System Introduction

This page contains essential introduction and rules relating to NML's custom game system.

The Basics
NML Game System is a role-playing game system created specifically for No-Mans Land. It exists with a number of goals in mind:


 * 1) Fast to play; streamlined as much as possible
 * 2) Resembles the real world and what real humans can do
 * 3) Flexibility in building characters
 * 4) Provides a strong foundation for good roleplaying
 * 5) Designed for a gritty postapocalyptic setting
 * 6) Adaptable and expandable

To support these goals, NMLGS has the following essential characteristics:


 * The character system is not level-based, nor is it class-based. Spend  experience points to increase abilities directly.
 * Most game actions characters perform are through skills, including attacking and defending.  Skills are rated according to a character's training and practice with the skill, which the player can increase by spending  experience points.
 * Task resolution by dice rolling is streamlined wherever possible. The fewer separate dice rolls are needed, the faster gameplay moves.
 * Characters choose a system of values, such as Justice, Loyalty, or Independence, that provides explicit game rewards for good roleplaying.  The available value systems can support any character concept.
 * In combat, the Fate Track speeds play by providing a pre-rolled line of dice to trigger random events. Used by everyone in the battle, the Fate Track is a way for canny players to subtly influence the battle in their favor.
 * A fully integrated system of morale simulates the effects of deprivation, desperation, and defeat on the emotions, and how they affect daily performance.  In combat, players can damage their opponents'  morale to force surrender or flight.
 * In a world of rampant suffering and lawlessness, characters must guard their mental health or fall to emotional instability, neuroses, or even psychosis.

Character Systems
Characters are your avatar in the world of No-Mans Land. Each player has one character. Just like in the real world, characters have different abilities, talents, and skills. They also have different things that are important to them. All of these have clear game rankings and effects that make up your character's raw capabilities. Beyond these, your character has many important facets -- a name and a face, of course, but also a history, a personality, likes and dislikes, goals, friends, and enemies. Your character's stats are the framework on which you build a rich story.

Attributes, Skills, and Edges
Attributes, Skills, and Edges are the most important defining qualities of your character. Everything he or she does is based on these. You improve Attributes and Skills, or purchase new Skills and Edges, using experience points.


 * Attributes are the innate talents and abilities that every person has. Attributes are rated from 1 to 10, where 4 is the human average and 10 is the normal human maximum.  The ten attributes are Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, Reflexes, Focus, Perception, Intellect, Wits, Charisma, and Willpower.
 * Every skill is associated with one or a choice of two attributes.  When making a skill roll, add the attribute rating to the roll's total.
 * Some attributes determine other characteristics, such as how much characters can carry or their level of  mental health.
 * Attributes reduce the experience point cost for training skills.
 * A high rating in some attributes contributes bonus Actions in combat.
 * Characters can exert attributes for a one-time bonus at the expense of a temporary reduction in that attribute.


 * Skills are the abilities that characters must develop by education, training, and practice. Talent provides some benefit, especially for beginners, but ultimately hard work is more important.
 * Skills are rated at six levels: Untrained, Trained, Practiced, Expert, Master, or Elite. Every skill is at one of these ranks; all skills begin at Untrained.  You can spend  experience points to improve your training in a skill.
 * Each skill is associated with one or or a choice of two attributes. When making a  skill roll, add your attribute rating to the total.  Attributes also reduce the experience point cost of training the skill.
 * When making a skill roll, you roll three dice, any bonus dice (1d6 for each bonus), and add your attribute rating.  The size of the dice you roll depends on your training in the skill.  Your skill rolls succeeds if your total result equals or exceeds the  target number.
 * Untrained: Roll 3d4 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Trained: Roll 3d6 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Practiced: Roll 3d8 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Expert: Roll 3d10 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Master: Roll 3d12 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Elite: Roll 3d20 + bonus dice + attribute rating.
 * Some skills have sub-skills.  You can choose to train in a sub-skill instead of the primary skill, at a discount.


 * Edges are your character's special capabilities that go beyond attributes or skills. They could be special talents, unique training, or important assets such as loyal allies or valuable equipment.
 * Unlike attributes and skills, Edges are not rated at different levels. You either have a particular Edge or you don't.
 * Some Edges have requirements before you can purchase it, usually a certain attribute rating or skill training.

Other Characteristics
There are other game qualities that make up a complete character. Some of these are based on attributes.


 * Every character has a  system of values describing what he or she values most. Acting in accord with your values grants you benefits, while grossly violating your values can cause you psychological harm.
 * Each system of values has acts that fulfill your values. For example, someone who values Compassion benefits from performing concrete Acts of Mercy.  Performing the appropriate Acts nets you bonus  experience points.
 * As you build up a record of acting in accord with your values, you increase your Integrity. High Integrity grants you special abilities.
 * Gross violations of your values are called Transgressions. Transgressions damage your Integrity (possibly revoking special abilities), and also have a chance of damaging your  mental health.


 * Morale describes your character's current emotional state, in broad terms. Difficult conditions, stress, conflict, and failure can cause morale to go down, while success, relaxation, and comfortable conditions improve morale.
 * Morale is rated as emboldened, encouraged, neutral, troubled, dejected, or broken.


 * Your character's Reputations describe how well he is known, or what he is known for. Reputations can be specific to local areas, and they can be bad or good -- or either, depending on the situation.


 * Health measures how much damage your body has sustained, as well as the effects of exhaustion, disease, or deprivation.
 * Health does not use hit points or a similar numerical system. Rather, your wounds are either light, moderate, serious, critical, or mortal.  Vitality affects how much damage it takes to wound you, as does other factors, including your character's  size.
 * Track wounds according to specific body parts: Head, torso, arms, hands, or legs.  Wounds to specific body parts have specific effects.


 * Psyche is a measure of your character's mental health and emotional stability. As you suffer damage to your Psyche, you develop psychological defects that worsen in severity.
 * Like Health, your Psyche is either healthy, stable, fragile, borderline, or broken.
 * Damage to your Psyche can come from several sources -- continual or extreme mental stress, traumatic events, violating your values, or through immoral and extreme actions such as torture or cold-blooded murder.
 * As you take damage to your Psyche, your mental attributes take corresponding damage.  You also have the chance of developing a neurosis, or, more seriously, psychosis.


 * Size describes how big your character is. You can be one of three sizes:  Small, average, or big.
 * Small characters get a training bonus to Stealth and are harder to hit with an attack. However, they can  carry less and  physical damage is more likely to wound them.  Small characters are also eligible for special Edges.
 * Big characters get a training bonus to Grappling, can carry slightly more, and are slightly  tougher.  However, they are easier to hit with an attack.  Big characters are also eligible for special Edges.
 * Average-sized characters have no special advantages or disadvantages.


 * Gender slightly influences your starting attributes. Men get a one point bonus to Strength or Focus, and women get a one point bonus to Dexterity or Perception.


 *  How much you can carry is determined partly by your Strength and partly by your Size. What you can carry is limited by weight, as well as the size of the items you're carrying.


 *  Experience points measure how much your character has been through. You gain experience points by fulfilling personal goals, mission objectives, or story successes.  You also gain bonus experience points by fulfilling your  system of values.  You spend experience points to increase attributes, skills, and Edges.

Equipment and Its Use, Creation, and Modification
Making the most with what you have is vital in No-Mans Land. Having equipment in good condition, and having the right equipment, can easily mean the difference between life and death. These systems address equipment, its qualities, and actions relating to items.

Equipment Characteristics
The thing that defines every item is its utility. Items are, in the end, tools of one sort or another. Rope holds things together or helps it defy gravity, clothing keeps one warm and influences social interaction, a vehicle is a tool for moving people and things from one place to another, and so on. So the first, and most important, characteristic of every item is what you can do with it. Many items have more than one function.

Items also have a Size and a weight. Weight is simply the item's weight in kilograms. Size is a number starting at 1, with each size larger being roughly 1.5 to 2 times the size of the previous category. Size is important because what you can carry is limited not just by weight but also by size.

Furthermore, every item has a  quality rating. This number defines the maximum skill roll result you can receive when using the item. Higher-quality items allow you to get better results. Quality can decrease if the item is in poor condition, in which case repair might fix it up. In other cases, the only way to improve your performance with a low-quality tool is to find a better one.

Vehicles
Transportation can aid survival, and is key for restoring a healthy economy. But fifty years after the End, reliable transportation is difficult to find, and even more difficult to hold onto.


 * The vehicle's drive system is its most important characteristic. Vehicles can be land-based with two or more wheels, tracks, two or more legs, or turbine hover system; fly by VTOL rotor, VTOL jet, fixed-wing propeller, fixed-wing jet engine, or gliding; water-based by sailboat, powered boat, turbine hover system, or submersible.  Every type of drive system has different capabilities and qualities.
 * The vehicle's crew, passenger, and cargo qualities affect its usefulness as a vehicle and transport.
 * Powered vehicles have a fuel type, fuel capacity, and fuel consumption. These qualities don't usually apply during combat (since battles are often too short to matter much for fuel), but in a post-apocalyptic world fuel is difficult to come by.
 * All vehicles have an acceleration, deceleration, and maximum speed rating, as well as a size rating, which determines how easy the vehicle is to hit with an attack. Fixed-wing air vehicles have a minimum speed.
 * Many vehicles have a turning radius, although some can turn in place.
 * Ground vehicles have a traction rating that determines how easy it is to lose control of the vehicle on difficult ground and at high speeds.
 * Most vehicles offer some amount of cover to their occupants.
 * All vehicles have damage thresholds, like a character, which determine how much damage it takes to degrade the vehicle's performance, disable it, or destroy it. Most vehicles have deflection and absorption to mitigate damage.  Vehicles may have special hit zones, much like arms or the head for a character; for example, helicopters have the cockpit, fuselage, main rotor, and tail rotor hit zones.  Attacks against different zones have different chances of success, and different effects.
 * Combat vehicles have weapons, often with different firing arcs, which determine in which directions gunners can fire. They may also have armor, sometimes specific to certain hit zones, which usually increase deflection.
 * Some vehicles have other special qualities, such as specialized equipment, sensor and computer systems, or defenses.

Weapons
Few people in No-Mans Land can get by without a weapon. With violence so commonplace, just having a weapon makes people feel better -- even if they never intend to use it. But when it does come time to use it, these are the characteristics common to weapons. Weapons also have all the other normal item qualities (size, weight, and quality, which limits the maximum attack roll you can achieve with the weapon).


 * Most weapons are designed to be used either in close combat or at range. These are referred to, respectively, as melee weapons and ranged weapons.
 * Every weapon deals damage. When you hit a target with a weapon, apply this damage.  You might get a bonus to damage, such as from Strength for some melee strikes.  Compare the damage against the target's  damage thresholds to how badly you damage it.
 * Different weapons deal different types of damage. This matters depending on the particular resistances of your target.
 * Many weapons have a Strength requirement because of high weight and bulk. If your Strength doesn't meet the requirement, it takes one more action to attack with the weapon.
 * Most weapons have special qualities that describe the weapon's special uses and capabilities, or disadvantages.

Melee Weapons:


 * The  weapon's lethality matters when it comes to melee combat. The categories of lethality are unarmed, armed, or lethally armed.  A character armed with a lethal weapon has the  advantage over one armed with a less lethal weapon.  For the most part, this only applies to weapons in that most ranged weapons count as armed and most melee weapons count as lethally armed.  Hence, someone wielding a handgun facing someone wielding a sword in close combat is at a disadvantage -- but still better than being completely unarmed.
 * Melee weapons also have  reach. The fighter with the greater reach has a chance at getting the advantage.  The close combat ranges are grappling, close, medium, long, and extended.

Ranged Weapons:


 * Accuracy determines how easily you can hit targets. It's a function of both the weapon's minute of angle {MOA} and the effectiveness of its sights.
 * Range determines both the weapon's maximum range as well as how much damage it loses over long distances.
 * Different firearms have different firing modes, such as single-shot, semiautomatic, automatic, or burst settings.
 * The weapon's magazine is how many shots you can fire before needing to reload.

Armor
When you know a fight's coming, there's no better friend than a good piece of armor. Armor prevents damage to the body; even a thick leather jacket is better than nothing. Advanced armor offers other functions, including enhanced senses, biometric monitors, automatic emergency medical care, or computer network links.

Armor has the following qualities.


 * Size and weight, just like other objects. Armor has no Quality value, since the measure of its quality is how well it protects against damage.
 * Armor prevents damage through deflection and absorption. Hard armors provide greater deflection, flexible armors greater absorption, and hybrid or layered armors provide a balanced mix.
 * Deflection is the armor's ability to turn aside blows completely, and adds to your Size to determine how difficult you are to hit with an attack.
 * Absorption is the armor's ability to absorb and disperse the energy from a blow, lessening its damage to the body. When you are successfully hit with an attack, subtract your armor's absorption from the damage dealt.
 * Armor-penetrating weapons are best at negating absorption, but they bypass a little deflection too. Rifles and machine guns are by default armor-penetrating weapons, and special ammunition can increase a weapon's ability to penetrate armor.
 * An armor's coverage is important -- this describes how much of the body the armor protects. This applies for each piece of armor, as detailed in the armor description.  Coverage for each piece can be normal or enhanced.  With normal coverage, when trying to strike a weak point, you can potentially bypass armor entirely.  With enhanced coverage armor, weak points still apply half the armor's normal damage absorption.
 * Finally, armor is restrictive to one degree or another; restrictive armor reduces the effectiveness of certain physical skills.  The extent of the restriction determines what skills are affected.
 * Moderate restriction. Affects all physical skills except Stamina, Throw, and Toughness.  Affects the Dodge skill.
 * Heavy restriction. As moderate restriction, except it also affects Block, Grappling, Melee Strike, and Technique.
 * Restrictive armor will note the restriction as, for example, 'moderate, Practiced', or 'heavy, Trained'. While wearing restrictive armor, your maximum level of training with those skills is capped.  In the preceding latter example, any restricted skills you have at ranks higher than Trained effectively act as if they were Trained.  This includes requirements for Edges; if your effective skill rank while wearing the armor isn't high enough for you to qualify for the Edge, you lose its benefits while wearing the armor.

Combat Systems
In the world of No-Mans Land, fighting is inevitable. People struggle over food, over land, over ideals, or over civilization's leftovers. When things come to violence, these systems address how it unfolds.

Sequence
Each side in a battle acts on separate rounds; the attacking side acts first. If there are more than two sides to the battle, the GM determines the sequence, or determines randomly if there is no obvious deciding factor.

When a side's turn to act comes, all combatants on that side act together. The members determine their actions, and then act. If it matters who on a side acts first, start with the character with the highest Reflexes attribute, and proceed from there, determining ties randomly.