Blackadder
Inquisitor Ordo Hereticus
The Brave Troubleshooters of Alpha Complex!
- Name & Gender
- Skills & Specialties
- Descriptions
- Service Groups
- Powers & Secret Societies
- Equipment
- Perversity
Citizens in Alpha Complex are named according to this scheme:
[Given name]-[Clearance initial]-[home sector]-[clone number]
As Troubleshooters, you are Red clearance, your initial is R. Your Clone Number starts at 1... as you die, it will be bumped up accordingly.- You have 6 skills, 3 Action, 3 Knowledge. Your skills will be generated as follows:
Custom: Each skill rating starts at 0 (zero) and you get 40 Skill Points you may allocate among the skills. You must allocate at least 4 points to each skill but you cannot put more than 10 in any skill. For each point you allocate, the skill’s rating increases by 1. (Your Troubleshooter also has three Secret skills but these are not determined the same way.)
Also, you will have specialties, areas of expertise. All Troubleshooters get a vital (aka mandatory and free) specialty in Energy Weapons [Violence]. Your rating in Energy Weapons is your (Violence rating + 4).
You may also take common specialties and narrow specialties. Common specialties have a fair bit of use. Each common specialty is its (governing skill rating + 4.) You may take up to 6, and allocate a maximum of 3 per skill. Be warned that you must take 1 weakness in the same skill per specialty assigned. These are areas of weakness. Weaknesses are rated 1.
Narrow specialties are very very very narrow in scope. You get to take a total of 6, with no weaknesses required, and are not required to select at the beginning, but can fill through play. A narrow specialty is rated at (governing skill rating + 6.) - Action Group
Management
Nonviolent, nontechnical interaction with other characters that are aware of your presence. Management actions include bootlicking, bribery, confidence games, fast talk, intimidation, interrogation, oratory and all other verbal actions. Management also includes checking and correcting another character’s hygiene, appearance or demonstrations of loyalty. Management is also your generic ability to behave properly or make others behave improperly.
Management does not typically cover anything requiring specialized or technical knowledge, such as medical or
psychological diagnoses or equipment calibration or repair; these actions require Knowledge skills.
Bootlicking: How to ingratiate yourself with superiors.
Chutzpah: Getting others to accept doubtful statements through confident assertion, bluffing and unmitigated gall.
Con Games: Hoodwinking a citizen or bot through fast talk, spurious logic and persuasion. This isn’t physical sleight of hand (see Sleight of Hand under Stealth).
Hygiene: Maintaining cleanliness in yourself, your surroundings, your teammates and innocent passersby.
Interrogation: Extracting useful information from Commie mutant scum.
Intimidation: This does not exactly ingratiate you with your inferiors but it gets their cooperation.
Moxie: Streetwise smarts; canny assessment of a person, situation or statement.
Oratory: How to get a bunch of people to do what you want.
Example narrow Management specialties: Pump My Service Group Office Mates for Gossip, Suck Up to Boss Judd-G-LKN, Work the ‘Cup and Algae Pellet’ Swindle.
Stealth
General sneakiness; any nonverbal attempt to detect or to physically evade detection, conceal physical objects or materials or locate them, misdirect another character’s attention or avoid being misdirected. Stealth includes security and surveillance.
Stealth skill describes more than skulking silently down corridors; it also measures sensitivity to things you’re not supposed to perceive. Thus Stealth is your generic alertness and perception skill. Stealth does not typically cover subliminal messages or sabotage of equipment; these require a Knowledge skill.
Concealment: Hiding stuff on your person or in your surroundings; also, spotting stuff others have hidden.
Disguise: Wearing a higher Clearance jumpsuit or false mustache without looking idiotic.
Scam Radar: Sensing tricks, traps and surveillance.
Security Systems: Jiggering locks and alarms.
Shadowing: Following someone without being noticed.
Sleight of Hand: Palming and pocketing small things without being noticed.
Sneaking: Moving around without being followed or noticed.
Surveillance: How to bug things. How to debug things.
Example narrow Stealth specialties: Palm Pharmatherapy Pills, Leave My Workplace Undetected Through The Floor Air Conditioning Vent, Spot When the Malfunctioning Security Camera in My Quarters is Working.
Violence
Physical, nonverbal attempts to hurt or kill characters or destroy or break objects. Violence includes all Weapon skills plus demolition. The vital specialty Energy Weapons falls under the Violence skill. Violence is your generic physical activity skill, including running, jumping and such fiddly activities as lock-picking, juggling and cutting the red wire just three seconds before detonation.
Violence does not typically cover sabotage of equipment; such subtle actions require Knowledge skills.
Agility: Rapid or balanced movement, gymnastics, jumping.
Demolition: How to use TNT without killing yourself. At Clearances below GREEN this skill is treasonous.
Energy Weapons: Hitting someone with a laser, sonic weapon or blaster. This is a vital specialty. You cannot take Energy Weapons as a weakness and it does not count as one of your six common specialties.
Field Weapons: Flamethrowers, gauss guns, tanglers and the ever-popular plasma generator.
Fine Manipulation: Lock-picking, watchmaking, cutting the red wire one second before detonation.
Hand Weapons: Hitting someone with a force sword, neurowhip or truncheon or with primitive weapons.
Projectile Weapons: Hitting someone with a slugthrower, cone rifle or other aimed weapon that uses ammunition.
Thrown Weapons: Hitting someone with a grenade, brick or rock.
Unarmed Combat: Hitting someone when you don’t have a hand, energy, projectile, thrown or vehicular weapon.
Vehicular Combat: Hitting someone with a weapon mounted on a vehicle.
Example narrow Violence specialties: Wield My Trusty Truncheon ‘Nora,’ Hit Gordon-VLK’s Funny Bone in That Way He Hates, Eat Entire Bag of Algae Chips in Four Seconds.
Knowledge Group
[Note: All three Knowledge skills overlap routinely. For instance, suppose you want to ‘adjust’ a medbot so it detects your team leader as a monstrous, tentacled alien invader. This could involve Hardware
(adjusting bio-sensor voltages), Software (inserting a new variable in the bot’s interpretation subroutines) or Wetware (altering the bot’s bio-sensor settings). You are authorized to try to convince the Gamemaster a skill applies if you can offer a plausible reason.]
Hardware
Mechanical or electronic devices and inorganic materials, including laser and projectile weapons, armor, battle suits, bots, autocars and other vehicles, monitors, electrical equipment, power generation, many kinds of engineering (chemical, electronic, habitat, mechanical, nuclear), clone tanks, actual tanks and so on.
Bot Ops and Maintenance: How to operate and fix docbots, guardbots/warbots, jackobots, scrubbots and vehicle autopilots.
Chemical Engineering: Lots of uses for this but somehow PCs always want to use it to make explosives.
Electronic Engineering: How to string together circuits and microprocessors.
Habitat Engineering: Knowledge of the air, communication, transport, power, water and waste systems. Mighty handy when you need to find a ventilation shaft to escape incoming fire.
Mechanical Engineering: How to make really neat Rube Goldberg-type contraptions.
Nuclear Engineering: How to operate a reactor without flooding half the sector with radioactive waste.
Operate Heavy Machinery: How to operate industrial machinery without losing more limbs than normal.
Vehicle Ops and Maintenance: How to use and repair all vehicles: autocars, crawlers, flybots, copters and Vulturecraft.
Weapon and Armor Maintenance: Sabotaging others’ weapons and armor and keeping yours from being sabotaged.
Example narrow Hardware specialties: Increase My Lucky Laser Pistol’s Power, Get Barracks Vending Machine to Stop Making That Funny Noise.
Software
Anything data- or software-related, including bot and device programming, operating systems, communication protocols, data search and analysis, safe software, software viruses and worms, confession-booth lie-detector programs and (at the highest skill levels and Security Clearances) even the inner workings of The Computer itself. Some of these are treasonous at your Clearance.
Bot Programming: Revising bot instructions.
C-Bay: Getting the best price buying and selling at Alpha Complex auctions.
Cryptography: Encoding or decoding messages.
Data Analysis: How to understand Computer-generated stuff.
Data Search: Finding something useful using The Computer.
Financial Systems: How to transfer credits safely for legitimate or criminal purposes.
Hacking: Breaking into The Computer’s systems. Really, what could go wrong? Treasonous at Clearances below GREEN.
Multicorder Operations: Adjusting the visual records on a multicorder video camera.
Operating Systems: Revising MemoMax clone backup tech. Rewriting The Computer’s instructions. Treasonous at Clearances below BLUE.
Vehicle Programming: Revising vehicle instructions.
Example narrow Software specialties: Soothe Autocar SPD-1’s Jangled Brain, Speak in Weird Voice That Keeps Confession Booth NDF-445 Lie Detector From Catching Me.
Wetware
Biological and organic topics and devices, including health, bioweapons, disease, drugs, first aid, biochemical therapy, cooking, poisons, bacteria and organic viruses, cloning procedures, bioscience engineering, surviving Outdoors and identification and understanding of specimens from Outdoors.
Biosciences: Knowing what’s likely to mutate you and how.
Bioweapons: Engineering your own Black Death or weaponized anthrax. Treasonous at Clearances below BLUE.
Cloning: Repairing and operating the tanks that grow new and backup citizens. Operating MemoMax backup devices so the new clone remembers his name and boot size.
Medical: How to heal the injured and cure the sick, or ensure they don’t heal or get cured.
Outdoor Life: Telling a tree from a weed, or a bird from an elephant, when most citizens have never heard of these.
Pharmatherapy: Ensuring wakefulness, sleepiness, happiness or any other mental state through the application of little pills.
Psychotherapy: Recognizing insanity; helping others recover from it or descend further into it.
Suggestion: Biochemical and psychological techniques of subliminal persuasion.
Example narrow Wetware specialties: Make Hot Fun Into Sticky Paste, Make Hot Fun Into Acidic Solvent, Make Hot Fun Into Low-Yield Explosive. - You worked at a Service Group as an Infrared before becoming a Troubleshooter, and you work there still when not on duty.
Roll 1d20 to determine your Service Group as follows:
1-2 Armed Forces
3-4 Central Processing Unit
5-6 HPD & Mind Control
7-8 Internal Security*
9-10 Internal Security (Service Group)
11-13 Production, Logistics & Commissary
14-15 Power Services
16-17 Research & Design
18-19 Technical Services
20 Industrial spy or saboteur**
* Write ‘Internal Security’ on the back of your character sheet. Roll again for another Service Group. You are a spy for Internal Security in that group. The second group is your ‘cover’, the group everyone thinks you work for. You learn a Service Group specialty from Internal Security, not your cover group.
** You’ve been assigned to spy on or sabotage another Service Group. Roll twice more, the first roll determines your actual Service Group, the second determines the group that you are spying on/sabotaging.
At your job, you were trained in one common skill specialty. After thanking The Computer for its customary generosity, you will choose your Service Group specialty from the following list. Choosing a Service Group common specialty is mandatory. Any attempt to choose a Service Group specialty outside your Service Group’s authorized list will be answered with appropriate countermeasures.
Your chosen specialty must enhance your character in exactly one of these two permitted ways:
New and improved: From your Service Group’s authorized list you choose a new ‘free’ skill specialty different from, and in addition to, the six you (optionally) chose earlier. The new specialty works like
other common specialties, with a rating 4 higher than the governing skill. You do not suffer a compensating weakness for your new Service Group specialty.
Bumped: You instead choose to enhance one of the six common specialties you chose earlier. The enhanced specialty must be on your Service Group’s authorised list. Add 4 to the enhanced specialty’s rating (maximum 18). The enhancement has no effect on existing skill weaknesses.
Armed Forces: Demolition (V), Energy Weapons (V), Hand Weapons (V), Projectile Weapons (V), Thrown Weapons (V), Unarmed Combat (V); Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H).
Central Processing: Security Systems (St), Electronic Engineering (H), Bot Programming (So), Data Analysis (So), Financial Software (So), Data Search (So), Vehicle Programming (So).
HPD & MC: Bootlicking (M), Chutzpah (M), Con Games (M), Moxie (M), Bot Ops and Maintenance (H), Multicorder Operations (So), Pharmatherapy (W), Medical (W).
Internal Security: Interrogation (M), Intimidation (M), Security Systems (St), Surveillance (St), Energy Weapons (V), Hand Weapons (V), Unarmed Combat (V).
PLC: Chutzpah (M), Con Games (M); Bot Ops and Maintenance (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Operate
Heavy Machinery (H), Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H), Data Search (So), Biosciences (W).
Power Services: Data Analysis (So), Data Search (So), Chemical Engineering (H), Electronic Engineering (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Mechanical Engineering (H), Nuclear Engineering (H).
R&D: Chemical Engineering (H), Mechanical Engineering (H), Nuclear Engineering (H), Bot Programming (So), Vehicle Programming (So), Bioweapons (W), Cloning (W).
Tech Services: Chemical Engineering (H), Electronic Engineering (H), Habitat Engineering (H), Vehicle Ops and Maintenance (H), Operate Heavy Machinery (H), Bot Programming (So), Vehicle Programming (So), Pharmatherapy (W). - Handled privately with moi, the GM....
- - 100 credits in savings.
- 1 ME (Mercantile Enterprise card). It's mandatory to carry and keep - it's pretty much your credit card and identity records all in one.
- One suit of red reflec armor overalls in (more or less) your size.
- Whatever equipment is associated with your Mandatory Bonus Duty (MBD).
- A Series 1300 Personal Digital Companion (PDC).
And finally, if you so choose, one roll each on the Common, Controversial and Contraband tables for bonus gear. - Each player gets 25 Perversity points, and may take 1-2 Tics to provide means to acquire more.
You may use these points in-game to boost or subtract from your or other player's rolls - representing various things that might occur. Also, triggering another player's Tics or secrets.
A Tic is any obvious and recognizable behavior or condition that seldom, if ever, directly affects the game – for example, humming absently, twiddling your thumbs when you are nervous or twitching when anyone mentions ‘the sewers’. Perhaps you acquired your Tic while working at your Service Group or because of your mutant power. For instance, if you worked all day for years shuffling rods of enriched uranium from one Power Services reactor to another, wouldn’t you expect to have an odd rash or persistent sores or faintly glowing hair?
A Tic is never secret. Anyone in your presence for more than a few minutes observes it. The Tic does not inhibit your ability to do anything useful; it’s just a way strangers might describe you. A database query for some generic description like ‘tall male Troubleshooter, black hair, crewcut, shifty features’ would bring up more hits than a Google search for ‘sex’. A description that includes a few Tics (‘He had bow legs and a monitor-shaped mole on his jaw, he snuffled through his nose and when I offered him a bag of algae chips he screamed like a girl’) could pull you out of a police line-up with 99% accuracy.
Roleplaying Tics entertainingly may earn you Perversity Points at the GM's whim.
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