Mass: the Effecting

A Mass Effect conversion for the nWoD system

Welcome, readers!

This is a conversion document for using the new World of Darkness system (nWoD) to play a chronicle set in the Mass Effect setting from the video-games of the same name. Herein, you'll find four sections – The Way The Galaxy Works, charting the rules changes made to the core nWoD system for this conversion; You Were Born For This, covering character generation rules; Hard-Won Experience, containing the rules for Talents; and the Elkoss Combine Catalogue of weaponry, armour, and other tools of the trade.

The aim of this conversion is not to provide a comprehensive ruleset that covers just about any possible character you could think of in the Mass Effect setting. Instead, we've aimed to provide a framework for capable, even heroic characters who are ready for action. Equally, there aren't in-depth rules for all the unique species of Mass Effect as player characters, only guidelines for the most common and humanoid of them. If you're really desperate to run a chronicle that's a slice-of-life 30-somethings soap opera set on the Citadel, or to play a team of hardened Elcor spec ops given the dirty jobs that no-one else wants to do, you're free to use this conversion towards those ends but you'll need to do some of the rules-writing legwork yourself.

Why the nWoD system? Simple enough – the writer's relative familiarity with the system, combined with its 'medium' level of rules mechanic depth and complexity.

Does this conversion feature everything from the video games? No. Some things work far better in a video game than a tabetop rpg; equally, some things in the video games are short-cuts or concessions to the medium that we're free from in this format.

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