This document covers the core rules for playing games of Open Adventures. In future the intention is to build upon these rules with new supplements and expansions that can add more complex features.
Every tabletop game requires characters to play as. Legendary heros, members of the city watch, undead hords, etc. In open adventures these characters are represented by a set of attributes, equipment and traits.
A core mechanic of Open Adventures is the dice pool. A lot of games will have you perform 2 or 3 actions (such as move, fight, cast a spell, etc) each turn, but in Open Adventures these activities are instead dictated by how many dice you have in your pool.
Player characters will have a pool of dice (usually around 5 for heroic or villainous characters). Players can then assign those dice to their attributes to perform actions, but no more dice than the value of the attribute.
Dice from your dice pool are also used to defend against enemy attacks (using your defense attribute), so be carefull, using all your dice on your turn will leave you defenseless.
For example A player has a dice pool of 6 and decides to move their character to a better position and then shoot at an opponent. The player assigns two of their dice to their "Move" attribute (which is 4), and rolls the dice.
The player's Shoot attribute is 3, so after moving, they decide to use 3 dice to shoot their opponent.
Once they have shot, they have one dice left in their pool and decide to use it for an extra move (this means they have used 3 dice for movement in total this turn). This means however that if they need to defend on their opponents turn, they will have to take fatigue to do so (see below).
Finally, you do not need to pre-plan all your actions, dice can be assigned in any order on your turn. You could move once, then fight, then move again, etc.
All actions in the game are controlled by your characters "Attributes". Each character has the following attributes and these dictate the maximum number of dice in a turn that can be spent performing actions linked to this attribute (EG: A shoot of 3 means you can never spend more than 3 dice in a turn on ranged combat).
The Move attribute is the maximum number of dice you can spend on moving in a turn. Each success rolled grants 6" of movement, each critical success grants 12". This attribute must be at least 1, unless the character is some form of static contraption.
The Fight attribute is the maximum number of dice you can use in a turn on close combat attacks. For a powefull warrior, this number will most likely be 3 or 4. Each success rolled will cause 1 point of damage, each critial success causes 2.
The Shoot attribute is the maximum number of dice you can use in a turn on ranged attacks. For a master sniper, this number will most likely be 3 or 4. Each success rolled will cause 1 point of damage, each critial success causes 2.
The Skill attribute is used when you perform skilled actions (such as picking locks, hacking computers, etc).
NOTE Very often, any check involving skill will involve passing more than one dice roll. These dice can be rolled simultaniously, or one after the other, BUT you cannot perform any other actions between dice rolls.
Willpower is the ability to resist stressful situations, attempts of mind contol, etc. Very strong willed characters will have a will of 3 or 4.
The Mysticism attribute is used when you perform a magical or mystical actions (most commonly casting spells). For some characters (without mystical inclanations) it will be blank. Otherwise it will be a number between 2+ and 6+. This is the number you have to roll on any assigned dice to succeed at performing a magical action.
You may also need to roll dice against your Mysticism attribute instead of Defence to defend against some magical attacks.
The Defence attribute is used when you need to defend against physical damage. Each sucess rolled on a defence roll ignores 1 point of damage, each critical ignores 2.
Be aware, defence is different to other attributes, as you do not normall assign dice to it on your turn, so it is wise to leave some dice in your pool spare at the end of your turn.
Unlike other games that might represent character health via a "Wounds" or "Health" stat, in Open Adventures a characters health is represented by their dice pool!
Each time a character takes damage, you remove one dice from your pool. If you loose all your dice then the character is dead/out of the game.
Fatigue is a measure of exhaustion your character is suffering. Characters start the game with zero fatigu, but as they "push" themselves (see actions below) they will aquire fatigue (which results in less dice to use in your dice pool).
Below will cover the most common actions you can perform in Open Adventure and how you use dice from your pool to perform them.
Be it an armoured paladin, an enforcer with a batton or a space knight with a laser sword. Melee attacks represent a lot of actions in most tabletop games.
In order to perform a close combat attack in Open Adventures, first you must be adjacent to your opponent (unless you have a weapon that allows melee attacks from longer range). Then you must decide how many dice you want to dedicate to the attack from your pool. For example, a quick slash might only use one dice, but a heavy cleave using a two handed axe (or a precision strike with a knife) could use two or three dice.
Once you have decided how many dice to use for the attack you can then roll them. You CANNOT split the results after you have rolled. Each dice with a result of 4+ is a success (a 6 is considered 2 successes). Each success represents a single point of damage.
Bows & arrows, crossbows, rifles, plasma cannons, etc are all examples or ranged weapons used in tabletop games. Attacking at range is an similar to close combat. First, decide how many dice you want to use for the attack. A quick hip shot might use only one dice, but an aimed shot at tough enemy might need three!
Once you have decided how many dice to use for the attack you can then roll them. You CANNOT split the results after you have rolled. Each dice with a result of 4+ is a success (a 6 is 2 succeses). Each success represents a single point of damage.
Each point of damage taken results in removing a dice from the dice pool. Once the player has no dice left in their pool, they are knocked out or killed (removed from the game).
Players can defend against damage using their "Defence" attribute. They can roll up to their defence attribute in dice per attack (this is slightly different to other attributes). Every dice result that is a 4+ ignores one point of damage, every 6 ignores 2.
Non player characters (NPC) work a little differently. In order to injure or defeat them you will need to do a enough damage in one attack to equal or exceed their defence. For most NPCs this will be enough to kill them, though some may be able to take multiple hits.
Games will probably involve players making skill checks for various actions. Picking a lock, hacking a computer, repairing a vehicle are all possible examples of a skilled action.
Making a skill check is similar to attacking. First choose how many dice from your pool to assign to the action. The action will have a difficulty (representing a number of successes). Once you have assigned your dice, you can roll them. Every dice with a result of 4+ is a success and ever 6 is 2 successes.
NOTE some skill actions might require a number of sucesses greater than you can achieve in one turn. This is by design, every success against a skill check reduces the difficulty by one. BUT this resets if you perform any other action between checks.
If you want to perfom more actions in a turn than your dice pool allows, you can, but doing so starts to exhaust you quickly, this is represented by fatigue. Every time you perform an action, after you have used all dice in your pool, then you must mark a point of fatigue on your character. For every point of fatigue a character has at the beginning of a turn, they loose one dice from their pool that turn.
If at any point, the number of fatigue points equals or exceeds the characters dice pool, then he character collapses and must spend turns recoving (below) until the number of fatigue points is less than their dice pool.
If you want to remove fatigue points from your character, you must spend a turn resting. You must choose to do this at the start of your turn, and once you have chosen to rest you cannot perform any other actions.
After choosing to spend a turn resting, take a number of dice equal to your current fatigue and roll them. Any dice with a score of 4+ result in a point of fatigue being removed and any rolls of a 6 result in two points of fatigue being removed.