TTRPG-a-Week - Week 3

This is part two of the rules, last week was the first half.

Interobang ‽ (part 2)

Character Creation

Tables you roll on could give you skills, connections, extra SP, or even a bonus to a stat.

Your stats each start at 3. Add +1 to either your Body or Mind stat.
Your Stress Protection maximum starts at 12.
Roll on the early life table. Get skills, connections, or extra max SP.
Choose a type of career path. Military, Blue-collar, white-collar, academic.
Roll on the career table for your chosen career path. Get a skill or 2 and maybe a connection. You also get a +1 bonus to either Body or Mind.
You get $400 to spend on equipment.

Early Life

Roll 1D6:
1-2: Choose from the Low Class options.
3-4: Choose from the Middle Class options.
5: Choose from the High Class options.
6: Choose from the “Other” options.

Low Class

Poverty
You have always had to rely on yourself to survive. You know the value of coupons and discounts.

Skills: First Aid, Survivalism
Connection: Organized Crime

Rural Farm
Never ending chores, but not a lot of socializing. You likely grew up healthy and fit, and know a decent amount about plants and animals.

Skill: Athletics or Biology
Max SP: +2

Immigrant
Your parents left an unstable country, looking for a better life. You grew up between two worlds, translating for your parents.

Skills: Linguistics, Law
Connection: Craftsmen

Middle Class

Union Town
Hard working parents raised you. Everyone else you grew up with were workers for a large employer. Everyone assumed you would join as well.

Skill: Crafting
Connection: Craftsmen

Military Brat
It’s hard to make friends, when you never stay in one place for long. At least you got to see many different places.

Skills: Firearms, Survivalism
Connection: Military Circles

Religious Household
Strict rules, no outside influences, eternal life? Maybe you left the faith, maybe you still believe.

Skill: Theology
Connection: Religious Circles

High Class

Academic Expectations
There was no escaping school for you. Your parents expected adult level intelligence from you. Maybe you failed to fully live up to it, or maybe you thrived under the pressure.

Skill: History
Connection: University

Rich Parents
Born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You never had to worry about your basic needs. But your childhood was full of expectations.

Skills (choose 2): Art, Photography, History
Connection: Old Money

Political Protege
A parent that was always busy with the responsibilities they hold. You learned how to rub elbows with the rulers and leaders.

Skill: Persuasion
Connection: Politicians

Other

Cult Survivor
You had a strange upbringing. Taught to be afraid of the rest of the world. You managed to escape before it was too late.

Skill: Occultism
Connection: Secret Society

Alien Prisoner
At a young age, you spent some time as a prisoner in an Alien base or on an Alien ship. You have experienced Alien technology and culture closer than most.

Skill: Aliens
Connection: Fringe Investigators

Half-Alien
Your early life was spent hiding from government agencies. Hiding the physical traits that betray your true heritage.

Skill: Aliens
Max SP: +1
Connection: Fringe Investigators

Career Paths

Military

Roll 1D6:
1-2: Gain the Army options.
3-4: Gain the Navy options.
5: Gain the Airforce options.
6: Gain the Intelligence options.

Army
You served on the ground where things got loud, dirty, and personal. You know how to move under fire, follow orders, and survive when everything goes wrong.

Skill (choose 2): Athletics, Firearms, Explosives, Driving, Close-quarters, First Aid
Connection: Military Circles
Stat: Body +1

Navy
You spent your career at sea, living in tight quarters and trusting your crew with your life. You understand ships, long deployments, and what it means to face danger far from home.

Skill (choose 2): Athletics, Explosives, Firearms, Astronomy, Engineering, First Aid
Connection: Military Circles
Stat: Body +1

Airforce
You lived among runways, hangars, and roaring engines. Whether you flew, fixed, or directed aircraft, you learned precision, discipline, and how fast mistakes can become disasters.

Skill (choose 2): Piloting, Explosives, Firearms, Athletics, Survivalism, First Aid
Connection: Military Circles
Stat: Body +1

Intelligence
You worked in shadows, gathering secrets and protecting them at all costs. You know how to read people, hide your tracks, and uncover what others don’t want found.

Skills (choose 2): Cryptology, Linguistics, Close-quarters, Larceny, Persuasion, Photography
Connection: Law Enforcement
Stat: Mind +1

Blue-Collar

Roll 1D6:
1-2: Gain the Trade options.
3-4: Gain the Labor options.
5-6: Gain the Service options.

Trade
You learned a practical craft like building, fixing, wiring, or shaping the things people depend on. Your hands know tools, and your work leaves marks that last.

Skills (choose 2): Crafting, Architecture, Engineering
Connection: Craftsmen
Stat: Body +1

Service
You worked with the public, solving problems, selling products, and keeping people calm. You learned how to read moods fast and deal with anyone who walked through the door.

Skills (choose 2): Kinesics, Persuasion, Linguistics, Art, Driving, Piloting, Law, Photography
Connection: Shipping & Freight
Stat: Mind +1

Labor & Manufacturing
You did hard physical work that wore down your body and toughened your mind. Long hours, heavy loads, and dangerous conditions taught you endurance and grit.

Skills (choose 2): Athletics, Engineering, Architecture, Crafting
Max SP +2
Stat: Body +1

White-Collar

Roll 1D6:
1-2: Gain the Civil Service options.
3-4: Gain the Media options.
5: Gain the Legal options.
6: Gain the Finance options.

Finance
You worked with money, risk, and numbers that decided who won and who lost. You learned how to read markets, spot scams, and understand what people are really worth on paper.

Skills: Persuasion, Kinesics
Stat: Mind +1

Legal
You lived among contracts, courts, and carefully chosen words. You know how rules are bent, broken, and defended. And you learned how power hides behind procedure.

Skills (choose 2): Law, Kinesics, Persuasion, History, Larceny, Photography
Stat: Mind +1

Civil Service
You worked inside the machinery of government, where paperwork moves slower than politics. You know how to navigate bureaucracy, find the right desk, and make things happen quietly.

Skills (choose 2): History, Law, Larceny, Architecture, Geography
Stat: Body +1

Media
You told stories for a living, whether through print, radio, or video. You learned how to find angles, chase the truth, and shape what the public believes.

Skills (choose 2): Persuasion, Art, Photography, Kinesics, Computers, Occultism, Cryptology
Stat: Mind +1

Educated

Roll 1D6:
1-2: Gain the Science options.
3-4: Gain the Academic options.
5: Gain the Medical options.
6: Gain the Technology options.

Medical
A doctor of some kind, or a nurse. Maybe even a worker at a pharmaceutical company.

Skills (choose 2): First Aid, Biology, Chemistry, Kinesics
Connection: Medical System
Stat: Mind +1

Science
Researcher, engineer, inventor. Someone who applies science to solve real world problems.

Skill (choose 2): Engineering, Electronics, Explosives, Chemistry, Geology, Geography, Architecture, Biology, Kinesics, Astronomy
Connection: Research Lab
Stat: Mind +1

Academic
Professor, grad student, researcher. Someone who studies the theory of things.

Skill (choose 2): Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology, Geography, Biology, Physics, Cryptology, Linguistics, Art, History
Connection: University
Stat: Mind +1

Technology
Inventor, programmer, tinkerer. Someone who works with advanced technology and computers.

Skill (choose 2): Electronics, Computers, Cryptology, Engineering
Connection: Tech Startup Scene
Stat: Mind +1

Weapons and Armour

Weapon Name	Price	Description	Ammo Rating
Rifle	$176	Does 2D6 damage. Two-handed.	7
Handgun	$100	Does 1D6 damage. One-handed.	5
Sub Machine Gun	$200	Does 2D6 damage. Two-Handed, but you can take a -1 penalty to shoot it One-Handed.	9
Grenade	$50	Does 4D6 damage to everything in an area. Creatures can make a Body saving throw to take only half damage.	Single use
Baseball Bat	$5	Does 1D6 damage. One-handed.	-
Axe	$25	Does 2D6 damage, Two-handed.	-

Armour Name	Price	Description
Bullet Resistant Vest	$1200	Gain +1 Armour, can be worn under normal clothes.
Heavy Outdoor Clothing	$160	Thick and protective, 1 Armour.
Ballistic Shield	$900	Bulky but protective. +1 Armour.
Full Tactical Outfit	$6000	From head to toe. Including a ballistic shield. 3 Armour.

Enemies

Alien Spy
SP: 12 Armour: 2
Body: 2 Mind: 3
Skills: Aliens, firearms, electronics, computers, one type of science
Gear: Alien carapace armour, raygun (2D6), alien communicator

Enhanced Animal
SP: 10 Armour: 0
Body: 3 Mind: 2
Skills: athletics, close-quarters, skills the human knew

Normal Animal
SP: 6 Armour: 0
Body: 2 Mind: 0
Skills: athletics, close-quarters

Thug
SP: 8 Armour: 1
Body: 2 Mind: 1
Skills: athletics, firearms, close-quarters, larceny
Gear: thick jacket, club (2D6 damage), pistol (1D6 damage)

Quick Story Idea

Spoiler Alert!

Click here to view Story Details

Alien artifact found in a forest. Someone has been investigating it for a few weeks.

They have been augmented by the artifact and have moved their consciousness into other bodies, but can’t go back into a body they have already been in. They start to cause problems in the forest hoping that someone will come investigate and they can try to take over that body. They are currently in the body of a buff outdoorsman who stumbled across the experiments.

Not every body will work for every mind. So some people have gone missing from this guy trying and failing to get into bodies. He also experimented on some other people before he tried it on himself. So now there are some human minds stuck in animal bodies running around, causing problems for the local town.

Done poorly the mind goes insane, done ok the mind is moved, and done well the mind is enhanced and moved. But no matter what, it cannot return to a body it has previously been in.

Introduction:

Reports of weird animal behaviour and missing people have led to government investigators, journalists, and conspiracy theorists showing up to the small town.

Part 1: Rumours in Town

Players can find out:

Strange lights in the sky one night 2 years ago. Over the woods. No one could determine what it was.
The wife of a missing person came home to find a deer in her house. It didn’t run away when she showed up, she had to threaten it. The deer seems to have broken a window to get in but didn’t damage anything else. The local sheriff thinks it was a prank by some teens.
The town used to have a sawmill in the forest, but it went out of business 6 years ago. There were some tax issues with the business and it was shut down by the government.
A smart wolf has been harassing a household on the edge of town. It seems to know what a gun is and stays behind cover until it can get closer. It even seems to be able to count the number of shots taken and knows when a rifle needs to be reloaded. The local sheriff thinks the guy was just imagining things from his fear.
Someone claims they saw a mountain lion carrying a jerry can away from a garage. The dead body of a mountain lion was found in the forest a few days later.
A man visiting from another city, went into the forest a couple weeks ago to camp and hunt. But he has not been seen since.

Red Herrings:

Several children went missing in the woods 20 years ago and were never found.
The principal is having an affair with the librarian.
The ghost of an early settler haunts the town every June 1st.
School kids claim that if you walk into the forest at night while holding a jar of peanut butter, you will disappear and never be seen again. This rumour has been around for decades.

Part 2: Forest Encounters

If players go out into the woods to look for animals, they might find normal animals or ones that seem to have gone crazy. (Roll D6, or choose)

Normal Deer - behaves normally, will run away if you don’t fully sneak up on it.
Same as above but two of them.
Normal Wolf - behaves normally, will growl and defend itself, but tries to stay away from humans.
Dead deer - looks like it was killed by a wolf.
The “Smart” wolf will try to attack the players by sneaking up on them. It knows to avoid the line of sight of anyone with a gun. Will run away if things get too dangerous.
The “Smart” deer will put itself at risk to try to get the players to follow it to a clearing, where a piece of tattered clothing can be found. Taking it back to town, it is revealed that it belonged to a person who went missing.

Part 3: Shocking Discovery

Players return to town to further investigate. The sheriff gets reports of several bodies being found outside town. They include several of the missing people, along with several dead animals.
Investigating the area shows tire tracks heading into the forest using an old logging road. The town is on lock down, with people afraid to leave their homes. The sheriff asks the players to investigate, so he can stay and keep the town safe.

If the players investigate the bodies, they find that they died some time ago. No signs of what killed them. The dead animals are also without any marks or injuries.

Following the logging road, the players will encounter a couple other “crazy” animals. But they will eventually arrive at the old sawmill area.

Part 4: Sawmill Crash Site

Crater
A large crater lies 200 feet from the old sawmill. From the looks of the plants around it, the impact must have been a couple years ago. Plants in the area have regrown, but they do seem to be oddly shaped, with weird leaves or snaking branches.
A track shows that a large object was dragged from the crater, probably using a truck. The tracks lead to the main building of the sawmill. You can see that several trees were cut to create a path for the truck to drag it.

Sawmill
Surprisingly there does still seem to be power to the building. There is a noise in the distance that could be a gas generator.

Part 5: Confrontation

Villain’s Lab
The main room of the sawmill has been converted into a mad scientist’s lab. Cables run across the floor. Buzzing electrical panels line the walls. A large alien device takes up the center of the room. It has two chambers, one on each side. The dead bodies of a few animals lie to the side. There are clear signs that human bodies were dragged away, leaving trails of blood.

Notes on the desk were written by someone named Johnathan. It lists several attempts to use the device on local animals and people who were kidnapped. The notes include ideas on how to make sure he can use the device on himself without risk. The last entry states that the process was successful and his mind has been enhanced.

The Players’ Plan
Players could kill him, try to get him back in his original body or find a new body for him. The device could be destroyed or turned over to the authorities. They could also try to move themselves into new bodies, if they want to try to enhance themselves.

Villain’s Mind in a Hunter’s Body
SP: 13 Armour: 1
Body: 3 Mind: 3
Skills: athletics, close-quarters, chemistry, biology, aliens, electronics
Gear: thick jacket, knife (1D6 damage)

Using the Device
The mind of one creature can be swapped with the mind of another. There is a 25% chance the body is not compatible and dies. A 50% chance that they are swapped successfully. And a 25% chance that they are swapped and “enhanced”.

A creature that is enhanced by the device gets +1 to their body and mind stats, and gets +2 to their max SP. Also their mind stat and skills move with them from body to body.