IRC Burst Play

Players are invited to play by the GM who explains that the process of play is simple and will be taught as play goes along.

The GM creates a (hopefully) grabby situation in a scene.

Players present can enter play by creating characters who will enter the scene in conflict with something going on. Their reason for being in conflict should be defined by the player creating a “Drive” for the character. The player should narrate something about the character, which gives them their base asset die (all dice are 1d6) to attempt anything that the sort of character created could reasonably attempt. The player can also create an aditional drive or another asset that pertains to the conflict at hand. Abilities are about the breadth of “skills” from other systems, but can be pretty much any sort of character resource (special gear, relationships, social positions, whatever).

Players may enter new characters into any scene this way, even if they already have a character or characters extant in the game.

Resolution

The player rolls their dice, one for each ability in play, trying to get 6s, or one less than that for each drive that pertains. GM decides if an ability or drive pertains to the conflict. Each roll above the TN is a “success.”

The GM rolls a similar dice pool, quickly figuring out an opposing number of dice and TN.

The player involved in the conflict may use their successes to cancel out their opponent's successes, but this may result in a tie if there are no remaining succeeses. Any uncancelled successes mean that the opponent also got their goal. If they have one more success than their opponent (or more), they can cancel out the opponent's success, and win.

Drive Changes

At the end of a scene that involved a conflict that did not end in a tie, the player may adjust one of their character's drives, based on the events of the scene.

If a drive is nullified by being accomplished, GM's call, the player can both change the drive to something else, and give the character a new ability. Alternately, the character may be retired at such a point in play.

New Drives and Abilities

Characters become deeper as they get played further, and may select an additional ability after a number of scenes equal to the square of the number that they already got in scenes. Or in other words after being in the following number of scenes:

Scene #

4

9

16

25

etc.

Expert Ability

Each character can have one specialty ability. The player decides when creating an ability if the one they are creating is this expert ability. If so, it's worth two dice instead of one in a conflict.