Incursion

Incursion Introduction

One night, while you were out camping by yourself, you saw a strange light through the trees. "No, it can't be!" you say to yourself, as you see a saucer shaped space craft hovering over a clearing. Grabbing your digital camera you walk up taking pictures, telling yourself that you'll be famous, be a millionaire, that you're about to make first contact...

That's when you're hit with a stun ray and pass out. You hazily remember an alien face looking at you speaking an alien language in a comforting manner, then you went to sleep.

Suddenly you're wide awake, lying naked in a glass tube in a large room with a curving wall. Other people are present, all of whom are in various states of undress. Their skin is a bright fluorescent orange and they are completely hairless as far as you can tell. A quick look confirms that you are the same color and you are also completely hairless, not even eyebrows. A look in some reflective metal shows that you also have a barcode across your forehead.

Two small grey colored aliens with black, almond shaped eyes hand you an ill-fitting jumper and a large bug hands you a weapon.

It then buzzes in fractured English: "Quickly! You muzzz help uzz take over the Ardanna Nuu! They don't know that we have wakened you from your zztaziz zleep! Take ziz gun and help uzz be free!"

Game System

Currently I'm looking at using both d20 Modern as part of the d20 Incursion Playtest and Savage Worlds with some modifications. The Savage Worlds mods will be listed here, as the d20 Incursion rules will be part of the Official Tri Tac Release.

Starting Characters

Characters start out as Novices and then have the option to increase their skills or attributes up to 4 progression "bumps". After you create your Novice character, roll a D4x5. This will give you between 5 and 20 experience points, which must be spent in 5 point increments. This can result in your character starting out as Seasoned, but more often than not, your character will be a Novice with some experience under his or her belt.

I will allow one couple in play at first. You can also have a Significant Other stuck in a stasis tube, waiting to be decanted.

Equipment

Only buy equipment that you would have on you for a camping trip or driving out on the back roads at night.

Background

Work up a reason why your character was out by themselves and add that to your character's history. Also work out some background for your character, you never know if it might come into play in the future.

Hinderances

Initially, you cannot buy the Enemy or Wanted hinderances. These can be earned during the game, either taken voluntarily, or awarded by the GM. If the GM awards either of these to your character, you do not gain any benefit from receiving them.

Mental Stability

One of the cornerstones of the original Tri Tac Games rules was that you had to worry about how sane your character was. As they are exposed to more and more horrendous things, they can watch their sanity dribble away as they head towards a mental breakdown. So to keep the same feeling in this game, I'll be adapting the sanity rules from Incursion and a previous adaptation by William Littlefield for Savage Bureau 13.

Sanity

All characters start the game with a Sanity rating total equal to their Spirit plus Vigor die type times 4 (i.e., D4 +D4= D8 * 4 = 32 Sanity rating). Characters with the Doubting Thomas Hindrance halve this amount. Sanity points can be recovered (see below) and increased if the Spirit die value increases.

Example: Joanna Barnes, newly decanted slave, has a Spirt D8 and a Vigor of D8. She starts with 64 points in her Sanity rating.

Throughout the course of an Incursion campaign, the player character will be continually exposed to the unknown, the horrific, and the alien. Such exposure takes a toll. The first time such is encountered the character must make a Guts check. If they succeed they lose on point. If they fail, the cost is doubled. If they fail with a result of snake eyes, it is tripled. Only by succeeding with a raise will they avoid the cost altogether. Characters can become jaded (Savage Worlds rulebook, p.93); however, it takes at least three separate exposures to an individual sanity threat to become so.

Example: Joanna Barnes sees the burned remains of the pirate captain still in the command chair of the Ardanna Nuu. She had never seen a human or alien, burned to death in such a horrific manner. Her stomach lurches. She rolls for a Guts check, at -1 due to the gruesome nature of the situation, and fails. She loses 2 points of sanity, and vomits in the command bridge.

Recovery of Sanity points

As mentioned before, a character can recover lost Sanity points. The character can spend a skill point to recover a Spirit die's worth of Sanity, (i.e. if they have a Spirit die type of d4, one skill point will buy back 4 sanity points.) Alternatively, if the character can find a psychologist or a therapist, they can recover lost sanity points at a rate of 1 per week of therapy.

Mental Stress related problems

If, for whatever reason, an character's Sanity points are ever reduced to 0, roll on the Mental Stress tables. A character can go negative on their sanity rolls, so for every -10 points, the character makes another roll on the Level of Stress table, at a +1 for each -10 sanity points the character has gained.

Level of Stress

D10	Level of Stress
1-7	Minor Problem
8	Serious Problem
9	Critical Problem
10+	Dangerous Problem

	Minor Problem			Serious Problem
D10	Problem		D10	Problem
1	Minor nervous tension		1	Depression
2	Wants a vacation		2	Nervous twitch
3	Sleeplessness		3	Stops caring
4	General indigestion		4	Stomach disorder
5	Gains weight		5	Begins to smoke
6	Loses weight		6	Eats too much
7	Forgetfulness		7	Begins to drink
8	Nervous tension		8	Talks to self
9	Picks up a weird hobby		9	Severe nightmares
10	Becomes temperamental		10	Becomes paranoid

	Critical Problem			Dangerous Problem
D10	Problem		D10	Problem
1	Wants to quit any association with aliens		1	Dangerous recklessness
2	Becomes compulsive		2	Dangerous paranoia
3	Severe depression		3	Becomes violent
4	Hysteria over little things		4	Hyperactivity
5	Stomach ulcers		5	Chain smoking
6	Dangerous depression		6	Cowardice
7	Alcohol abuse		7	Becomes irrational
8	Becomes threatening in personality		8	Becomes trigger happy
9	Becomes reclusive		9	Nervous breakdown
10	Becomes foolhardy		10	Gains odd phobia