' bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are lying on the ground in little bloody pieces. Now I ask you, do you give a fuck what kind of pants the son-of-a-bitch who shot you was wearing?!" - Lisa in My Cousin Vinny (1992) What About Stray Bullets?
So picture this. You're in a four-storey walk-up, you just
crowbarred open the door to granny's apartment cause
you heard she's got a stash of cash in her mattress, it
turns out granny has a gun, so you blow her away with
your Uzi. She got off a coupla shots, hit nothing, you fired
maybe ten or twenty in a couple of short bursts, of which
maybe three bullets actually hit her. The building itself is
prewar, brick exterior, but it's been renovated several
times over the years, to divide up what used to be nice
large family apartments into a warren of tiny little fleabag
flats in order to maximize the landlord's rent rolls. The
original interior walls were lath-and-plaster, but the newer
walls are basically nothing but wallboard over some
cheap metal studs. Suggested Viewing The list of movies that truly deserves the title "technothriller" is short. But here is a list of movies and TV-shows that could be found interesting or useful to your campaign.
Check 'em out at the Internet Movie Database. "Like I'm gonna put a bullet hole in your fuckin' forehead, and I'm gonna fuck the brain hole!" - Grocer in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Credits This game was designed and written by
Andreas Johansson. This game has been revised and updated many, many, many times. Visitors since 15th of April 1999:
This The New Free RPG Webring
site owned by Andreas Johansson.
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