Drift: An Android RPG

You awaken in darkness. You cannot move, hear, or feel anything, but you know that you are awake. You panic, sensory deprivation eating at you...and then suddenly, light. You cry out, close your eyes. Then your hearing is restored, and you hear the sound of beeps and metal. You open your eyes, looking through the liquid; the arm moves and runs down your body, as you become aware of your limbs, one by one.

Though they are not your limbs. As the liquid drains, you reach out and push the metal sheet away. The pod opens, and you marvel at your hands – metal fascimilies of human appendages. You step out, into a large chamber, filled with similar pods, which begin to open.

Good morning, Android.

The Setting

Android is, as the dramatic and pretentious opening suggests, a game where you play a person who wakes up on a mysterious ship in a synthetic body. The vessel is absolutely massive, loaded down with tons of cutting, bleeding, and breaking-edge technologies.

You don't remember how you got here. You're not in your own body – the last you remember, it was on Earth, in 2040. The space program was just starting to pick up after decades of neglect, environmentalism was becoming less crazy tree-hugging and more practiced business model, and the new Iphone Pinky was released. Life was okay, especially after the recessions, the terrorism, and the global warming.

Whomever you were, you are now a machine. And you're on a colossal, eerily silent vessel.

Character Creation

Creating your character goes like this:

1. Concept, name, flavour and stuff that is actually cool. Feel free to detail.
2. You get 15 points to split between your attributes. All attributes must be at least 1, even if you were a paraplegic in life (you aren't now!).
3. Record Limbs (a Torso at 10 health and two arms and two legs at 5 each), Drift (0), and Stress (0).

This is the sheet template:

Attributes

Finesse

Physical

Wits

Integrity

Charisma

Perception

Health

Torso: 10

Left Arm: 5

Right Arm: 5

Left Leg: 5

Right Leg: 5

Stress: 0

Drift: 0

Mind – You are a Product of Your History

You were a human being before you woke up here. You had skills, knowledge, talents. You had a life, a job, a family. Some of those things carry over, even in a metallic body.

Note that some of these represent physical actions. An athlete isn't just physically toned – they understand how to use their body in their chosen sport. A tough bruiser knows how to take a hit, to best use his physical strength to his advantage. Attributes are values representing your character's acumen, ranging from physical tasks to mental to social.

Finesse: Your dexterity and coordination.

Physical: Your knowledge regarding how to use your body, governs how you use strength and resisting damage

Wits: Your mental acumen and your reaction times

Integrity: Your ability to weather mental stress and resist manipulation

Charisma: Your ability to charm and manipulate others

Perception: Your ability to spot things, from small details to a person's intent

Stats range from 1 (bad) to 5 (amazing) at character creation. However, after Chargen, with XP, you can raise them even higher if you so desire. There is no actual maximum for this – you are in a truly transhuman body, capable of limitless expansion. However, higher than normal ratings lead to Drift (see below)

Note that there aren't any real godstats in this. Integrity may seem incredibly critical when it comes to Stress or Drift (see below), but having low Integrity does not mean you're on the quick road to losing. Combat can use most of these stats interchangibly, depending on what you use.

Body – You are a Part of this Crew

You are not bodily human. Those arms are mechanical, perfectly intricate machines simulating human muscle, nerves, and bone. However, they are different – more efficient, more effective, due to their synthetic construction

Damage: You can take damage from expected sources. Your body is synthetic, which means a few things differently than normal people

Each part of your body has a health rating, reflecting its general state

Torso: 10 HLs

Arm: 5 HLs

Leg: 5 HLs,

Head: 5 HLs

Specific organs (eye, heart, hand) require a called shot, but even one point of damage disables them. Called shots require a success threshold of +2 to hit a specific body part.

Armour: Body parts have armour ratings, which represent how resilient the arm is to damage. Armour ratings represent how hard it is to do damage to a limb.

Armour is rolled after the hit is resolved, against the successes gained on the attack roll. It's always rolled after dodges (if applicable). Every success substracted a success from the damage roll; this will never turn a hit into a miss, but will instead reduce the damage.

Armour is halved on successful called shots, round down. Certain limbs have extra weak point Traits that outline areas; these locations get no armour on called shots.

Traits: Traits are special qualities android limbs can have. They can be positive or negative, or a combination of both.

Some Traits have a numerical rating with them, which indicated their bonus.

Examples:

Super-strength: adds (rating) dice to strength-based actions

Claws: Melee weapon (see below)

Gun-arm: Gives gun implanted in limb (see below)

Omni-tools: gives tools implanted in the arm. Can't be lost and can have a (rating) bonus to all actions

Improved Neural Jack: Makes Data Manipulation a matter of direct interface, adding a bonus and allowing more traits that Wits to be used.

Ore Drill: Allows drilling through rock and walls, and use as a weapon

The anatomy of a body part:

Arm

Health:

Armour:

Traits:

Soul – But Most Importantly, You are You.

Drift: Drift represents how inhuman you are mentally. Just being in an android body immediately makes you slightly inhuman.

Sources of Drift include:

Attributes above 5 (including specialties)

Extreme/Alien augmentations.

Stress Break

Stress: This represents how much trauma you've suffered, either due to horrifying experiences, extreme damage, mental/data manipulation, startling revelations, or use of alien or strange augmentations.

Stress is gained from:

Changing actions during a combat round (aborting to dodge)

Botches (even if you fate!)

Being Incapacitated by damage

Not repairing damaged health levels

Mental manipulation

Extremely traumatic experiences or revelations

Equipment

Equipment is stuff you carry that's not part of your limbs. It generally gives you bonuses to basic stuff.

Weapons

Club: Some kind of

+1 damage, Melee

Blade:

+2 damage, Melee, can sever limbs

Pistol:

+4 damage, Range Short

Rifle

+6 damage, Range Long

Tazer

+2 damage, double effective damage in incapacitating on organics

Pulse Rifle

+7 damage, Range Long, energy (damages forcefield armour, ignores half damage armour rating)

XP

XP can be used to raise attributes, or to purchase other traits that will be unlocked due to stuff in-game.

Attributes cost 2 xp per dot; Specs cost 1 xp per dot, both general specs and limb-taught specs. Attributes have no cap after chargen, while specs are capped at 3, or the rating the limb provides (if you find a limb with a higher rating, that becomes your max.)

Session 1: Wake up (2 xp)
Session 2: Maintenance (2 xp)