PCs have three main stats:

Attributes

Attributes are a PC’s innate abilities, rated 0-3. The 3 attributes are:

Insight – a measure of mental acuity & knowledge
Prowess – a measure of physical fitness & reflexes
Resolve – a measure of force of will or personality

Attributes are used to…

Resist consequences.

Players can resist the negative consequences of a failed or a mixed action roll:

The GM says what attribute the PC uses to resist.
The player rolls that attribute’s rating (the dots in the attribute’s 1st column).
The PC takes 6 stress minus the highest result to reduce or avoid the consequence. </aside>

Use Insight to resist mental consequences, like cutting an artery during surgery, navigating to the wrong place, or tripping an electronic alarm.
Use Prowess to resist physical consequences, like taking a punch, falling from a height, or getting grabbed by a police patrol.
Use Resolve to resist social or magical consequences, like being hexed, getting dressed down by a superior, or committing an embarrassing faux pas at a soirée.

Make fortune rolls.

Like all stats in the game, attribute ratings can be converted to dice (1D per dot) for a fortune roll.
Make a fortune roll with a PC’s attribute to leave something up to chance when:
- A flat 1D roll feels too broad
- An action rating roll feels too granular
- The PC isn’t taking a specific action
- The roll feels like it should be weighted based on who the PC is </aside>

In a playbook, attributes are the dots in the leftmost column under each attribute. This means attributes aren’t assigned on their own. Instead, each attribute rating comes from the actions under it.

Actions

Actions are different ways to overcome obstacles. Every PC has 0-3 dots in each of 9 actions: Operate, Study, Tinker, Attack, Maneuver, Skulk, Attune, Command, & Sway.

An action is the key stat in an action roll. The 1st step is always matching a PC’s action to an action stat. The chosen action’s rating then sets the initial dice pool.

Every action is a verb used in its normal sense. If the verb works in a sentence to describe what a PC is doing, a player can make an action roll with it.

This means that:

Actions are very broad
Some actions overlap

Note that the following are only examples. Each action covers countless other possibilities.

Insight Actions

Prowess Actions

Resolve Actions

Notes on actions:

Players choose actions. The GM can suggest an action for a roll, but the player has the final say.
However, the GM determines an action’s effectiveness. The same obstacle might be easier or harder to overcome with two different actions. Tinkering with a padlock to pick it will likely be more effective than Attacking it with bare fists.
Particularly ineffective actions may put the PC in a bad starting position when rolling. If a PC chooses to Attack the gang of wasteland marauders rather than Skulking quietly around their camp, they’ll be in a tighter spot. They can roll to Attack, but they’ll be down -1D to start.
Some actions may even be impossible, with no chance of success. In most settings, a character can’t roll to jump to the moon. When something is impossible, nothing happens, and there’s no roll. The player has to pick a new approach. </aside>

Level

PCs – and every other entity in the game – also have a level.

Level is a rating of someone or something’s general power. It covers, in one number…

Their innate & trained skills
Their available wealth & resources
Their social & political influence
The general quality of their gear

This makes it easy to compare things in the game world. A level 1 crew knows they’re outclassed when they go up against a level 3 faction.

By default:

Every PC is rated at the crew’s level
Everyone & everything in a faction is rated at their faction’s level
Everything else has no level

Sometimes, however, something belonging to a faction has a lower or higher level. A powerful faction might have a cheap security camera on one of their buildings. A minor faction’s boss might be more skilled than everyone else in their organization.

Level comes into play…

In action rolls:
- PCs subtract -1D for every level their target outranks them.
- PCs add +1D for every level they outrank their target.
- No dice are added or subtracted when levels are equal.
In fortune rolls:
- Roll for an entire faction, or someone/something belonging to a faction, with that faction’s level.
- Roll 1D per level, 2D take the lowest for level 0.
- This also covers fortune rolls for the whole crew.
When advancing the crew:
- When the crew reaches 6 xp, they can pay 1 funds to gain 1 level.
- (The crew starts at level 0.) </aside>

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