argh

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the Surf City Irregulars: Wendy Jade Gale, ElyssaLuann Esposito Gilmar, Douglas Brittani Bellew, Mike George Briggs DeSanto,Phil Ron Slater Doe, Kris Vanessa Roe, Allison Luna Joe and Daniel IggyRossi for play testing and just being awesome.Special thanks to Russell Impagliazzo, for design and mathematical help. Withoutthem this would be a different and worse game.

3This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. This work is li-censed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visithttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Cre-ative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105,USA.The illustrations in this work are licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License, visible athttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Various fictional characters that are mentioned in passing in this work may be thetrademarks of their respective owners; if they are they are being used without per-mission, and the publication of their names is not authorized by, associated withor sponsored by their respective trademark owners. This game has no permissionfrom, connection with, or endorsement by any of the trademark holders of suchcharacters as Scooby-Doo or Buffy the Vampire Slayer that might be mentionedas examples. DO NOT READ OR PLAY THIS GAME UNDER ANY MISAPPREHENSIONTHAT THE MENTION OF CERTAIN FAMOUS TRADEMARKS MAKES THIS AN OFFICIALPRODUCT SPONSORED BY ANY OF THE TRADEMARK HOLDERS.You wont find any stats, descriptions, or images of any of the aforementionedtrademarked characters; their names are used purely nominally as points of refer-ence.Argh! is (c) Joshua Macy 2010. Argh! and SFX! are trademarks of Joshua Macy.This document is version 1.1, last revised March 29, 2012.

Introduction

Argh! is a role playing game wherethe players keep the world safe fromthe horrors that Man Was Not Meantto Know in a modern horror-fantasysetting. It is meant to give the play-ers and GM the tools for playing andproducing results that feel like con-temporary supernatural thrillers with-out bogging them down in unneces-sary detail, with rules that work withthe players mental pictures of theevents. Argh! is part of the SFX! gamesystem, along with superhero gameKapow! Knowledge of Kapow! isnot necessary to play; players famil-iar with Kapow! will find Argh! quieteasy to pick up, though there are dif-ferences to fit the genre. We will pointout these differences from time totime for the benefit of Kapow! play-ers. Others can ignore these com-ments.

The Primary Rule of Argh! is that ac-tions have to make sense in a super-natural thriller kind of way and theplayers will continually be asked todescribe their actions in terms fit theconventions of the genre. In Argh!

it isnt enough to say I attack withmy Pyrokinesis, thats 2d6; Argh! asksyou to describe how youre using yourpower, almost as if you were nar-rating the action in a supernaturalthriller: I use my Pyrokinesis to try tocause the vampires clothes to spon-taneously combust, or Since the robotseems immune to flame, I use my Py-rokinesis to melt a cable on a nearbycrane, dropping a load of steel gird-ers on him. When in doubt, ask your-self Does this sound like somethingfrom a supernatural thriller? The Pri-mary Rule applies to the plausibilityof actions, particularly the results ofactions involving supernatural pow-ers and how they interact that arefar outside of the realm of ordinaryphysics or common sense; it is not in-tended to force a particular outcomeor story, or to substitute collaboratingon supernatural thriller-style fan-fictionfor role playing.

Argh! is designed to be simpleenough for novices to play, thoughperhaps not simple enough for GameMasters with no prior experience in

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role-playing games. Its assumed thatthe players know what supernaturalthrillers are about and what sort ofgame they want to play. Its particu-larly important for the players and theGM to be on the same page aboutgenre conventions such as whetherinvestigators are frequently killed bythe horrors they face or generally kickits ass, whether they can actuallyachieve victory or at best stave offcertain doom for another day, andjust how graphic and creepy the de-scriptions of the action and monstersought to get. If one player wantsa game where the struggle to keepthe Elder Gods from returning andplunging the world into an unendingnightmare is a losing battle, and an-other wants to play the leather-cladbad-ass who kicks Shoggoths buttsand takes their (unpronounceable)names, its unlikely that they can bothbe satisfied with the same campaign.This sort of conflict of expected toneshould be resolved before play be-gins. It should be the goal of every-body at the table to play up and playinto whatever approach the playerswant to take.

Argh! includes everything you needto create investigators and supernat-ural characters and save the world:rules for character generation, cam-paign scope, supernatural powersand character templates, vehicles,bases, adjudicating actions and re-solving combat, designing a setting,

supernatural thriller campaigns, sam-ple supernatural creatures, organiza-tions and non-player characters, andsome example characters and char-acter sheets. Also included is someanalysis of the probabilities for playerswho worry about that kind of thing.

Argh! uses a straightforward me-chanic to resolve most actions: youroll some dice (two, unless youre do-ing something unusual) and take thebest. If you are pitting one Poweragainst another you compare that tothe best roll of the opposing Power;if unopposed then against a Difficultybased on the scale of what youreattempting. For instance, Muffy VanHelsing tries to jam a stake into theend of a blunderbuss she found inthe museum and fire it through theheart of the Master Vampire using herVampire Hunting; the Master Vam-pire uses his Preternatural Speed tododge. Muffy rolls a 7 and the Mas-ter Vampire rolls a 3...and the MasterVampire takes a stake to the chest.Later Muffy has to try to pull herbest friend Leander, dangling abovethe fiery pit of doom, to safety; theGM decides thats a Difficulty 2 tasksince Leander is a normal-sized hu-man, against which she decides toroll her Athletic Prowess. Note that inthe first example Muffy isnt requiredto make a separate roll to combinethe stake and the blunderbuss first, orfigure out how to use a blunderbuss,thats assumed to be part of the de-

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scription of her Vampire Hunting at-tack on the Master Vampire; if theressome doubt that she really could usea blunderbuss, shed just describe adifferent method of hurling the stake,and the die roll would be the same.Nor should there be any rolls or back-and-forth over whether a stake re-ally could be fired from a blunderbusssafely, nor if a museum piece wouldreally be in proper condition to fire;it sounds like the kind of thing thatpeople get away with in supernaturalthrillers, and by the Primary Rule thatssufficient.

Most of the rest of the rules consistsof deciding which dice of what sizeto roll for various actions, and whatthe results of success are, plus somehandling for some of the more com-mon unusual situations that heroesfind themselves in, such as attemptingto intimidate foes into giving up with-out striking a blow, or interfering withtheir powers.

This book consists of three sections:Creating a Character, Playing Argh!,and Game Mastering. The first twosections contain all the rules of thegame, on how to create and how toplay characters using Argh!, while thefinal part contains advice on runningsupernatural thriller campaigns appli-cable to most systems.

What are supernatural thrillers?

Argh! is designed to allow you to playout adventures like those in bookssuch as, for example, Charlaine Har-ris Soukie Stackhouse series of books,the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show,or the movie Ghostbusters. We usethe term supernatural thriller, or some-times modern fantasy or modern hor-ror, to describe the common ele-ments of these works. Supernatu-ral thrillers are set in a modern soci-ety that in day to day life is prettymuch like our own. True, maybe vam-pires have come out of the crypt, orthere are billboards advertising pro-fessional exorcisms, but that doesntreally affect most peoples lives thatmuch. Most people remain either ig-norant of or in denial about super-natural threats. However, there aregenuine supernatural menaces thatthreaten to bring terror and violenceto this world. This could be on a per-sonal level (a haunting of a some-ones home), a global level (zombieapocalypse) or anything in between.A level of menace and suspense iswhat makes the work a thriller. How-

ever, unlike much out-and-out hor-ror where there are only victims, inthrillers there are also talented peoplewho can and do successfully combatthese supernatural menaces. In Argh!you get to play these competent de-fenders of humanity.

Heres a partial list of the work wedrew on for inspiration.

Books

Louise Hamiltons Anita Blake se-ries. Vampires have come outof the closet, and necromancerAnita Blake has the unenviablejob of finding and executingrogue vampires who refuse toaccept the new no-killing, only-feed-from-volunteers status quo.Later books in the series featuremore and more sex and less andless investigation, while Anitaspower level and number of menin her harem grows in each book.

Doc Savage. A scientific prodigy,raised from infancy to be the per-fect human specimen, recruits an

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vassorted gang of talented men(a lawyer, a chemist, a civil en-gineer, an electronics engineer,and an archaeologist) to aid himin globe-trotting adventures fight-ing evil forces that are generallyusing some sort of bizarre super-science invention for their sinisterschemes.

Bram Stokers Dracula. Also madeinto some movies. Note that,while it appears archaic now, itwas set in the London of the timeit was written. While there wereearlier ghost and monster stories,the introduction of vampire slayervan Helsing makes this the first realsupernatural thriller.

Jim Butchers Dresden Files se-ries, about a professional wizardin modern Chicago. Also a short-lived TV show.

J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series,also made into movies. You mayhave heard of this one.

Carrie Vaughns Kitty Melville se-ries, about an openly werewolfcelebrity DJ.

Patricia Briggs Mercy Thomsonseries, featuring a woman whocan shape-shift into a coyote,and her werewolf, vampire andfae allies and enemies.

Sergei Lukyanenkos Night Watchseries, about competing orga-nizations of good and evilsupernatural beings in Moscow.(Also made into a movie.)

Charlaine Harris Soukie Stack-house series, and the True BloodTV show, based on it.

Rachel Caines Weather Wardenseries, about magicians who useenslaved Djinns to moderate theweather.

Television

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Weparticularly drew on the groupdynamic that featured normalhumans and supernatural be-ings working together. In thespin-off show, the vampire-with-a-conscience character Angelmoved to LA and formed a su-pernatural detective agency toredeem himself by helping othersagainst supernatural threats.

Carnivale. A subtle supernaturalstruggle takes place between theemployees of a strange carnivaland a tormented evangelist.

Eureka. A town full of scien-tific geniuses, mostly working fora secret government researchagency founded by Albert Ein-stein, create a bunch of trou-ble with their inventions while the

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town Sheriff tries to keep a lid onthings.

Kolchak, the Night Stalker. A re-porter investigates the macabreand inexplicable.

Scoobie Doo, Where are You? Al-though the supernatural threat isalways a fraud played for laughs,this silly animated show has manyof the essential elements of a su-pernatural thriller. In later ver-sions of the series the supernaturalevents are sometimes real, and inone Shaggy actually becomes awerewolf!

Warehouse 13. Agents for whatis essentially the warehouse thatthe Arc of the Covenant getsstored in at the end of Raiders ofthe Lost Ark travel around retriev-ing dangerous mystical artifactsfor safe-keeping.

The X-Files. Government agentsinvestigate macabre and inexpli-cable phenomena.

Movies

Ghostbusters. An outbreak ofghosts in New York City is par-layed by a group of paranor-mal investigators into a success-ful business, leading to them hav-ing to stave off a mystical apoca-lypse.

The Frighteners. A trio consist-ing of a psychic and two ghostsfake hauntings, frightening peo-ple into hiring the psychic toexorcise his partners...but thenhave to face the ghost of a serialkiller whos found a way to still killpeople from beyond the grave.

Zombieland. Survivors of a Zom-bie apocalypse cross the US,looking for a safe haven; whatseparates it from most zombiemovies, besides a more comictone, is that defeat by thezombies is not presented as in-evitable, and the zombies donteliminate the cast members oneby one...which would be a prob-lem for an RPG, since you dontwant to permanently sidelineplayers.

Monsters vs. Aliens. This amusinganimated movie about variousmonsters mostly inspired by 50shorror movies (the Blob, Crea-ture from the Black Lagoon, TheAttack of the 50 Woman, TheFly) first captured by a mysteriousgovernment agency and then re-cruited to fight off an alien in-vasion may not be the first thingyou think of when it comes to su-pernatural thriller, but would bethe perfect premise for an Argh!campaign.

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Comics

Blade. A half-vampire vampirehunter in Marvel Comics and amovie. Created by Marv Wolf-man.

Challengers of the Unknown. Ateam of four talented men, a pi-lot, a daredevil, a boxer, anda scientist, miraculously survive aplan crash and conclude thatsince theyre living on borrowedtime they should band togetherand take on hazardous adven-tures, facing off against variousparanormal and super-sciencemenaces.

Hellblazer. The mysterious, cyn-ical John Constantine (createdby Alan Moore; individual comicsby various writers and artists, mostnotably Jamie Delano), tries tocounter the worst horror throughsheer bravado and a willingnessto sacrifice his friends. Also madeinto a movie (but not a recom-mended one).

Night Force. Another series byMarv Wolfman about a motleycrew of gifted but expendable in-dividuals assembled by the mys-terious housebound Baron Win-ter to prevent horror being un-leashed.

The Primary Rule

Does this sound like something froma supernatural thriller?

The Primary Rule of Argh! is that ac-tions have to make sense in a su-pernatural thriller kind of way. It willbe referred to a lot in the followingrules, because its a departure fromthe way many RPGs handle mechan-ics and dice rolling. In Argh! you donteven roll the dice if the action is obvi-ously something a character with thatPower can do. Where in most RPGsyou wouldnt bother rolling to see ifyou could walk across a room or sit ina chair, Argh! extends that notion sothat you wont bother rolling to see ifyour werewolf can transform into wolf-form and track the missing co-eds,or your magician can successfully re-search a spell that will trap the venge-ful spirit; protagonists in supernaturalthrillers are confronted with situationswhere bad luck or failure to performup to their usual standards (a bad die-roll) prevents them from confrontingthe evil...though whether they will sur-vive is open to question.

Contrariwise, where other RPGs

might just leave it up to the diceto decide whether a vampires mes-meric gaze can work against an an-imated statue (rolling damage vs. itsmental resistance) or decide it basedon whether the character had paidextra for the gaze power when it wascreated to have it work against inan-imate creatures, Argh! will ask theplayers the consider the plausibility ofthe action before they commit to itand roll the dice, and the decisionmay turn on details of the descriptionof the golem such as whether it is ani-mated by a human spirit or simply car-rying out the instructions of a spell. Ifgiven the particular golems descrip-tion it cant plausibly be hypnotizedby the vampire, the vampires gazecant work no matter how powerful itis.

This means that the player will oftenbe able to control whether an actioncan be taken according to the Pri-mary Rule by the way they describehow theyre employing their Power. Infact, thats the point of the PrimaryRule: to require the players to nar-

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rate their actions in a more interestingway than just announcing I use myFlame Blast, thats a d6, d6 attackby making the details of the narrationmatter. This also helps novice role-players, who naturally tend to do this.To further this goal, and speed thingsalong, final decisions as to the plau-sibility are placed in the hands of theplayer. The GM can suggest reasonsthat the action as described mightnot be all that plausible or should takeinto account facts about the situationsuch as the villain hovering fifty feet inthe air, but the GM wont override theplayers unless she knows somethingthey dont that makes the action im-possible (such as the characters areactually fighting an illusion).

Example of Play

The Player Characters are Brittani,the mean cheerleader; Luanne, theschool reporter who knows every-body; Ron, the stoner former pianoprodigy; Scott, the ex-jock cursed tobecome a troll when he gets an-gry; Iggy, the demon currently play-ing hooky from Hell; and Vanessa thegoth blood-witch. They are all stu-dents at Surf City High in SouthernCalifornia, except for Iggy whos theschool janitor.

The scene is in the High School af-ter hours. Previously, an underwaterexplosion caused by some ill-advised

seismic experiment made a myste-rious island rise offshore, and someof the gangs classmates have beentaken over/eaten by flying heads outof Chumash Indian legend. Investiga-tion and discussion with the NPC Ms.Maude Bara, an expert in Chumashlore, has revealed that the island wasbasically a prison for Chumash mon-sters called Nunashish, kept beneaththe waves by the Swordfish men whoare the guardians of the sea andresponsible for keeping the realmsof the sea and the land separate;the Swordfish men were grievouslywounded by the underwater det-onation and the Nunashish prisonrose and some got out...including theCliff Ogress, mother to many of theNunashish, and who in legend goesabout gathering up children to tossthem off the cliff to her hungry chil-dren in the waters below so their dis-embodied heads can grow bodiesand come up on land.

The GM expects that the playerswill come up with a plan to find theOgress and fight her, and that will bethe start of an arc with the city over-run by the Ogress children. The play-ers, though, have a different idea. Ifthey can somehow help the Swordfishmen, perhaps the Swordfish men cansee to the Nunashish and drive themback to the island.

Luanne calls up Ms. Bara, the NPCexpert on the Chumash, and asksher about ways to help the Sword-

xfish men. Ms. Bara thinks Luanneis going crazy, but is intrigued as afictional possibility, and gets caughtup in speculating and tells the PCsof some of the (true) research theGM has done into Chumash leg-ends, explaining the significance ofthe Swordfish men and mentioningtheir famous Swordfish Dance, wherethe Chumash dance so the Swordfishmen might lend them their strength togo out fishing in their longboats. Un-expectedly, Luanne asks Ms. Bara ifthe Swordfish Dance could be used tohelp the Swordfish Men. Ms. Bara an-swers (using the best of the GMs un-derstanding of Chumash culture froma few websites): I dont see how. Thedance is intended to draw strengthfrom the Swordfish men, not to givethem tribute. A light goes off in theplayers heads: Lets Reverse the Po-larity of the Swordfish Dance!

Bara (GM): I suppose that might bea possibility. But you would need anexpert on Chumash culture and anexpert choreographer. . .

Luanne points out that Bara is anexpert, and Brittani volunteers tochoreograph.

Bara: You would need authenticChumash swordfish mask, like in themuseum.

Iggy: back in a minute. . . (Iggyuses his power to Shadow Walk toteleport into the museum, grab themask, and teleport back).

Bara: What am I thinking of? if we

take legends seriously, the swordfishmen are supernaturally strong. If wereverse the symbolism, that would killa mortal dancer.

Scott: um. . . I think we can workaround that. . . . (in his troll form, Scottis super-humanly strong and has thepower of Regeneration).

Bara: Musical accompanimentwould be essential...

Ron: Theres a piano in the au-ditorium, man. (Up until this point,no mention has been made of theauditorium or any pianos, but Argh!specifically licenses players to makeup those sorts of details whenever itsconvenient, as long as it passes theirown sense of whats plausible.)

A few hours later, Scott has donnedthe swordfish mask and is feelinggood about using his inner troll forconstructive purposes. Ron is keepingthe beat on the piano, and Brittaniis shouting out instructions. Theres acrashing noise, as the Cliff Ogress whocreated the heads crashes throughthe school, smashing overhead light-ing as she rushes to stop the cer-emony. Luanne runs out to delayher while the others come up with aplan. She uses her Keep Em Talkingpower, and since thats obviously justwhat the power is good for the CliffOgress stops to sermonize about theunfairness of the Chumash deities andSwordfish Men, who allowed her rel-atives the Nunashish to drown in theflood and then keep them prisoner in

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the undersea hut.Luanne: She may have a point.

how do we know shes the evil one?Scott: The basket of children shes

carrying to feed to the heads is aclue.

As Scott and Ron continue the cer-emony, Iggy, Brittani, and Vanessaattack the Ogress. They decide toCombine their attacks, with Brittanigiving a kick to push the ogresseshead back, Vanessa immediately giv-ing the ogress a slash across thethroat, and Iggy telekinetically push-ing the dangling electrical cords(again not mentioned previously, butlogically following from the GMs de-scription of how the Ogresss headwas crashing through the light fixtures)and into the wound to fry her. Me-chanically this is a Combined attack,based on Brittanis Cheer Fu poweras having the largest dice, with a +1each from Vanessas and Iggys con-tributions, and an additional +1 fromBrittanis Team Spirit Power, which sheCombined with her own power. Brit-tani roll her d8 and d6, getting a 7and a 3...taking the higher results in aroll of 7, then adding the +3 for thecombination for a total of 10. TheOgress had a d8,d6 automatic de-fense (Thick Hide), and a Toughnessof 3. She rolls a 1 and a 3 so the re-sult is a 3. 10 vs 3 wins by 7 and beatsthe Ogress Toughness of 3 by enoughto Overkill. The players decide thatshe should just be dead, rather than

mortally wounded. With the Ogressdead, they complete the ceremony,with Scott ending in full troll mode, butslumped into exhausted sleep ratherthan going on a berserk rampage.

Vanessa uses blood magic to con-tact the Swordfish Men, and con-firms that they were indeed healedby the ritual, and are now capableof guarding the island. The SwordfishMen offer everyone involved a futureFavor in gratitude.

Note that the dice were only rolledtwice during this whole confrontationscene, once for the groups attackand once for the Ogress defense.All of the other decisions were basedsolely on the Primary Rule: whatmakes the most sense given the con-text of the story?

The Rule of ThreeAs a rule of thumb, three is the magicnumber in Argh! If there is a rulewith a specific number attached to it,its almost always three. Three is thenumber of starting Boosts you have tospend; three is the number of turnsyou are Out before you can automat-ically return to combat; three is howmuch you have to beat somethingsToughness to score an Overkill; threeis the number of Range categoriesthere are, etc. This reduces the needto look things up in the middle of play:if you cant remember, just use three.

Contents

Contents 1

I Creating A Character 7

1 Steps To Create A Character for Argh! 81.1 Quick-and-dirty player character creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91.2 Outline of long-form character creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Concept 13

3 Filling In The Templates 163.1 The Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173.2 Standard supernatural templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193.3 Describing Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Powers vs. Shticks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Customizing Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Movement powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Automatic powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22What Counts as a Power? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3.4 Mechanics for powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Power Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.5 Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243.6 Advantages And Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

New Advantages and Disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333.7 Describing Shticks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343.8 Restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

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2 CONTENTS

4 Spending your Boosts 374.1 Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Toughness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Stamina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.2 Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Lackeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Typical Equipment Dice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

5 Complications 445.1 Note On Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

6 Fleshing out Your Hero 466.1 Affiliation and Social Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466.2 Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466.3 Backstory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476.4 Appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

7 Example Characters 49Ron Slater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49Vanessa Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Deborah Wright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Jade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Brittani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Luann Esposito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Iggy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53Scott Larsen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53George Briggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

8 Playable creature templates 56Banshee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57Demon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58Dwarves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Elves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

CONTENTS 3

Fae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60Genie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Ghosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62Ogres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Were Creatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

II Playing Argh! 65

9 Adventure Structure 669.1 Special plot flow rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Abduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Keep a Spare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Walk in the Graveyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69Need a Bigger Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

10 Using Powers and Shticks 7110.1 The Primary Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7110.2 Rolling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Unopposed Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72Difficulty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Optional: Failure is Not an Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Optional: Third Times the Charm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Opposed Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Ties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Being Careful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Combinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75The Default Skill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

10.3 What power levels mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

11 Combat 7911.1 Rounds And Turns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

On Your Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79On Someone Elses Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Automatic powers: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

11.2 Damage and other conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Hindered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Sheer Determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

4 CONTENTS

Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Overkill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Down for the Count . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86Tired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

11.3 Combat options and non-standard attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Area effect attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Attacking Inanimate Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87Attacks versus Stamina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Attacks versus Will . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Collateral Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Combining Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Example: Covering Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Defending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Duration Of Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90Thwarting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

12 Tropes 92Aid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Disabling Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Go Wild . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Being Careful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93Home Turf Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Splitting Powers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Supreme Effort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Taking A Bullet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

13 Range, Movement, and Chases 98Example: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

14 Investigation 101

15 Negotiations 106What an Ally will give you . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108Favors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

16 Experience 11016.1 The Pace Of Advancement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

CONTENTS 5

17 The Environment 11217.1 Environment Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11217.2 Stuff To Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11317.3 Perils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Being put Out by a Peril . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

III Game Mastering 116

18 Campaign design 117Death is Just the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

The Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

19 Designing an Adventure 125What you need to design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Adventure Arcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Interleaving Arcs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127Failure is always an option. Success is always an option . . . . . . . . . . . . 127The End of the World is not the end of the world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

20 Plot Templates 129Creature Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129Satanic Ritual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131The Forseen Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132Playing With Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132New Kid In Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133Topsy Turvy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Altered Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135Another World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136War Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138Hunted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

21 Creating Monsters 140

22 Bestiary 143Aliens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Little Green Men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

6 CONTENTS

UFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144ET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Xenomorph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Supernatural Creatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Animated Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Ape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146Beast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146Blob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147Crawler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147Demon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148Dragon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148Efreet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Frankenstein monster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Ghoul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Giant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149Golem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Harpy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Mermaid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Minotaur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150Mummy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151Nightmare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151Pixie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152Skeletons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152Spider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Swamp Creature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153Unicorn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Wendigo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Zombie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155Zombie Plague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

A Combat Options and Tropes 156

B Probabilities 158

C How To Be A Good Player 159

Index 164

Part I

Creating A Character

7

Chapter 1

Steps To Create A Character for Argh!

Before you begin The GM or en-tire group decides certain aspects ofthe campaign, such as basic setting,tone, scope and campaign goals be-fore character creation. For exam-ple, the campaign could be light-hearted and set in a high school, withmost characters being high schoolstudents, or perhaps a deadly seri-ous campaign about a shadow warbetween two supernatural factionsvying for control of the world whileconcealing their existence from nor-mal folks. This campaign informa-tion affects character creation in in-formal ways, such as deciding thata nosy student journalist or a hard-bitten mercenary whos haunted byprophetic nightmares is an appropri-ate character concept. There arealso two mechanical ways the cam-paigns design affects player char-acter creation. First, the number ofBoosts that characters can spendto increase the number or power

of their abilities reflects the intendedpower level. Use 3 Boosts for charac-ters considerably more powerful thanaverage citizens but low on the su-pernatural hierarchy. Use more or lessif the power level should be higheror lower. Since characters also gainBoosts through experience, a newcharacter starting in an establishedgame should start with the samenumber of Boosts as the existing char-acters. Secondly, the GM will decideon or create templates for standardcreature types available as playercharacters. For example, a templatefor vampires means vampire PCs andNPCs will be relatively common, andspecifies which of the many vampirelegends are really true in the game.

8

1.2. OUTLINE OF LONG-FORM CHARACTER CREATION 9

1.1 Quick-and-dirtyplayer charactercreation

Heres the shortest way to make upan Argh! character.

1. Think of what kind of characteryoud want to play that fits thetone and setting.

2. Pick the closest match to thatcharacter in the sample charac-ter list.

3. Keep all the numerical values ofthat sample character. For eachdescriptive phrase on the samplecharacter sheet, replace it with aphrase of the same general cate-gory that describes the characteryou have in mind.

1.2 Outline of long-formcharacter creation

If no sample character is a closematch, or you want to have com-plete control over character gener-ation, you can follow these steps in-stead. We just give an overview here,with details in subsequent sections.

Follow these steps:

1. Decide on a Concept. Pick aconcept for your character. Ur-ban vigilante opposing the chil-dren of the night? New-age mys-tic healer? Demonic being of liv-ing flame? Nosy journalist? Thisis the most important step, andone where you might want to dis-cuss with the other players andthe GM, so players are matchingin tone and consistent with thesetting.

2. Fill in a Template. Templates inArgh! (unlike Kapow!) reflectthe characters role in the game,as well as their abilities. So yourconcept should pretty much de-termine which template to use:mundane (no superpowers, butextraordinarily skillful and brave),bad-ass (trained combatant),magician (casts spells and hasknowledge), unique (one-of-a-kind supernatural), or any of anumber of templates that theGM has designed for standardsupernatural creatures in hersetting. For example, PCs mightbe Muffy the Vampire Staker(unique); Muffys best friend andwitch-in-training Ash (magician);OReilley, a government op-erative and Muffys boyfriend(bad-ass); Lex, a school chumof Muffy and Ash (mundane);Enya, Lexs demonic lover (de-mon: standard supernatural);

10 CHAPTER 1. STEPS TO CREATE A CHARACTER FOR ARGH!

and semi-reformed vampire Ike(vampire: standard supernatu-ral). Once youve found the righttemplate for your concept, fill inthe blanks in the template withdescriptions of your charactersparticular abilities (and weak-nesses). There are three kinds ofthings needing descriptions atthis point: Powers, Restrictions,and Shticks. Each template hassome slots for powers and Shticks,and some have places for re-strictions. Powers are combatabilities, Shticks are non-combatabilities, and Restrictions aresupernatural disadvantages. Thetemplate might have some ofthese pre-defined, or give broadcategories they should fall into.Others will be completely up toyou to decide. Unless they arepre-defined by the template, youneed to to define what they areand how they work.

For example, the mundanetemplate has a psychologicalpower, but you can define thisto by Keep em Talking untilhelp arrives, or Dont AttractAttention, where supernaturalcreatures ignore your presence,or whatever ability of that gen-eral type best suits your characterconcept. On the other hand,the vampire template gives allvampires the same Fangs and

Strength powers. These do notneed to be defined, you alreadyknow what they do.

Powers and Shticks descrip-tions are free-form. There is nofixed list to pick from. They havenumerical ratings that tell howeffective they are when used, butits up to you to determine whatthey are, and how and whenthey can be used. Restrictionsare completely binding on yourcharacter, so they are not givennumerical ratings. No matter howpowerful a vampire is, he cannotcross running water, period.

3. Spend your Boosts. You beginwith 3 Boosts to spend on yourcharacter, plus any bonus Boostsindicated on your character Tem-plate (e.g. Bad-asses have one,Uniques have three). The GMmay give you more if the cam-paign is at a higher Scope thanthe beginning level. These in-crease your characters abilities.Each Boost can be spent for oneof the following:

a) Add one to one of thefour attributes: Toughness,Stamina, Will, and Actions.

b) Increase one power by 1level or give it a Small Advan-tage. 2 Boosts give it a BigAdvantage.

1.2. OUTLINE OF LONG-FORM CHARACTER CREATION 11

c) Increase two Shticks by 1level each, or one Shtick by2 levels.

d) Add one new power. Thestarting level is given in yourtemplate.

e) Add two new Shticks at thestarting level in your tem-plate, or one Shtick at onelevel higher.

f) Get a lackey, base, or ve-hicle. You can then spendadditional Boosts to improvethese.

4. Adjust Powers and Shticks. Youcan adjust your abilities furtherby reducing the effectiveness ofthe Power or Shtick in order toincrease its Level or take someAdvantages on it. Every SmallDisadvantage you put on thePower gives you one Boost tospend on Advantages for thatPower or to raise its Level; everyBig Disadvantage gives you twoBoosts. Similarly, for each Levelyou lower the Power you get anadditional Boost to spend on thatPower. You cant trade Boostsfrom one Power to spend on an-other. Modifying a Power or Shtickthis way doesnt affect how manytotal Boosts you have, so doesntchange how much XP you needfor a new Boost.

5. Pick Complications. Every pro-tagonist has life issues that com-plicate the fight against evil. Ifyour mom wont let you patrol thecemetery on a school night, oryou need to hide your fangs fromyour employer, thats a Compli-cation. Choose Complicationsthat will provide conflict for yourcharacter, or make the conflictsthat much more difficult. Mostcharacters pick one major andtwo minor complications; mun-danes have the option of insteadpicking 4 minor complications.

6. Flesh out your character. Nowadd colorful details that makeyour character more lifelike.There are a few mechanicaldecisions to be made here,but mostly this is you thinkingthrough what your characterslife is really like. For example, isyour character affiliated with anyorganization or alliance of similarcharacters, e.g., a werewolfpack or a coven? If so, what istheir rank in the organization?

Give your character some back-story, and think about her day-to-day life. What was his or her firstencounter with the supernatural?What drives him or her to facemystery and darkness routinely?Write down the basic motivationas a Drive. Think about yourcharacters appearance. How

12 CHAPTER 1. STEPS TO CREATE A CHARACTER FOR ARGH!

does your character appear toothers? What image do theyproject? Write down a short de-scription. If you are artistic, youcould even draw a picture of yourcharacter.

Chapter 2

Concept

While there are no fixed rules forpicking a character concept, hereare a few issues to think about. Agood way to generate a characterconcept is to modify a fictional char-acter you enjoy. But not every char-acter thats fun to see or read aboutis fun to play. To see if there mightbe problems that make a characterconcept less fun than you hoped, youcan ask yourself these questions:

Does the character fit the tone ofthe game? Playing a pure comicrelief character in a very seriousgame, or a melodramatic char-acter in a light-hearted game,can grow old quickly.

Does the character have a dis-tinctive personality? Would theother players be able to tell thedifference between you playingthis character and you playingother characters?

13

14 CHAPTER 2. CONCEPT

Does the character play well withothers? Usually, youll be playingas part of a team. In a mod-ern fantasy game, characters of-ten have dark secrets, person-ality flaws, and secret agendasthat conflict with other charac-ters. Sometimes theyre just notvery nice, to each other or tothe rest of the world. But youcan be a nasty person and still ateam player. On the Buffy show,characters like Cordelia or Spikeare often shown in conflict withthe rest of the gang. But theystill function as valuable membersof the group. As long as ten-sion creates interplay betweenthe PCs, it is good. It is onlywhen it blocks interaction that itsa problem. On the other hand,goody-goody characters that ev-eryone likes might actually bebad for interesting team play. Willyour character have interesting,distinctive relationships with theother PCs, having both BFFs andfrenemies on the team.A teamplayer character contributes togroup goals, but doesnt over-whelm everyone elses contribu-tion. Think about typical scenesfeaturing your character. Wherewould others fit in? If your char-acter is always alone in thesescenes, always the star, or alwayson the sidelines, you might wantto revise the character.

How does the character con-tribute to different kinds of groupactivities? Supernatural thrillershave a different balance of activ-ities from some other genres, suchas high fantasy or super-heroics.About equal time will usually bespent in investigation, negotia-tion, and combat. Try to makesure that your character has arole to play in all of these.

Much of the suspense in a super-natural thriller is from facing is thetotally unknown. Investigation is alarge part of the game, uncover-ing what type of being you arefighting, what drives it, and whatits modus operandi and weak-nesses are. Argh! is very flexi-ble, and you dont have to bea detective, brain, or telepath tohelp in investigations. Maybe youknow a lot of people. Maybeyou have good transportation ora keen sense of smell. Maybeyou just intimidate people into di-vulging the key information.

Not every foe will be defeatable,and not every supernatural be-ing will be a rampaging monster.You will want to find common in-terests with beings that are suspi-cious of you. This is particularly im-portant when dealing with repre-sentatives of larger groups, suchas werewolf clans or magiciansguilds. Brute force might escalate

15

until the whole organization is upagainst your group. Again, youdont have to be a trained diplo-mat to contribute to negotiations.Maybe you are politically con-nected yourself, or maybe youcan offer your unique services asa bargaining chip.

Finally, combat is about kick-ing evil butt. Argh!s flexibilitymeans that you can contributeto your groups combat successin a host of ways, not just asa warrior or with magic powers.Your mundane characters atti-tude might make more of a dif-ference than the bad-asss bigguns. Keeping the villain talk-ing rather than pushing the world-destruction button could savethe day. If you can think of waysto combine your abilities with oth-ers, you can supplement theircombat power. This can be assimple as distracting a foe whilethey attack. You can also help byassisting teammates to recoverfrom attacks.

How well can you portray thischaracter? Sometimes a charac-ter that you love to watch isnt acharacter that you want to play.If its important that your char-acter is Irish, can you speak ina brogue, at least from time totime? Can you be as nasty asyour PC, or are you a softy at

heart? Do you really want tobrood all the time, or do you burstif you cant crack wise?

Chapter 3

Filling In The Templates

Templates are intended to be jump-ing off points for character concepts,not rigid character classes. For in-stance, if you wanted to make amad-scientist character always com-ing up with weird gadgets, you canjust rename Magician and changethe references to magic to dodgy sci-entific principles. Or if you wanted acharacter who was basically a bad-ass, but instead of having trained foryears all her talents came from beingpossessed by a ghost, dont let thereference to no innate supernaturalabilities in the Bad-ass template stopyou.

16

3.1. THE TEMPLATES 17

3.1 The Templates

MundaneThe mundane has no supernat-

ural abilities or specialized com-bat training, just courage, skill, andsubtlety. They are often underesti-mated by the powers of darkness.

Starting Boosts: 3Attributes: Toughness: 2,

Stamina: 2, Will: 2, Actions:2

Psychological power: One psy-chological power @ 6. Fre-quently an automatic defense.Often you will want to give it theAdvantage: persistent, so that itworks until help arrives.

You can give it this big Advan-tage by spending Boosts or givingit disadvantages such as only vs.supernatural beings, or Cannot becombined.

Example: Not Worthy of Notice,Keep em Talking,

Im not a Serious Threat, I CouldBe Useful, Toady, Find Hiding Spot,Savoir Faire, Unfaze-able

Combat skill: One power @ 4Shticks: 6 Shticks @ 5 OR 1 Shticks

@ 6 and 4 Shticks @ 5 OR 2 Shticks@ 6 and 2 Shticks @ 5 OR 3 Shticks@ 6.

New powers begin @ 4New Shticks begin @ 5

Bad-assDespite no innate supernatural

abilities, the bad-asss specializedtraining and weapons threateneven supernatural foes.

Starting Boosts: 4 (3+1 bonus)Attributes: Toughness: 3,


Powers: 3 powers @ 5. Typically,an offensive skill or weapon, a de-fensive skill or device, and a move-ment power.

Shticks: 4 Shticks @ 4Bonus Boosts: The 1 bonus Boost

does not add to your base num-ber of Boosts for the purpose of ex-perience.

New Powers begin @ 5New Shticks begin @ 4

18 CHAPTER 3. FILLING IN THE TEMPLATES

MagicianYou are mortal, but have train-

ing or talent in the magical arts.While there is little you cannotdo with magic, you are at yourstrongest when you combine yourpower with knowledge.

Starting Boosts: 3Attributes: Toughness: 2,


Magical Power: Choose one ofthree possibilities.

A magical power @ 5 Ultra-flexible (AA), Power-up to 7with 3 research scenes (A);

A magical power @ 6 flexible(A), Power-up to 7 and Ultra-flexible with 3 research scenes(A);

A magical power @ 7 Power-up to Ultra-flexible with 3 re-search scenes (A).

Magical Defense: A magical de-fense power @ 4 flexible (A).Choose whether automatic.

Shticks: Choose 2 Shticks @ 4,plus a magical research Shtick @5.

Restriction: Pick a restriction thatis tied in with your magical tal-ent. Do you need blood sacri-fice to perform magic? Can you

never use magic for selfish pur-poses? Must you stay in contactwith the earth or lose your magic?

New Powers begin @ 5 NewShticks begin @ 4

UniqueYou are one of a rare kind of

supernatural being. Perhaps youare the only one. Perhaps you area version of a standard creature,but somehow made unique by afreak event, such as a vampirewith a magical sun-symbol tattoothat prevents her from being burntby the sun.

Starting Boosts: 6 (3+3 bonus)Attributes: Toughness: 2,


Powers: 2 powers @ 6Bonus Boosts: the 3 bonus Boosts

do not add to your base numberof Boosts for the purpose of expe-rience.

Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 3Restriction: Pick up to one re-

striction. If you pick a restriction,it gives you an additional bonusBoost.

New Powers begin @ 6New Shticks begin @ 3

3.3. DESCRIBING ABILITIES 19

3.2 Standardsupernaturaltemplates

Heres a vampire character tem-plate. Other examples of templatesfor standard supernatural creaturesare found in Section 8. But beforeusing a standard creature template,ask your GM if that creature is allowedas a PC and whether the GM has al-tered the template for her setting. TheGM may also have created new stan-dard creature templates for the set-ting, so ask about other possibilities.(The rules for creating new templatesare in Section , in Part III.)

Vampire template:This is an example of a standard

supernatural template. Vampireswont be the same in every game.

Attributes: Toughness: 3,Stamina: 2, Will: 3, Actions:2

Fangs 6Strength 6Feel no pain (auto def.) 6Speed 6Hypnosis 4 Control power (AA).Shticks: 2 Shticks @ 4 if they meet

the stereotype, 3 otherwise, e.g.,Nobleman, Mortician, Smell blood.

New Powers: The following willstart @ 6 if chosen. Sense life;Summon wolves; Fly; Bat form;Gaseous form; Hide in shadows.Other powers start at 4.

New Shtick Levels: @ 4 if they fitthe stereotypes, 3 otherwise.

Restrictions:Aversion: avoids garlic, mirrors,

holy symbols and holy ground.Cant cross running water or en-

ter a dwelling uninvited.Hurt by sunlight, holy water.Must drink human blood, once a

day. Can be donated, e.g., bloodbank.

Many other interpretations ofvampires are possible, either withmore powers and restrictions orfewer. It depends on which leg-ends are fact in your game.

3.3 Describing AbilitiesOnce youve picked a Template, youfill out the Template with specific abili-ties (Powers and Shticks) according toyour concept. You give each abil-ity slot in the template a name, anda brief description. Although theydont change the mechanics of us-ing the abilities this free-form descrip-tion really determines what the abil-ity is. Throughout the game youll be


able to use the ability precisely whenthe game situation matches the de-scription. While some abilities mightseem more limited than others, thechallenge is to provide creative jus-tifications for the ability being use-ful. So, for example, if your poweris Strength it cannot be used directlyat a distance. This doesnt need tobe spelled out or compensated for;its implicit in the notion of physicalstrength. But that doesnt mean thatyou can never use the power in aranged attack, just that you need touse it indirectly. You can say youare using your Strength to pick up alarge object and hurl it at your foe,or to cause the building they are into collapse by knocking away a sup-port beam, or to intimidate them bya display of violence. In any of theseways you use your Strength you re-solve your degree of success usingthe same mechanics and the samedice. Your free-form descriptions tellyou when and how you can use yourabilities. Then the mechanics indi-cate whether you succeed and byhow much.

Powers vs. ShticksAbilities come in two forms: Powersand Shticks. Anything that can beused to attack and defend in com-bat is a Power, even if it may haveother uses. Anything that cant typ-ically be used to hurt somebody or

defend yourself against being hurt is aShtick. The same sort of ability mightbe a Power for one character and aShtick for another, depending on howthe player sees themselves using theability in the game.

While the name Powers suggests su-perhuman abilities, in Argh! Powersare a generic term for any kind ofability that can be used to attackor defend against attacks. So train-ing with a gun is a Power, as is theability to lie convincingly, since it canbe used to prevent an enemy fromattacking you. On the other hand,maybe your ability to magically dis-cern lies is a Shtick, rather than aPower, since it would almost never beused to attack or defend in combat.Note that sometimes the Primary Rulewould imply that a Shtick could beused to defend yourself. E.g. if a crea-ture had a Power to create illusionsthat it uses to lure people into dan-ger, an ability to Magically DiscernLies would be a defense, even if ithad been characterized as a Shtick.

Powers can be used outside ofcombat, too, but you are only al-lowed to use abilities as attacks or de-fenses if they are bought as Powers.For example, you could have KeenSense of Smell as a Power or a Shtick.Either way, you could use the abilityto sniff out drugs in a locker or tracksomeone through the woods, but youcan only use it directly to give you adefense against an invisible attacker

3.3. DESCRIBING ABILITIES 21

if it is a Power.Note that Shticks can be used in

Combination with Powers to attackor defend, as long as it makes senseaccording to the Primary Rule, e.g.you can Combine your Keen Senseof Smell Shtick with your Catlike Re-flexes Power to give yourself a betterchance against an invisible attacker.

Customizing AbilitiesYou can customize your abilities withAdvantages And Disadvantages,however the main thing that makesyour abilities unique is the free-formdescription, and you dont need tospell out the consequences in termsof any mechanics. If your Poweris Flame Blast, then it goes withoutsaying that this power doesnt work inwater or in a vacuum, and it might bedangerous to use in a zeppelin. Onthe other hand, it also goes withoutsaying that you can also use thePower to light up a dark room or toprovide warmth if the party is caughtin a blizzard.

If you described your Power as SoulFlames instead of physical flames,and specify that it burns evil-doerssouls, then, although it will usuallywork just like a Flame Blast, theres noreason it shouldnt work under water.You likely wont be able to light thingson fire with it, but you could still lightup a room, and you could blast a vil-lain holding a hostage secure in the

knowledge that if the hostage is in-nocent the flames wont harm them.By the same token, though, if a goodperson is tricked into fighting you, yourSoul Flames will be useless. All of theseadvantages and disadvantages areimplicit in the description, and do notneed to be bought.

If a Power has an especially widerange of applications, particularly ifyou can use it not only as an attackand defense, but also to move thingsaround, manipulate them, influencetheir actions and so forth you shouldtake the FlexibleAdvantage on thePower. If the Power is so versatile thatits easier to list what you cannot useit for than what you can, such as forsomething like Sorcery, then the Ultra-Flexible Advantage applies.

In addition there are two mechani-cal variations on Powers that are nei-ther Advantages or Disadvantages:Movement Powers and AutomaticPowers.

Movement powersMovement Powers primarily let youmove around. They may also be usedto attack or defend when that makessense, e.g., using fly to ram into afoe, or super speed to dodge bullets.Movement Powers do not take an Ac-tion to use if they are used for move-ment; if you use them for anythingelse they take an Action and only getto roll one die (the larger die). Like


any other power, you cannot use itmore than once a round, so you can-not use a Movement power both tomove and attack or defend.

Automatic powersAutomatic powers are used in re-sponse to a certain kind of action.They can be used multiple times in around, and do not require an Actionto use. On the other hand, they can-not normally be used at will, unlessyou can force the trigger condition tobe met. What those conditions areand what the Power does (whetherits an attack, a defense, movement,or utility) should be clear from the de-scription. An Automatic Power mustbe either for Attack or Defense, notboth. For instance, Armor could bean automatic Defense that would beused whenever you were physicallyattacked. Flame Body could be au-tomatic Attack that would be usedwhenever you were grabbed. Auto-matic Defenses defend against everyappropriate incoming attack, auto-matic Offenses attack everyone whomeets the proper conditions. If usinga Power triggers an Automatic Power,the Automatic Power Combines withthe first Power, giving it a +1. For ex-ample, if you use your Super-Strengthto grab someone, your Flame Bodyautomatic attack would always com-bine with it. You roll the dice for Super-Strength, but add 1 to the result for

the Flame Body. If you use Super-Strength to throw something at some-one, Flame Body wouldnt apply, soyou would get no bonus. AutomaticDefenses cannot be hindered or dis-abled unless they have the Can BeHindered Disadvantage.

What Counts as a Power?There are often several possible waysto divide your abilities up into pow-ers. If you can cast a Sleep spell, aCharm spell, and a Confusion spell,do you want these to be three sep-arate powers or one power called En-chantment? If you have a suit ofPowered Armor that increases yourstrength, provides you protection andlife support, and has mini-missiles onethe shoulders and a blaster built intothe chest, you could have one PowerPowered Armor or five separatePowers your armor gives you. The dif-ference is that, with the first optionyou could use at most one of yourarmors powers each round, but withthe second you could potentially useyour armor in five different ways eachround (if you have enough Actions).

You do not need to purchase Pow-ers that are for color rather than forcombat advantage. Your charactercan have perfect control of the ringsfrom the pipe she constantly smokes,without a special power. Only buyit as a power if you plan to use itto distract a foe. Powers are usable

3.4. MECHANICS FOR POWERS 23

in a matter of seconds. If you wantan ability that takes a longer amountof time to use, it is probably betterto buy it as a Shtick instead. If thePower you have in mind isnt actuallydirectly useful, it is probably better totreat it as color and not list it as apower. For example, a werewolf canchange into a wolf. But what makesthat useful is that the wolf form hasclaws and fangs, a superior sense ofsmell, and regenerates. On the otherhand, you cannot go through life asa wolf, because its hard to turn door-knobs. So you dont have to list Shiftinto wolf form as a power; instead,Only usable in wolf form would beminor Disadvantages on some of yourpowers, such as Claws and Fangs.

It is assumed that given enoughtime and resources, without distrac-tions or opposition, a magician orsuper-scientist can do pretty muchanything. If you are not a magi-cian or super-scientist, you know oneyou can bribe, beguile, seduce, orintimidate. So you can accomplishall kinds of stuff in downtime withoutneeding a separate power listed onyour sheet. In particular, vampiresand werewolves do not need a listedpower to turn others into vampires orwerewolves. The Abduction rule saysthat, if you have a character in yourcustody for an extended period oftime, you can change them in anyplausible way. So a bad-ass or mun-dane also has the power to change

a captive, by scaring or charmingthem into co-operation. Just makesure your descriptions of your down-time activities are consistent with yourcharacter concept. Your downtimeactivities will also be fodder for GMplots, so abuse of this rule will oftenbackfire on you.

3.4 Mechanics forpowers

Each power has a numerical rating,which determines two dice to rollwhen using your power. Sometimesthere is also a fixed number to add into one or both dice. When you useyour power, you roll both kinds of diceand take the higher of the two asyour result, then add in the modifier ifany. If the power is opposing anothercharacters power, they do the sameand the bigger value is the one whosucceeds; the difference determineshow big the success was. If someonesucceeds on an attack against you,you are usually Hindered. That meansthat you only roll the larger die whenyou use a power, until you or some-one else takes an action to free youfrom the hindering effect.

You only roll an uncontested powerif it is not absolutely clear that youcould use the power for that purpose,or if you are in the heat of a battle,


when time is short and circumstancesare chaotic. Otherwise, you can au-tomatically use the power at its nu-merical rating without rolling dice.

Power Levels

Power Levels are assigned dice equiv-alent and when rolling for the effectof a Power, you roll the two dice listedand take the higher result. In Argh!you never add the dice together.

PL Dice PL Dice2 1 point 13 d8+5, d123 single d4 14 d8+5, d8+54 d4, d4 15 d10+5, d8+55 d6, d4 16 d10+5, d10+56 d6, d6 17 d12+5, d10+57 d8, d6 18 d12+5, d12+58 d8, d8 19 d8+10, d12+59 d10, d8 20 d8+10, d8+10

10 d10, d10 21 d10+10, d8+1011 d12, d10 22 d10+10, d10+1012 d12, d12 23 d12+10, d10+10

Note that the Power Levels follow aneasy to remember pattern up to 12.At even levels you use two dice of thesame size, and that size matches thelevel (Power Level 4 is d4,d4; PowerLevel 6 is d6,d6; Power Level 8 isd8,d8...). Odd levels have one dieof the next higher level and one ofthe next lower (Power Level 5 is a d6and a d4, Power Level 7 is a d8 and

a d6, Power Level 9 is a d10 and ad8...). It gets a tiny bit trickier onceyou get past d12. However, unless youare starting at very high power levels,it will be a while before that becomesan issue.

3.5 Research

The Magicians Magical Power isslightly special, in that it starts off asa slightly weaker power and can beupgraded during the course of anadventure by doing Research intothe nature of whatever the PCs arefacing in order to tailor the powerspecifically to whats currently neces-sary. There are three variations: start-ing with an Ultra-Flexible power thatcan do most anything but is at lowlevel and can Power Up through Re-search to a higher level; starting witha high level Power that has one spe-cific use and can Power Up to Ultra-Flexible; and then a middling vari-ant with medium power and flexibil-ity that can Power Up to full powerand Ultra-Flexible. In all three vari-ations, the procedure for doing Re-search remains the same: you must,over the course of the adventure, en-gage in three separate scenes thatrevolve around your character andyour allies doing the necessary Re-search into the spell youre trying to

3.6. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 25

create, using your Magical ResearchShtick. In most cases the Magical Re-search Shtick should work without aroll. If a roll is required because theplayer is unsure whether their type ofmagic really can accomplish whattheyre aiming to do (say a witchwhose powers operate on blood istrying to research a spell to deacti-vate a robot), the GM should assign adifficulty based on the power level ofthe target; if the roll fails, the Magiciancant try again in that scene, and willhave to come up with some other ap-proach to moving the research for-ward or a different sort of spell.

For instance, you might have ascene where you and possibly yourallies are in the school library pour-ing through old books to identify thedemon; a scene where you go tothe house of the school chum whowas possessed by the demon to getone of her personal items that theexorcism ritual requires; and a scenewhere you use that item to brew a po-tion to exorcise the demon. The exactnature of the scenes should be deter-mined during play, through the play-ers and GM deciding whats plausi-ble given whats been going on sofar, rather than a cookie-cutter ap-proach: library, item, ritual. Its jus-tifying what your character is doingas an occasion to employ the Magi-cal Research Shtick; the requirementthat there be three such scenes andthat the scenes be different is just to

prevent every adventure from turninginto a wait while the Magician char-acter hangs around in the library untilthe spell is ready.

When you perform three success-ful scenes in which you are doing re-search (scenes where the focus is re-search and you score a success withyour Magical Research Shtick if nec-essary), your spell is ready, and youannounce what it does. It shouldbe one very specific effect, such asShrink giant insects or Freeze icedemons in place. While you shouldbe researching during this time, thatdoesnt mean you cant participatein scenes. You can put down yourgrimoire and zap the vampire attack-ing you in the library, or go out to thescene of the crime and collect spellcomponents.

If you decide a roll ought to be re-quired other PCs can assist you by us-ing their investigative abilities to per-form relevant research. The difficulty isset to be the base power level of theintended target.

3.6 Advantages AndDisadvantages

Advantages are aspects that makea Power more useful, and Disadvan-tages are things that makes it less use-ful. For instance, if a Power is excep-


tionally Flexible so that almost any-thing can be justified according tothe Primary Rule, thats an Advan-tage; if a Power has a more limiteduse than normal, for instance it canonly be used to defend against cold-based attacks, thats a Disadvan-tage. There are both Big and SmallAdvantages and Disadvantages (la-beled AA and A, or DD and D), and

their effects on a Power are cumula-tive. A Small Advantage on a powercosts one Boost, a Big Advantagecosts 2, a Small Disadvantage givesyou an extra Boost to spend, and aBig Disadvantage gives you 2 extraBoosts. Boosts that you gain from hav-ing a Disadvantage on an ability canonly be used to improve that ability,either by raising its Power Level or giv-


ing it Advantages; you cant take Dis-advantages in order to be able tospend the Boosts on other powers orto improve your Attributes.

Advantages:

Advantages represent some qualityof the Power that makes it more use-ful. You should only give the poweran advantage if it represents a signif-icant increase in the power. Many lit-tle side effects that might be advan-tageous under some circumstancesare already covered by the descrip-tion. For instance, if you have aSleep Gas Power it isnt necessaryto take Exotic even though its im-plied that something like a Shield orTough Hide wouldnt be useful as adefense. Other fairly common Pow-ers like Life Support or Immunity to Poi-son would clearly stop the Power al-together, while still others would de-pend on how they were describedas being used (e.g., using Reflexes tojump out of the way, or Control Windto blow it away) and so would get toroll for defense. Exotic might be re-quired for something like Psionic As-sault, or Time Stop, since having anappropriate defense would be rare.Its your choice whether to label yourPsychic Assault power Exotic or not,but if you dont, the GM should bemore generous in declaring that de-

fenses such as Magic Shield can beused to block it. In the following list,(AA) indicates a Big Advantage; (A)a Small Advantage. A Big Advantageis worth two Small Advantages.

Area Effect (AA) The Power affects alltargets (friend or foe) in an areaat full Power, up to the PowerLevel number of targets.

Control (AA) The attack goes againstWill instead of Toughness. If thedamage is greater than the tar-gets Will instead of being Out thetarget is Controlled by you. Un-til the Control is broken you canspend one action each round todictate how the target spends hisor her actions. If the attack is suc-cessful but damage is less thanthe targets Will you can forcethe target to take a single Ac-tion in the targets Turn; this willuse one of the targets Actionsand one of the targets Powers(if required) before the target re-gains control. If the target is Hin-dered by some previous attackhe or she will not break free of theHindrance first, instead the Actioncommanded will be taken whilestill Hindered. Control automati-cally lets a Power be vs. Will with-out an additional advantage, al-though if you choose you canmake it vs. Toughness. To breakthe Control effect requires an ally


to either spend their entire roundor take a single action with a rel-evant Power or Shtick (just like re-viving a character who is Out).

Delayed (A) the effect of the Powerdoesnt occur until either a spec-ified event or a certain amountof time has elapsed. You coulduse this Advantage to create abomb, or set a trip-wire, or usea Power with the Control Advan-tage to give somebody a post-hypnotic suggestion (though inthe latter case you would needthe Subtle Advantage as well orthe target would know about it).

Exotic (AA) An Exotic attack cantbe defended against by ordinaryPowers, so targets use the De-fault Skill instead. E.g., A mys-tic curse or psychic bolt cantbe usually be stopped by ar-mor or a force-field. Exotic at-tacks must define a fairly broadclass of circumstances that auto-matically negate them (e.g., anymagical defense, any unusualmetabolism, Powers being basedon technology, being a non-magical creature, etc). In ad-dition, Defenses which are Flex-ible or Ultra-Flexible should gettheir normal roll unless theresclearly no way they could help.Things like poison gas or blind-ing flashes of light are not Exotic,

in and of themselves, becauseordinary Powers or even minorPowers (such as having Life Sup-port built into your suit, or Light-ning Reflexes to close your eyes)could justify a defense roll if theydont negate the power com-pletely. You may have only oneExotic Power, unless all your ExoticPowers are negated by the samecircumstances.

Flexible (A) The Power can jus-tify a wide range of effects(e.g., electro-magnetic Powers).Whether a Power should becounted as Flexible or not is upto the player; generally a Powerthats mostly used for attacking ordefending, with occasional usefor extra things that directly followfrom its nature (such as a lightningbolt short-circuiting electronics)doesnt need the Flexible Advan-tage even if it can take manyforms, such as a lightning bolt,a ball of lightning, grabbingsomeone to shock them, and soon; a Power thats intended to beused to do many things besidesimple attack and defense, suchas picking up objects, holdingthings, fencing them off, gath-ering or concealing information,and the like should be given theFlexible Advantage.

Ultra-Flexible (AA) The Power can jus-


tify almost any effect (e.g., Sor-cery); you must still choose somethings that are beyond its capa-bilities. Ultra-Flexible is like Flex-ible, but with even more appli-cations. Where a Flexible Powermight be one that can pick up orpush things in addition to attackand defense, or can create anillusion in addition to attack anddefense, an Ultra-Flexible Poweris one that could do all thoseand more. A typical Ultra-FlexiblePower is one where it is harderto think of things that it shouldntbe permitted to do rather thanthings that it should.

Persistent (AA) The Power will remainin effect as long as you chooseit to maintain it and no exter-nal force interferes; this does notcost you an Action and does notcount as your use of the Power forthat Round. If somebody tries toend it by applying another Power,treat that as a Power vs. PowerContested roll.

Power-up (A) The Power Level can beincreased, under some circum-stances, or at a cost or risk. Pick aSmall Disadvantage, and a wayof spending two Boosts on thepower (+2 power level, one BigAdvantage, 2 Small Advantages,or +1 level and a Small Advan-tage). The power can be used

at the higher level if the char-acter takes the Disadvantage forthat use. If the Disadvantageaffects future uses of the power,e..g, Burnout, it affects the en-tire power, not just the power-up.It must be a Disadvantage thatmakes sense for a single use. Acommon type of Disadvantageto take with Power-Up is the Lim-ited Disadvantage. This would re-flect a Power-Up under limited cir-cumstances, e.g. a werewolfssenses being keener under a fullmoon. Another common type ofDisadvantage is Slow, represent-ing a Power that takes a while towarm up.

Subtle (A) Its not obvious that thePower is being used, unless youhave a Power that grants youappropriate senses. Telepathyor Mind Control are typical Pow-ers that benefit from this Advan-tage, but it could apply to some-thing more prosaic, like an invisi-ble Sleep gas.

Versus Will or Versus Stamina (A) ThePower is compared to either Willor Stamina (decided when thePower is purchased) for its effectsinstead of the usual comparisonto Toughness. This does not makethe Power Exotic, so targets gettheir normal appropriate defen-sive Power. For instance, if the


Power was a Sleep Gas Grenadewith Versus Stamina, the targetwould still be able to use a Powersuch as Acrobatics or Force Fieldto avoid the effects (presumablyby jumping out of the way orcausing the grenade to bounce).Any single Power can only beagainst one Attribute; if you wishto be able to target Will sometimes and Stamina or Toughnessother times, you must take thoseas separate Powers, even if theyhave the same basic explana-tion.

Disadvantages:

Disadvantages represent some Dis-advantage that makes the Power lessuseful than the Primary Rule wouldotherwise allow. It is not intended thatyou place Disadvantages on Pow-ers merely to represent the Disadvan-tages that such a Power would nat-urally have given the Primary Rule.For instance, even though fire requiresoxygen and can only burn flammablematerials, you wouldnt take Circum-stanced Limited to represent it notworking without oxygen, or not harm-ing things that arent flammable un-less the intent was to make it evenmore vulnerable to those circum-stances than you would assume suchas requiring high concentrations of

oxygen as from a tank of compressedoxygen, or only capable of damag-ing things at all if they are as easilycombustible as, say, paper.

(DD) indicates a Big Disadvantage;(D) is a Small Disadvantage. A Big Dis-advantage is worth two Small Disad-vantages.

Absorption (D) The Power must beused as a defense each time be-fore it can be used for any otherpurposes; in other words you mustuse it to absorb an incoming at-tack in order to Power it up.

Automatic Can be Hindered (D) Au-tomatic Defenses normally stay attwo dice even when the charac-ter is Hindered and are only re-duced to a single die when Dis-abled (how do you render some-bodys rocky skin completely in-effective?),. With this Disadvan-tage, the Power can be inter-fered with as if it were a Regu-lar Power instead; e.g., CaptainPatriot took his Shield as an auto-matic Defense but with the CanBe Hindered disadvantage. Heautomatically defends from mostphysical attacks with the Shield.However, if he is Hindered, theShield is reduced to a single die,reflecting his inability to use it ef-fectively when, e.g, trapped ina huge spider web. If someonemanages to Disable his Shield


with an Attack, e.g., causing himto drop it, he no longer has it atall.

Burn Out (DD) If you roll doubles thePower works this time but burnsout and cant be used again;restoring the Power can only bedone by application of some suit-able other Power or being out ofcombat for three Turns (e.g., byusing Gadgeteering to fix Pow-ered Armor, or by returning toyour base to repair it). If the Poweris reduced to a single die for somereason, such as being Hindered,roll that single die for the result,then roll the second die to see ifit burns out.

Combination Difficult (D) Cannot becombined with your own Powers.

Combination Impossible (DD) Can-not be combined with any otherPowers.

Delayed (D) The Power goes off oneturn after the Action is spent.

Disabling Only (DD) The Power canonly be used to Disable otherPowers (e.g., a Power thatdrained mutant Powers).

Easily Disabled (D) The Power is easyto disable; when targeted, it de-fends itself with only one die.Captain Patriots shield is easier totake away or interfere with than

the Living Flames Fire Blasts, so hetakes it as Easily Disabled.

Erratic (D) The Power does nothingwhen you roll doubles.

Fragile (D) The Power is hard to re-pair once disabled; when an at-tempt is made to disable it, a Hin-der counts as a Out, and an Outmeans that the Power cant berepaired without spending hoursoutside of combat, possibly at abase or lab with special tools.

Ultra-Fragile (DD) The Power is sohard to repair once disabled thatwhen an attempt is made to dis-able it, a Hinder counts as thePower being unable to be re-paired without spending hoursoutside of combat, and a Outmeans the Power cant be re-paired except by going on anadventure to restore it, or spend-ing 1 XP.

Limited (D) The Power can only beused when certain conditions aremet, which should occur abouthalf the time or when you cantcontrol the circumstances. E.g., aPower that only works when youhave both hands free, or afteryouve done 3 research scenes,or an automatic Defense thatonly works against impact at-tacks (being punched, hit with fly-


ing buildings, and so on, but notlasers, fire, and the like).

Very Limited (DD) The Power can onlybe used when certain rare con-ditions are met, which should oc-cur during the occasional adven-ture and not under your con-trol. E.g., Power only works un-der water in a campaign set ondry land, Power only works dur-ing a full moon, or an automaticDefense that only works againstcold-based attacks.

Shots (D) The Power has a fixedamount of shots that gets ex-pended; number of uses can beup to 8. The hero must take activesteps, such as returning to base,in order to replenish it.

Side Effects (DD) When you roll dou-bles, something bad happens,such as hitting an ally, or yourself.The GM decides the exact effectwhen the roll occurs.

Single Action Defense (D) when usedas an active defense only de-fends against a single attack,rather than throughout the roundas normal.

Single Use (DD) The Power can onlybe used once per combat. Re-plenishes automatically betweencombats (at least three consecu-tive Turns while not using any Ac-tions).

Slow (D) The Power takes 2 Actions touse.

Ultra-Slow (DD) The Power takes 3 Ac-tions to use.

Unpredictable (DD) The effect of thePower is up to the GM, not theplayer (though it still must be ben-eficial).

A Note On FlexibilityUnlike some of the other Advan-

tages, Flexible and Ultra-Flexible ad-vantages arent very sharply defined.Even having a Power that repre-sented a variety of equivalent at-tacks that differ in such minor things aswhether theyre melee or ranged orthe exact flavor of damage, such asbeing armed with a sword and a bow,or having a suit that has wrist-blasters,laser eye-beams, and a chest can-non doesnt really make the Powermuch more Flexible as long as con-ceptually the powers do the samesorts of things, such as damage tar-gets.

Its when the Power can be easilyaltered so that it can take advantageof the Primary Rule to do a wide vari-ety of different things that it becomesan issue. For instance, since a swordand a gun would in general bothbe straightforward attacks theres noneed to apply the Flexible Advan-tage to a Power that represents hav-


ing both. On the other hand, if yourPower is a sword that can switch be-tween cutting physically and liftingthings via gravitational force or gener-ating illusions of scary monsters, thatprobably should be given the Flexi-ble Advantage to make up for beingable to use the power in an especiallywide set of circumstances. (Depend-ing on just what defenses can workagainst the gravity and illusion Powersit may also be necessary to apply theExotic Advantage to it as well). Gen-erally a Flexible power should haveone function per Power Level (e.g.a PL 6 Flexible power would have6 distinct functions), and you shoulddetermine them in advance...if notwhen the character takes the power,then before the character leaves herlab/armory/library. Flexible powersshouldnt change in the middle of agame unless the character spends ascene justifying swapping out the oldfunctions for new ones, such as by go-ing back to the armory to get a bownow that theyve learned that theyllneed to fight flying creatures.

Flexibility should not be allowed totailor attacks to bypass all the tar-gets defenses. It is not intended tobe a cheap way of getting a Powerthat almost always attacks againstthe Default Skill; if you wish to havea Power that is particularly hard todefend against, you need to takethe Exotic advantage. Even if eachway you use the Power could in the-

ory be defended against by one ordi-nary defense or another, the ability toswitch between them in order to by-pass whatever defense the foe doeshave would be too powerful. If youwant a variety of Powers to give your-self more options to attack depend-ing on what kinds of defense the foehas, you should take the Powers sep-arately.

In any event, Flexibility has no bear-ing on whether a Power goes againstToughness, Stamina, or Will. Even anUltra-Flexible Power must take the ad-ditional Advantage vs. Will or vs.Stamina if you want it to go againstone of those instead of Toughness,and no Power can ever switch be-tween them. A character who wantsto be a

argh

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