The PTSD System

(follow up rules post here - together they should roughly be playable)

It’s a d6 system, like Blades in the Dark if you’ve played that. PTSD stands for Physical/Technical/Social Dice and is a placeholder name that I have never been able to overcome. Your skills are as follows:

• Strength. How physically strong is your body? Are you a big tough guy or a wimp? Fisticuffs, endurance, moving heavy objects out of the way, powering through it. Good for boxers, bodyguards, rock climbers and salty sailor types.

• Dexterity. How good are you with your hands? How quick are your reflexes? Gunplay, lockpicking, prestidigitation. Good for cowboys, thieves, street magicians, card sharps and anyone who has to tie a knot.

• Academic. How much do you know? History, languages, medicine, physics. Anything an academic might have a specialty in - hence the name. Good for archaeologists, doctors, eggheads and nerds.

• Technical. What hands-on skills do you have? Engineering, repair, explosives, surgery, being the guy who flies the plane. Wilderness survival. Good for handymen, big game hunters, safecrackers and nurses.

• Charisma. How far can you get just by talking? Flattery, persuasion, meeting new people. Knowing when to talk straight and when to shift the blame. Good for lawyers, con artists, staff sergeants and loveable rogues.

• Connections. Who do you know? Who are your sources? Lowlife crooks with underworld gossip, greasy politicians, maiden aunts who can get you into the midwinter ball. Good for detectives and Wooster types who bumble around on pure upper-class luck.

You get seven points to distribute. Roll a number of d6s equal to your skill level. What’s the highest number you got? 4 solves an easy problem. 5 is normal, 6 is hard.

Pick two Specialties, which reduce the difficulty of any roll where they’re relevant. So you can succeed with a 5 instead of a 6. Sleight of hand, ropework, Egyptology, bar fighting, astronomy, driving, storytelling, tropical medicine.

Apply this to Connections by defining a social sphere - high society, law enforcement, politics, business, crime. Think of it as a knowledge skill. How much do I know about the way my society operates? How is this organisation likely to work? Is there anyone here who knows somebody I know? Who would I ask to find out?

If you’re not sure what stat to use, pick whatever you’re best at, so long as you can make a case for it. Picking a lock could be Dexterity or Technical. If you don’t have any points in a stat you automatically fail all relevant rolls: weaklings have no chance to win a fight, dumb guys can’t decode Linear B.

Each PC might get one Luck die a game, to add to any roll, even to one they have no points in. Up to you.

Sanity is a measure of both physical and mental health.

A bullet clipping your earlobe takes off a point of sanity; so does a bout of tuberculosis, a sword-thrust through the abdomen and getting your soul fondled by the icy fingers of a ghost. Only truly fucked up creatures hurt your sanity just by entering your field of view; you can handle Dracula but seeing Azathoth will do some damage.

You get three points, which refresh at the beginning of each session. If you go down to one point in a given session, you get a Disfigurement - a phobia or strange compulsion, crippled leg or ugly facial scar. If you go to zero you are permanently insane or dead.

Usually if someone attacks you, you get to roll a skill to resist.

You can also roll Sanity itself - the same way you roll anything else, with a number of d6s equal to your Sanity points. When you cast a spell, conduct a sufficiently weird ritual or deliberately try to gain some advantage by stepping out of the normal confines of reality, you have to make a Sanity test. If you fail you lose a point of Sanity, which should create a pleasing downward spiral.

Your party has some shared enterprise - a detective agency, a smuggling ring, a psychic research society, an occult bookstore that sells to exclusive collectors. The health of this enterprise is measured in its Credit. One score for the whole party. This is different from Connections - you can be rich in friends and still dirt poor.

Pulling off successful jobs enhances your Credit. You’re assumed to work in between games - selling drugs and dirty magazines, publishing in obscure journals and spying on people’s ex-wives. The better your reputation is, the more money you make.

I want to build campaigns around this. Envision the players as journalists, PIs, small-scale crooks or tenure-hungry scholars. (Keep in mind that Indiana Jones works for a university.) Give them half a dozen plot hooks and let them choose which ones to follow up. Solving a mystery, any mystery, should automatically bring you a mechanical reward and put you in touch with people who have access to more interesting mysteries.

Maybe a list of tools, properties, useful allies, magic books and spells you can buy after each session? I will work this out.

Detective campaigns are hard to run. Mysteries are natural railroads. I want a campaign book that’s a set of episodic adventures, linked by a single grand conspiracy but accessible in any order, so you can pluck them out and use them independently if that’s your design.