ZeroSpace 3e EN:Introduction

ZeroSpace is a space fantasy game which takes place in a vast interstellar empire populated by thousands of strange and wonderful aliens. There is a significant amount of background information here. You do not need to memorize all of it to play ZeroSpace. Treat it like a buffet: if you want to use something when making up your character, go right ahead, but you do not need to put everything you see on your plate. There are really only four things you need to remember to play ZeroSpace.

1. You can make a difference.
2. You can't trust the authorities.
3. You do need to run away from people bigger and badder than you.
4. Being clever and brave and one of the good guys is better than having the best weapons and the best armor.

The Universe

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The Fall Of The Old Imperium

For millennia, the center of the civilized universe was the Imperium, also called the Thousand Worlds. Despite that appellation, at its height the Imperium encompassed millions of populated worlds.

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What Is A Roleplaying Game?

Every roleplaying game has a section at the beginning that attempts to explain what a roleplaying game is, and ZeroSpace is no exception. So let's get started! As trivial as it sounds, two distinct elements set "roleplaying games" apart from other things which are not roleplaying games: roleplaying and game play.

First, a roleplaying game involves roleplaying. Generally speaking, roleplaying involves taking on a persona or character and making decisions based on what that character would do in a given situation. Does having a character in a game, by itself, make that a roleplaying game? No. The little dog token in a Monopoly game and a Blood Elf in World Of Warcraft are both characters, but Monopoly and World Of Warcraft are not roleplaying games. Can you roleplay as a dog while playing Monopoly? Yes, and you can roleplay as an elf while playing World Of Warcraft. What keeps these from being roleplaying games is that the roleplaying is not part of the game -- you can't get your Monopoly dog out of jail through unscripted conversation with the jailer, nor can you use roleplaying to convince a cultist in World Of Warcraft to let you pass by without a fight. If the rules of the game do not allow for the possibility that a conflict could be resolved through unscripted conversation (however unlikely that might be), then it isn't a roleplaying game.

Second, a roleplaying game is a game. Roleplaying games are sometimes compared to improvisational theatre, and there are similarities, but improv theatre isn't a game. How can you tell if something is a game? Games have rules that govern things like conflicts between players and whether something a player attempts is successful. Improv theatre is fun, but there aren't any rules like this. As Drew Carey described "Whose Line Is It Anyway?", it's "the show where everything's made up and the points don't matter." It's fun, but it's not a game, and therefore it's not a roleplaying game.

ZeroSpace has more rules than some games, but less than others, and an essential part of conflict resolution involves making decisions that your character would make under the circumstances. Maybe those decisions aren't the most tactically advantageous, but if they are true to what your character would do, and if you are having fun playing, then you are playing correctly, because that's what ZeroSpace is all about.

If you would like to read more about who plays roleplaying games, and why and where they play them, check out The Escapist -- The Five Ws of RPGs.

The Players

In a roleplaying game, each player adopts a persona called a player character, or "PC". The player characters are imaginary people who inhabit the fictional world of ZeroSpace.

In many ways, the player is like an actor who chooses their own part and writes their own lines as the play progresses. The game moderator sets the stage and introduces the characters to their world, but the story is driven by the player characters.

The Game Moderator

The game moderator, or "GM", creates the story and portrays everyone that the player characters encounter during their adventures. These are called non-player characters, or "NPCs". The players help create the adventure by responding to the challenges the GM presents and by pursuing the PCs' own goals. This dynamic creative process creates a story which neither the game moderator nor the players could have created alone.

Ground Rules

A roleplaying game is fundamentally a cooperative activity. The players (one of whom is the Game Moderator) are not in competition. The goal is not to be the most powerful character, or to win every fight. The goal of a role-playing game is to create interesting stories and to entertain everyone at the table. We hope that you are the kind of player that creates interesting characters and enjoys creating stories with your friends.

Use Common Sense

The single most important piece of advice we can give you is that you should use your common sense. If something in the rules violates the way you think your game should work, then override it. If the rules permit something ridiculous, or would prevent something completely ordinary, then override them. Do not be one of those players who adheres to the letter of the rules in defiance of common sense.

Don't use the rules unless you need to.

In fact, if you can play a fun game session without referring to the written rules, you should. Saying "it works like this" is often a better solution than flipping through a rulebook for an answer.

Avoid Rule Arguments

It is in the nature of any human activity that differences of opinion will arise. We've tried to make the rules for ZeroSpace as simple and clear as possible, but there's only so much we can do. Sooner or later, there will be a difference of opinion among the players regarding what a rule means, or how a rule should be implemented. There is nothing wrong with this: discussion and consensus are healthy. However, the time for rule discussions is between games, not during games. If a rule discussion takes longer than 60 seconds, the game moderator should make an executive decision and table additional discussion for later. If players balk, the GM should be civil but firm, and move on.

Respect Genre Conventions

ZeroSpace is a space fantasy game, and being a space fantasy game, it has certain genre conventions. Robert McKee defines genre conventions as the "specific settings, roles, events, and values that define individual genres and their subgenres."

For example, there are no rules for running out of fuel, or for recharging a blaster. It's not that starships do not run out of fuel, or that blasters never need recharging. Of course they do, and if a character intentionally empties their blaster, then the gun runs out of juice just as you'd expect. It's just assumed that they don't normally run out of juice unless there is a dramatic reason for it. The rest of the time, the character is refueling the starship or recharging the blaster when it's convenient to do so.

Another genre convention in ZeroSpace is that main characters almost never die, and only when it is for a dramatic reason, while nameless characters go down after a single hit (maybe they die, maybe they don't -- no one cares, because they are nameless characters).

Core Mechanics

Attributes

Each character has seven attributes which describe their basic physical and mental abilities.

• Brawn: physical might and general hardiness
• Agility: agility, flexibility, and coordination
• Reason: ability to analyze data, draw conclusions from the facts at hand, and solve problems
• Perception: awareness of one's surroundings, intuition, and understanding of the motivations of others
• Willpower: determination, focus, and the strength of personality
• Prowess: hand-to-hand fighting ability
• Accuracy: ability to aim when making ranged attacks

See the Attributes chapter for more information.

Skills

Skills allow a character to apply their attributes to solve a specific problem or accomplish a specific task. ZeroSpace divides skills between general skills and areas of expertise. General skills are quite broad, such as Culture and Survival, while a character's areas of expertise are rather specific, such as Gymnastics and Physics.

See the Skills chapter for more information.

Endurance

Endurance represents a character's determination and ability to shrug off physical and mental abuse. Each character has five endurance levels: fresh, winded, weakened, exhausted, and defeated. When a character is successfully attacked, they may make a protection roll to see how much of their endurance has been lost in resisting the attack. A character who is exhausted is no longer able to put up a fight, while a character who has been defeated may be scarred by burns, they may have lost a limb, or they may have suffered some other disfiguring injury.

See the Actions chapter for more information.

Rolling Dice

We assign numbers to characters' abilities so that we can tell what they can do. When a character attempts a task, and the outcome is either contested or there is some random element involved, the player rolls 2d6, counts the dots, and adds the result to their relevant attribute. This roll is compared to 8 plus a task difficulty the GM assigns (typically "challenging", or base difficulty 4, plus any difficulty modifiers). The attempt succeeds if the player's roll equals or exceeds the assigned difficulty.

The following table shows the chances of success for various task difficulties and attribute values. You don't need to refer to this during play -- it's just to show you what kind of results you should expect.

Table: Task resolution probability

Base Difficulty		Character Attribute (added to 2d6 roll)
		Poor		Typical		Great		Legendary		Superhuman
		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	Routine	42%	58%	72%	83%	92%	97%	100%	100%	100%	100%
4	Challenging	8%	17%	28%	42%	58%	72%	83%	92%	97%	100%
7	Demanding	0%	0%	3%	8%	17%	28%	42%	58%	72%	83%
10	Frustrating	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	3%	8%	17%	28%	42%
13	Nigh-impossible	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	3%	8%

When the character is under no pressure, they may be able to "take the average" or "take the max", depending on the circumstances. See the Actions chapter for more information.

Plot Points

Each player begins each game session with one plot point. A player gains a plot point when they do something particularly entertaining or interesting, when one of their character's complications causes a serious problem for them during the game, or when the GM overrides a roll of the dice to make things more difficult for the characters. Plot points are spent to alter the game world, gain a task roll bonus, or gain an advantage in combat. See the Actions chapter for more information.

Glossary

Accuracy (ACC)

ability to aim when making ranged attacks

advantage

an exceptional ability that a normal human can have, but that most humans do not have

Agility (AGL)

agility, flexibility, and coordination

all-out move

base move x 6; incurs penalties on attacks and task rolls

attack bonus

add 3 to the attacker's combat task roll (another name for "task roll bonus")

attack penalty

subtract 3 from the attacker's combat task roll (another name for "task roll penalty")

attack roll

a task roll to see if an attack is successful

attribute

the seven basic character traits: Brawn, Agility, Reason, Perception, Willpower, Prowess, and Accuracy

base move

normal ground movement based on attribute or power rank

base rank

the rank of an attribute or power when the character is fully healed and not impaired in any way

Brawn (BRN)

physical might and general hardiness

character point

spent to buy attributes, skills, advantages, and powers for a character

damage rating (DR)

the potential amount of damage inflicted by a power or weapon

difficulty modifier

a number added to a task difficulty to make it more difficult

double move

base move x 2; incurs penalties on attacks and task rolls

endurance level

how much fight a character has left in them: fresh, winded, weakened, exhausted, or defeated

expertise

a character's field of extraordinary competence

extreme success

rolling three or more over the task difficulty set by the GM

game moderator (GM)

the player who sets the story in motion, plays everyone and everything in the game other than the PCs, and arbitrates any disputes

non-player character (NPC)

a fictional character belonging to and controlled by the game moderator

Perception (PER)

awareness of one's surroundings, intuition, and understanding of the motivations of others

player

a living, breathing person playing the game

player character (PC)

a fictional character belonging to and controlled by a player

plot point

spent to alter the game world, gain a task roll bonus, or gain an advantage in combat

protection rating (PR)

the amount added to a character's protection roll by equipment or powers

protection roll

a task roll to see how much endurance will be lost in resisting an attack

Prowess (PRW)

hand-to-hand fighting ability

rank

a number describing each of a character's attributes

Reason (REA)

ability to analyze data, draw conclusions from the facts at hand, and solve problems

run

base move x 2 (another name for "double move"); incurs penalties on attacks and task rolls

sentient

capable of perception, problem solving, self-awareness, and anticipation of future events; a creature which is sentient; a person

sprint

base move x 6 (another name for "all-out move"); incurs penalties on attacks and task rolls

success

a task roll that equals or exceeds the task difficulty

take the average

assume that the player rolls 7

take the max

assume that the player rolls 12

task difficulty

the number the player must match or exceed on a task roll

task difficulty, opposed

8 + the defender's relevant attribute

task difficulty, unopposed

8 + base difficulty (routine 1; challenging 4; demanding 7; frustrating 10; nigh-impossible 13)

task roll

2d6 + the rank of the character's relevant attribute

task roll bonus

add 3 to the character's task roll

task roll penalty

subtract 3 from the character's task roll

walk

normal ground movement based on Agility (another name for "base move")

Willpower (WIL)

determination, focus, and strength of personality