Scape

Scape

A fantasy roleplaying game for the Planescape setting.

Central Tenets of Scape

1. Player characters are not superheroes. They are denizens of the planes just like everyone else. What separates them from the rest is their choices.
2. Even mighty heores can fall to a single stroke of a weapon. Mortals are mortal. They are fragile. Even the mighty Achilles or Ajax is slain with a single arrow or spear stroke. The trick is to avoid getting hit, or even better avoid letting anyone want to hit you in the first place.
3. Roleplay is not about combat, narrative, numbers, nor personality, but about choices. The important things that happen are the ways the player characters affect the world around them.
4. Character growth is not a growth in numbers. Don’t expect STR or HP to alter dramatically. Expect a growth in what you are capable of.
5. Ideas and extraordinary abliities are represented as items. Among the planes, the abstract tends to be represented as the physical. Your character’s “class” is the items that give them abilities. Your level up abilities are tattoos you collect. Even your XP is represented as chips, to be traded and spent.
6. The referee is there to challege the characters’ viewpoints as much as their safety. This is more about perspective and philosophy than it is about killing monsters. The strange creatures are to be feared for their ideas more than fang and claw.
7. Rules are for skipping ahead in time. We don’t include rules for the important parts of the game: choices, ethics, planar travel. That’s because we want you to take your time on those areas and explore them fully through roleplay and a dialogue between each other and the referee. We include rules for parts we want to get over quickly: combat, skill checks, powers, even making characters and leveling up. We made them simple and quick so they can make room for the important parts. Similarly, saves made out of combat are for skipping past unimportant bits.

Character Creation

1. Roll 3d6. This is your max STR score.
2. Roll 3d6. This is your max DEX score.
3. Roll 3d6. This is your max WIL score.
4. Record your STR, DEX and WIL edge as 0.
5. Roll 1d6. This is your max HP.
6. Add 3 days' rations to your inventory. This takes only one equipment slot.
7. Pick a starting equipment set. Add these to your inventory.
8. Record your worn items and your weapon damage.
9. Record your AC based on your worn armor.
10. Roll 3d6. This is your starting jink.
11. Write a sentence or two about your character’s profession before heading out to adventure the planes.
12. Pick a name.

Rules

1. Basic interaction Describe your actions to the referee. They will decide if you succeed or fail. They may ask you to roll a save to determine success.
2. Ability scores You have three ability scores. They act as hit points. They start as the same value as your max ability scores, and may not exceed the max. Applying effort, using special equipment, or taking damage while critically injured can result in lowering your ability scores.

• If your WIL score reaches 0, you are stupefied until a full rest or the points are healed. You gain 1 fatigue.
• If your DEX score reaches 0, you are immobilized until a full rest or the points are healed. You gain 1 fatigue.
• If your STR score reaches 0, you are dead. Forever.

3. Saves To avoid a negative effect, roll 1d20. If the number is less than or equal to your relevant ability, you succeed.
4. Advantage/Disadvantage If an action is particularly easy, the referee may request a roll be made with advantage, meaning the player rolls twice and takes the more favorable roll. Conversely, if an action is particularly difficult, the referee may request a roll be made with disadvantage, meaning the player rolls twice and takes the less favorable roll.
5. Effort A player may turn a roll with disadvantage into a normal roll, or turn a normal roll into a roll with advantage, by applying effort. Applying effort gives the ability score for that roll 3 damage after the effect of the roll is applied. A player can only apply effort once per roll.
6. Edge Activating ability in equipment or applying effort will lower ability scores by a fixed cost. Having an edge decreases the cost by the amount of edge for that ability score. For example, if an ability costs 3 STR, and your STR edge is 1, you lose 2 STR to use that ability. The minimum cost is 0.
7. Profession If the referee determines that the character’s profession would result in them being more skilled than usual at that task, the player may assume a minimum edge of 1 for effort applied to that action.
8. AC and HP Any damage received is first reduced by your AC score. If AC cannot reduce it to 0, then the remainder is taken from your HP. Once HP is 0, the remaining damage dealt is taken from the relevant ability score. Physical damage reduces STR, while other effects like magic or poisons may affect DEX or WIL instead.
9. Critical Damage The moment your HP reaches 0 as a result of taking damage, roll a STR save. On a failure, you gain 1 fatigue, you are disabled and can only moan for help and try to crawl to safety.
10. Equipment Slots You have 10 equipment slots to start, 4 of which are considered to be worn or carried. Each piece of equipment you take with you (except coins) takes up equipment slots. Most equipment takes up 1 slot. Small items can be grouped into a single slot. Bulky items use 2 slots. If you have no unused equipment slots, you cannot carry any more equipment and are considered deprived. Carrying a person is considered bulky. Equipment abilities can only be activated while wearing or carrying them.
11. Fatigue You may gain fatigue from various sources such as extreme heat or cold, multiple days without sleep, critical damage, or being downed from ability score damage. Each point of fatigue gained renders a single inventory slot unusable. If this leaves you with no usable inventory slots, you are fatigued. If you have more items equipped than you have usable slots, you must drop the remaining equipment. A full day of rest in a safe location with food and drink removes 1 fatigue.
12. Deprivation Extreme environments, magical effects, and having all usable equipment slots filled causes you to be deprived. While deprived, you cannot restore HP, STR, DEX, nor WIL by resting.
13. Healing Resting allows damage to be recovered to the max score. HP can be restored with a few minutes of rest. STR, DEX, and WIL need a full day of rest in a safe location with food and drink to be restored. Temporary injuries can only have their effects removed with a week of bedrest and a skilled healer.

Combat

When combat starts, the game gets a little more structured. Combat happens in the following sequence:

1. Roll initiative Everyone makes a DEX save.
2. Surprise Turn Everyone who passed the save takes their turn.
3. Morale Referee rolls to see if the characters under their control flee.
4. Enemy Turn Characters under referee control take their turn.
5. Party Turn Everyone who failed the save takes their turn.
6. End of Round If combat is still ongoing, go to step 1.

On a turn

Each character on their turn gets to move and perform an action.

Actions include, but are not limited to:

• Attack If the enemy is within range of the weapon, the attack succeeds. Roll the damage indicated by the weapon.
• Unarmed Attack If the enemy is within reach, the attack succeeds. The enemy takes 1 damage.
• Use Equipment They may use the equipment at a tool, or an improvsied weapon, or may activate an ability the equipment gives them. They do so by wearing or holding the equipment as appropriate. Merely carrying it (such as in a backpack) is not sufficient.
• Interact They may push a button, open a door, roll a barrel, or interact with any other reachable object in their environment.
• Improvise They may try to do anything else that the character can think of that’s capable of being done in a few seconds. The referee determines the outcome.

Morale

Each round the referee makes a determination on whether the creatures flee and end the combat. This can be done “by feel”, or by doing the following procedure.

• Roll a WIL save on behalf of the creatures. One save for the entire group.
• If they are especially cowardly creatures, or have lost half their group, the roll with disadvantage.
• If they have an experienced leader, they roll with advantage.
• If they fail, they attempt to flee and combat is ended.

Character Advancement

Experience

XP is gained for attaining goals, discovering new places, and making critical decisions. XP is represented as poker chips. 1 XP is given to each player in a group when the group as a whole is being rewarded. If a single player is being rewarded, the referee gives 2 XP to the player: 1 XP the player keeps for themself, 1 XP is given to another player while stating a reason they deserve it. XP can be traded freely among players. XP can also be spent to “grease the wheels” of roleplaying, obtaining some minor goal without having to roleplay it or risk failure. Doing so costs the party 4XP.

XP can be spent to reverse the effects of a bad roll. The player may choose to surrender 1 XP to the referee after failing the save, and avoids whatever the most recent roll’s bad effect as if it never happened.

XP can also be spent to make the character stronger by purchasing tattoos. A player can spend 4 XP to gain any one of the following tattoos. A player may not take a particular tattoo if it was one of their 3 most recently purchased tattoos. That means at most the same tattoo can only be gained for every 4 tattoo purchases.

Tattoos

• Mark of Vitality: This tattoo causes you to grow grotesquely muscly. You can perform great feats of strength more often, but maybe you should refrain from delicate tasks like petting kittens. Increase your STR edge by 1, not to exceed 2.
• Mark of Agility: This tattoo causes you to be quicker and more twitchy. Your reflexes are enchanced. Never mind the occasional spasms. That’s just your nervous system going into overdrive. Increase your DEX edge by 1, not to exceed 2.
• Mark of Intellect: With this mark your neural pathways have opened and you can see the connections you couldn’t before. Also, does anyone else see all the eyes everywhere? Increase your WIL edge by 1, not to exceed 2.
• Mark of Health: You can dodge so well with this mark that time seems to move a bit slower for you. You’re not sure why everyone keeps complaining about you talking so fast. Increase max HP by 2.
• Mark of Burden: Life is a tetris game. You can see the optimal packing for your stuff. And how to optimally pack everything else, all the time. Increase your number of inventory slots by 1, not to exceed 14.
• Mark of Skill: Multitasking is what it’s all about. You can hold so many things at once. Juggling seems trivial now. You know because you never stop doing it. Increase the number of inventory slots which can be worn or carried by 1, not to exceed 6.
• Mark of Toughness: Your favorite set of armor is so broken in and perfectly molded to your form that it feels like another layer of skin. That’s why it feels like you’re ripping your skin off whenever you remove it. Choose one armor type. Increase the AC of that armor type by 1 when you wear it. You may only select this tattoo once.
• Mark of Arcana: You just got your favorite scroll tattooed right on your skin so now it lives rent-free in your brain, pushing out some core memories that lived there. If you could remember what it was, you might be upset you lost it, but you can’t, so you don’t. Choose a scroll from your inventory. That spell is able to be cast without needing to equip a scroll. Each time you purchase this tattoo it must be for a different spell.

The referee should expand this list as a campaign goes on to reflect the experiences of the characters. This way the characters wear their own stories and experiences on their skin. These additional tattoos should be permanent abilities, such as gaining an ability from a certain item. Tattoos which improve numeric superiority should not be added.

Equipment and Jink

The monetary currency of the planes is jink. Values listed in the equipment tables is their sale value. Trading in unwanted equipment typically nets half the sale value.

Starting Equipment

Pick one of these when first creating a character. They are not otherwise for sale as a unit.

Armor

Weapons

Tools

Magical and Ceremonial Gear

Miscellaneous Items

1d100 Spell Scrolls

1d100 Planar Trinkets

License

Scape is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

Game rules are derived from Cairn by Yochai Gal.