Otome Row: System

Otome Row
Otome Row: Appendices

Character Generation

Stats

Everyone starts with seven (7) Stats at 1, and 13 additional points to distribute. This gives a total of 20. The maximum starting level for any stat is 5.

Melee

Physique

Shoot

Charm

Presence

Smarts

Tech

Skills

Everyone starts with ten (10) Skills which you may define. Skills add between +1 and +3 to your stat roll whenever they apply, depending on how specific they are. Feel free to support your most important skills with a tag. Only a single skill can add dice at any one time – if more than one would apply, pick the most appropriate.

Fate Tags

Everyone starts with five (5) Fate Tags as well as a Fate Pool of 5; they are based on Aspects and Fate from Spirit of the Century. Fate tags are descriptors attached to characters, places and things and are used for that entity's interaction with the stunting and the fate system. Whenever a tag limits your actions or works against you, you gain 1 Fate Point. Conversely, fate can be spent to gain extra bonuses from tags when invoking them for a stunt.

Because tags are key to regaining fate, it is suggested to avoid a spread of pure benefits, though the drawbacks don't have to be obvious. Good tags should be specific in nature yet broad in implication and different from everyone else's tags. Specificity is usually good. For example, rather than being simply a Music Buff or Kendo Girl, you can be a Rabid Hisonic Miku Fan or Trained by Yanagi Hisa (though you may have no idea who that is at the start). Catchphrases (not necessarily the character's), Steam achievements, memes and tvtrope entries all make good starting points. Tags referencing mysterious or unknown backstory can make them exist.

Social Links

Everyone starts with a B-ranked Social Link to each other as a result of being mutual homies. They start off with no effect, so leave that blank for now – they'll be filled in over the first few sessions of roleplaying.

Taken from various iterations of Persona, social links are an important part of the gangster's life, providing contacts, friends, lovers, rivals, or even enemies. Just what sort of relationship this is should be noted down along with the level, which is a letter grade starting at D. Social links do have a cost but are mostly gained through roleplaying.

Depending on depth and nature, a social link may act like a weaker fate tag that only allows effects up to the 1 Fate level, or something that can be invoked once in a while for longer term benefits. With NPCs, it also allow the character to gain some resource in exchange for something else, or some other effect. At B level or higher, the characters qualify for special emergency actions in each others' presence.

Derived Values

Everyone also has three additional derived values:

Initiative is Smarts + Physique. Roll 1d10 and add the result.

Health is Melee + Physique + 5, resulting in a starting value between 7 and 15.

Soak is Melee.

Gear

Within reason. Personal weapons, an outfit, a cheap vehicle and some basic gear appropriate for your skills and tags.

Gear can have a small special ability that distinguishes it but usually requires a skill to make use of it.

Doing Stuff

To do stuff, you roll the stat and the skill together as a pool of d10's. The default success threshold is 6. Rolling 1's can botch if the number of 1's exceeds the number of successes but they do not normally subtract.

For all errors, keep the rolled dice and either add more or else cut results off from the right side of the spread.

Pressure

Pressure is an abstract representation of ambient problems that need to be dealt with or held off while important stuff gets (or doesn't get) done. It is most commonly presented by large numbers of minor NPCs – namely gangsters or cops. The basic mechanic is that, the party must collectively produce that many successes on actions devoted dealing with the Pressure each round or risk having their more important actions interrupted, taking damage etc. Significantly exceeding the number of necessary successes can sometimes help burn through the mooks more quickly or could also be a complete waste of time.

If being inconspicuous (relatively) is not an issue, the PC's can always call in some or all of the gang. Different sets of mooks have their own pressure index which directly cancels each other.

Basic Combat

Characters declare and resolve actions from highest to lowest initiative.

You can do one Move, one Melee and one Shoot action in a single turn subject to caveats:

1) Things must be in range and weapons in hand when it happens.

2) All attacks must be at one target. (Mook groups are a single target.)

3) The weapon used may prescribe restrictions.

Just rolling the skill for successes is usually sufficient against mooks but actual combatants get to roll a defense and may do so multiple times a turn. For each defense rolled after the first in a round, a cumulative -1 is applied. The final penalty further applies to each of their actions if they had to defend before acting.

On a tie, the defender wins. On a hit, damage (threshold successes + Melee or Shoot + weapon modifier, if any) is subtracted from soak (Melee).

Attack and defense difficulty can be modified, though generally not nearly as much as in Wartime (thank goodness). The default difficulty assumes common but non-perfect conditions.

Moving and Surroundings

By default, you move one range bracket per turn. If the terrain is challenging somehow, moving may require a roll. If you want to move more than one range bracket, you must have a valid stunt or some method of generating a large edge in successes if chasing a fleeing target.

Stunting

Stunting works by meaningfully referencing fate tags while executing impressive actions. When a stunt properly invokes tags (whether they're yours, the enemy's, an object's or a location's), stunt benefits are gained and the narrative can be controlled to a degree. You can choose one of the following:

• Add a single success
• Pay 1 Fate to gain an extra success for every tag involved.
• Pay 1 Fate to reroll the pool (after you roll it once) and take whichever result you like.
• Pay 2 Fate for a personal perfect defense.
• Pay 3 Fate to turn the pool into automatic successes.
• Pay 3 or more Fate to hand it to the GM.

The simplest way to invoke tags that aren't your own is to know about them beforehand. These might be obvious to anyone that gives the entity in question a second glance or may take significant effort to discover. Tags can also be discovered accidentally. In such cases, it may be possible for unexpected things to happen.

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