WLD House Rules

From The Z-Team Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Stargate: Underground
Atlantis patch.png
Dungeon Master
Adam
Exploration Team
Xiao Xing - Team Leader (Chinese)
Jasmine Finch - Medic (American)
Marja Broznawski - Weapon Specialist (Polish)
Lance Sargent - Systems Engineer (American)
Eurydice - Cultural Relations (Alien)
Mission Clock
2 days, 2.5 hours
Expedition Notes
Region A
Expedition Resorces
Weapons - Survival - Recovered
Extras
House Rules - Bestiary

Stargate: Underground uses the World of Darkness (nWoD) storyteller system. There are, however, a number of house rules and modifications in place to represent the differences in world and theme.

Fundamental Changes

These are major changes in how the system works. These are entirely put in because of the difference in theme from the horror-noir tales of standard "World of Darkness" setting and the exploration/adventure tale intended for Stargate: Underground.

Morality

  • Morality is not used. As such, Derangements are also not used.

Willpower

  • Neither Virtues or Vices may be used to regain spent points of Willpower.
  • Each map contains one Story event which triggers the full willpower refill.
  • To regain a point of willpower during a rest cycle, it must be a full, uninterrupted night's sleep in a safe location.

Character Creation

There are a handful of changes to the standard character creation system. Most of them are reflective of the unique environment the team finds itself in, which may significantly impact the usability of some skills.

Obsolete Skills

The following skills are considered critically unimportant in this setting, as they are unlikely to be rolled more then once or twice during the entire setting, if at all. As such, players may add ranks in these skill as feels appropriate to the character's background at no cost. (Keep it reasonable.)

  • Politics
  • Drive or Pilot
  • Streetwise
  • Inappropriate, outside-world specialties, such as Carouse

On Occult

Instead of dealing with the supernatural, the Occult skill is used to represent knowledge of pre-human galactic history. In particular, it covers the history, society, and technology of the Ancients (including the Lantians), Nox, Furlings, Asgard, Goa'ul, Wraith and similar. Note that technology, in this case, refers to what they were capable of. Understanding how the technology works is still the realm of the science skill, building or repairing it is crafts and using it is computers.

Automatic Merits

  • Language: All characters may gain a second 2-dot level language for free at character creation. Either this or your native language should be English. Knowledge of other modern terrestrial languages may also be granted for free, at Storyteller's discretion.
  • Status: All characters start with Status (Military Branch) 2 and Status (Atlantis) 1.

Unused Merits

Several (primarily social) Merits are untranslatable or simply irrelevant in Stargate: Underground due to the nature of the Adventures.

  • Unseen Sense: This Merit is not used.
  • Fighting Finesse: This Merit is not used. Some weapons may allow (or require) use of dexterity inherently, however.
  • Barfly: This Merit is not used.
  • Contacts: This Merit is not used.
  • Fame: This Merit is not used.
  • Mentor: This Merit is not used
  • Resources: This Merit is not used.
  • Retainer: This Merit is not used.

New Merit: ATA Gene

The ATA Gene (Ancient Technology Activator Gene) comes from a particular combination of gene expression and brain pattern development that only present in Ancients, their descendants or a few Tau'ri who are compatible enough to respond to the developed gene therapy. The Ancient's mental technology controls are keyed to ATA, allowing those with superior expression, practice, and talent to utilize them more quickly and precisely. In many cases, particular levels of ATA expression are also used as system "locks" to prevent unauthorized access to advanced or dangerous technologies.