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| =Stripped Gears= | | =Background= |
| Stripped Gears is a work-in-progress [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] roleplaying game based on the [[One Roll Engine]]. It is set in a near-future where the players are participants in an illegal subculture built up around modifying domestic robots into pit fighters.
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| ==Background==
| | Stripped Gears is a work-in-progress homebrew roleplaying game based on the One Roll Engine. It is set in a near-future where the players are participants in an illegal subculture built up around modifying domestic robots into pit fighters. |
| The year is 20XX, and robots have become indispensable in society. Powerful positronic brains combined with several breakthroughs in rechargeable batteries and animatronics meant that it had finally become feasible to build humaniform robots that could fill a wide variety of rolls. At the low-end, these brains aren't good for much more than housekeeping. At the high end, these robots fill a wide variety of roles. Lawbots are dedicated public defenders, medibots are the perfect general practitioners, and law enforcement and the military have obedient "man"power that don't collect pensions.
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| Naturally, not everyone was perfectly happy about the rise of robots, and it wasn't long after the first models entered the consumer end of the market before anti-robot activists successfully campaigned to heavily regulate them. Civilian robots always had to be "Three Laws Compliant" - that is, compliant with Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics - but that wasn't enough. Thanks to a few easily-scared killjoys swayed by a couple horror movies about haywire robots going on killing sprees, robots had to be further inhibited. Under the principle that a robot cannot do anything it has not been programmed to do, combat skill packages were banned and access to all but the most "simple" of brains had been heavily restricted.
| | =Story= |
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| And, for a while, this regulation seemed to work. After all, what was the point in taking a Three Laws-compliant bot and loading it up with combat software?
| | The year is 20XX, and robots have become indispensable in society. Powerful positronic brains combined with several breakthroughs in rechargeable batteries and animatronics meant that it had finally become feasible to build humaniform robots that could fill a wide variety of rolls. At the low-end, these brains aren't good for much more than housekeeping. At the high end, these robots fill a wide variety of roles. Lawbots are dedicated public defenders, medibots are the perfect general practitioners, and law enforcement and the military have obedient "man"power that don't collect pensions. |
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| The point, as it turned out, was entertainment. Nobody's sure exactly where it all started - clubs in London, New York, Chicago, and Tokyo all have strong claims of being the first ones to do it - but a culture of underground robot pit fighting sprouted up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. People had started taking their domestic robots, wiping their programming, and loading them up with combat subroutines so that they could watch their meidobots and butlerbots and nannybots and sexbots rip each other to pieces. Naturally, these clubs became dens of all manner of vice and shutting them down became a high priority for law enforcement. Cops quickly figured out that a combat meidobot makes a shitty maid when all her housekeeping skills had to be wiped to make room for the ability to beat another robot into an unidentifiable mass of metal, and the Junk Johns (the owners of these combat robots) learned to get their hands on high-end brains that could fight AND clean. The arms race was on.
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| Public opinion on the matter remains rather split. Some feel that as long as the robots are hardwired into Three Laws compliance then it doesn't matter if they know how to hack apart another robot with a chainsaw. Others feel that there's too much risk of a robot going rogue after a fight and killing people. The media, for its part, seems to make a point of preserving the outlaw status of these rings because the issue makes great ratings. Either way, the problem isn't going anywhere any time soon, and truth be told, most of the Johns couldn't care less.
| | Naturally, not everyone was perfectly happy about the rise of robots, and it wasn't long after the first models entered the consumer end of the market before anti-robot activists successfully campaigned to heavily regulate them. Civilian robots always had to be "Three Laws Compliant" - that is, compliant with Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics - but that wasn't enough. Thanks to a few easily-scared killjoys swayed by a couple horror movies about haywire robots going on killing sprees, robots had to be further inhibited. Under the principle that a robot cannot do anything it has not been programmed to do, [[Stripped Gears Combat|combat]] skill packages were banned and access to all but the most "simple" of brains had been heavily restricted. |
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| ==Mechanics==
| | And, for a while, this regulation seemed to work. After all, what was the point in taking a Three Laws-compliant bot and loading it up with [[Stripped Gears Combat|combat]] software? |
| ===One Roll Engine===
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| Stripped Gears runs off of the One Roll Engine. It uses d10 die pools and looks for matched sets of dice. The Width of a set generally determines the speed of an action, and the Height of the set generally determines the quality of an action. A roll of 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 8 could be said to be three wide, five high, or 3x5.
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| ==Character Creation==
| | The point, as it turned out, was entertainment. Nobody's sure exactly where it all started - clubs in London, New York, Chicago, and Tokyo all have strong claims of being the first ones to do it - but a culture of underground robot pit fighting sprouted up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. People had started taking their domestic robots, wiping their programming, and loading them up with [[Stripped Gears Combat|combat]] subroutines so that they could watch their meidobots and butlerbots and nannybots and sexbots rip each other to pieces. Naturally, these clubs became dens of all manner of vice and shutting them down became a high priority for law enforcement. Cops quickly figured out that a [[Stripped Gears Combat|combat]] meidobot makes a shitty maid when all her housekeeping skills had to be wiped to make room for the ability to beat another robot into an unidentifiable mass of metal, and the Junk Johns (the owners of these [[Stripped Gears Combat|combat]] robots) learned to get their hands on high-end brains that could [[Stripped Gears Combat|fight]] AND clean. The arms race was on. |
| For a standard campaign, a player makes two characters — a robot and an owner.
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| ===Humans===
| | Public opinion on the matter remains rather split. Some feel that as long as the robots are hardwired into Three Laws compliance then it doesn't matter if they know how to hack apart another robot with a chainsaw. Others feel that there's too much risk of a robot going rogue after a [[Combat|fight]] and killing people. The media, for its part, seems to make a point of preserving the outlaw status of these rings because the issue makes great ratings. Either way, the problem isn't going anywhere any time soon, and truth be told, most of the Johns couldn't care less. |
| Humans start with 85 character points, or CP, which can be used to buy the following features.
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| ====Stats==== | | ==Further Reading== |
| Every human character has six stats that determine general aptitudes: Body, Charm, Command, Coordination, Mind, and Sense. A human cannot have a stat higher than 5. Stats default to 2 and cost 5 CP to raise.
| | Stripped Gears is meant to be relatively open, with no fixed setting or plot, but /tg/ has written a great deal of [[Stripped Gears Writefaggotry|additional material]] that might provide a jumping off point. |
| *Body describes physical toughness and power. A character with low Body could be considered "scrawny", while a character with high Body could be referred to as "beefy".
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| *Charm describes a character's ability to manipulate social situations. A character with low Charm could be considered "boorish", while a character with high Charm could be referred to as "persuasive".
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| *Command describes a character's force of personality. A character with low Command could be considered "meek", while a character with high Command could be referred to as "forceful".
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| *Coordination describes physical agility and dexterity. A character with low Coordination could be considered "clumsy", while a character with high Coordination could be referred to as "graceful".
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| *Mind describes a character's intelligence. A character with low Mind could be considered "stupid", while a character with high Mind could be referred to as "brilliant".
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| *Sense describes a character's ability to perceive the world around them. A character with low Sense could be considered "oblivious", while a character with high Sense could be referred to as "vigilant".
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| ====Skills==== | | =One Roll Engine= |
| Skills represent learning and life experience above and beyond natural aptitude. When a character uses a skill, they add their Skill total to the appropriate Stat to find the size of their die pool. For example, a character with Robotics (Hardware) 3 and Mind 4 would roll seven dice in their pool. Humans can raise no skill higher than 6, but they can attempt to use any skill - even ones they aren't trained in - as long as they have at least a 2-die pool. For example, a person with Mind 1 can attempt an untrained Cooking check with the help of some situational bonuses, like a detailed cookbook (+1), a well-stocked kitchen (+1), and enough time to be careful and do things right (+1 or 2), bumping his overall die pool up to 3 or 4.
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| Buying a point of a skill costs 1CP.
| | Stripped Gears runs off of the One Roll Engine. It uses d10 die pools and looks for matched sets of dice. The Width of a set generally determines the speed of an action, and the Height of the set generally determines the quality of an action. A roll of 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 8 could be said to be three wide, five high, or 3x5. |
| =====Body Skills=====
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| *Athletics: You are able to run efficiently, use your body’s leverage to lift heavier things than otherwise, climb rapidly, and so on.
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| *Block: You can intercept and deflect incoming attacks.
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| *Endurance: Endurance lets you push through pain and push your body to its limits.
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| *Melee Combat [Type]: You are skilled in a type of melee combat or weapon focus. Example Types: Boxing, Judo, Wrestling, Swords, Clubs, Flails.
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| =====Coordination Skills=====
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| *Acrobatics: You are a skilled gymnast and can complete flips, rolls, and handsprings. You can also use this skill to fall properly and to retain your footing after being thrown or knocked back.
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| *Ranged Weapons [Type]: You know how to use ranged weapons. Example Types: Guns, Throwing Knives, Crossbow.
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| *Dodge: You are adept at getting out of the way of attacks and danger you can see coming.
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| *Vehicle [Type]: You have training in the use of a specific type of vehicle. Routine use does not require a roll. Example Types: Car, Motorcycle, Truck, Blimp, Hang-Glider, Jet Aircraft, Helicopter, Sailboat, Speedboat.
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| *Escape Artist: You are skilled at escaping ropes, handcuffs, and other restraint devices.
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| *Lockpick: You are familiar with how to force, pick or bypass locks.
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| *Pick Pocket: You are skilled at sleight of hand and are capable of stealing jewelry, wallets, and other personal effects from people without their knowledge. This typically means a dynamic contest of your Coordination+Pick Pocket vs. the victim's Sense+Perception.
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| *Stealth: You are light on your feet and know how to remain unheard and out of sight. This typically means a dynamic contest of your Coordination+Stealth against their Sense+Perception.
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| =====Sense Skills=====
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| *Awareness: The ability to rapidly track changes in an environment.
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| *Empathy: The ability to discern lies and the emotional state of a person.
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| *Perception: The ability to rapidly spot details at a glance (like spotting an access panel on an enemy robot).
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| *Scrutiny: The ability to sift through an area or document in an organized manner.
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| =====Mind Skills=====
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| *Computer Hardware: You can repair and build computers.
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| *Cooking: You can cook.
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| *Programming: You can program or reprogram computers.
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| *Electronics: You can build, repair, and disassemble electronics without electrocuting yourself.
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| *First Aid: With the proper equipment, you can treat minor wounds in the field and help a badly injured patient survive long enough for more intensive treatment.
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| *Forgery: You can forge documents and recognize forgeries.
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| *Housekeeping: You can clean, put beds in order, and handle simple, regular maintenance of the household (like changing light bulbs).
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| *Mechanic [Type]: You can repair or build machinery of a particular type. Example Types: Cars, Jet Aircraft, Industrial Machinery.
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| *-Ology [Type]: A catchall skill for any form of high-level field. Example Types: Criminology, Cardiology, Law, Psychiatry
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| *Robotics (Hardware): You have the ability to work on the mechanical and electronic hardware of a robot.
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| *Robotics (Software): You have the ability to write and refine software packages for robots that give a skill level less than or equal to your own skill level.
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| *Tactics: You are well versed in the arts of war and know how to use terrain, manpower, and equipment to coordinate attacks, prepare and avoid ambushes, and gain the upper hand in battles.
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| =====Command Skills=====
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| *Intimidation: You can cause a person to fear you through physical or psychological threats. This usually means a dynamic contest between Command+Intimidation and Charm+Resist.
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| *Leadership: You can effectively guide and direct others, even under fire.
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| *Performance [Type]: You have an entertaining skill and the confidence to perform it in front of large groups. Example Types: Acting, Flute, Guitar, Public Speaking, Singing.
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| *Robotics (Command): You know what orders to give to get the most out of your robot in-combat.
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| *Seduction: You’re skilled at attracting and manipulating others, particularly in a romantic sense.
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| =====Charm Skills=====
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| *Counseling: You can talk down a traumatized individual.
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| *Deception: You can obfuscate the truth and create convincing lies.
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| *Persuasion: You can convince people to see your side of an argument.
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| *Resist: You are unusually resistant to psychological and physical coercion such as intimidation, torture, telepathic attack, and brainwashing.
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| ====Advantages====
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| Advantages represent talents and any other feature a character might have that doesn't fall under skills or stats.
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| =====Resources=====
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| Resource advantages give the player 1 bonus CP per level to work with when creating a robot. If the object the CP is spent on is destroyed, the player regains the CP. CP from resource advantages must be spent in the specified area.
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| *Resource: Software - 5CP per level - This resource gives extra CP that must be spent on the robot's skill points.
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| *Resource: Mods - 5CP per level - This resource gives extra CP that must be spent on add-ons.
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| *Resource: Hardware - 5CP per level - This resource gives extra CP that must be spent on stats.
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| ===Robots===
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| Robots start with 20 CP.
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| ====Stats====
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| Robots, unlike humans, only have Body, Coordination, and Sense. These physical stats can exceed five in the case of superhumanly strong, agile, and perceptive chassis. Robot stats default to 1, but like human stats they cost 5 points to raise.
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| ====Skills====
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| Robots roll for their skills in the same manner that humans do. A robot's skills are determined by the quality of their skill packages, which can be as simple as Rank 2 (bare-bones) up to a maximum of Rank 8 (superhuman). Unlike a human, a robot that lacks a skill package for a given skill ""cannot"" attempt any use of that skill. Combat skills cost 2 CP to raise, and non-combat skills cost 1 CP. Additionally, skill points must be stored in the brain; see the section on brains under add-ons for more details on this. Robots can buy any skill from the human list.
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| ====Add-Ons====
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| =====Integrated Weapons and Upgrades=====
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| *Integrated Weapon (Arm) - arm, 1CP, HP cost varies - Integrating a one handed weapon from the equipment list has a base cost of one HP, and one additional HP for every point of damage in excess of W. Integrated weapons replace hands and prevent robots from taking actions that require their use with that arm. They are also immediately visible, regardless of the observer's perception skill or roll.
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| *Integrated Weapon (Leg) - leg, 1CP, HP cost varies - Installing a one handed weapon from the equipment list into a robot's leg has a base cost of one health circle, and one additional health circle for every point of damage in excess of W. Innate weapons installed on a robot's leg take a -1d skill penalty, but do 1 extra shock damage on a hit.
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| *Integrated Weapon (Head or Torso) - head or torso, 1CP, HP cost varies - Installing a one handed weapon from the equipment list into a robot's leg has a base cost of one health circle, and one additional health circle for every point of damage in excess of W. Innate weapons installed on a robot's head or torso take a -3 skill penalty when neither robot is grappling the other, and receive a +1 skill bonus when one robot is.
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| *Internal Weapon - applied to an integrated weapon, 0CP, 1 HP - Making an innate weapon internal allows the body part it is installed in to conceal it and function normally, causing it to become hidden like other add-ons. It can still be detected using any method that detects add-ons. Switching a weapon from unhidden to hidden requires a draw action. Arms with hidden weapons can be used to punch and grapple normally, but must use a draw action to switch back if the integrated weapon is out.
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| *Weapon Strength Upgrade - applied to an integrated weapon, 1CP, 1HP - This adds 1 shock damage to an integrated weapon. It can be purchased up to three times per weapon.
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| *Power Weapon - applied to an integrated weapon, 3CP, 3HP - Converts the shock damage a weapon does into killing damage.
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| *Piercing Weapon - applied to an integrated weapon, 2CP, 2 health circles - Adds the piercing tag to an integrated weapon that did not originally have it.
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| =====Armor=====
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| *Light Armor - arm, leg, head, or torso, 1CP, 1 HP - Light armor gives the robot 1 armor in the location it is installed.
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| *Medium Armor - arm, leg, head, or torso, 2CP, 2HP - Light armor gives the robot 2 armor in the location it is installed.
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| *Heavy Armor - arm, leg, head, or torso, 3CP, 4HP - Heavy armor gives the robot 3 armor in the location it is installed.
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| =====Brains=====
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| *Brain - CP cost varies, 3HP in head or torso - Robots must have exactly one brain in order to function. This brain grants the robot the capacity to remember a number of skill points worth of data equal to its CP cost. Robots with their brains installed in their heads become disabled if the head fills with killing damage.
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| *Human Interaction Subroutines - applied to brain, 1CP - Robots with human interaction subroutines receive +1 to Style and Realism.
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| *Parallel Processing - applied to brain, 1CP - The brain excels at doing two things at once. Ignore -1d penalty from one Multiple Action each turn.
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| *Highly Focused - applied to brain, -1CP - The brain was designed for one specific task. Add +1d to die pools for one skill, but increase the penalty for multiple actions to -2d per action.
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| *Action-Reaction - applied to brain, -1CP - This brain is designed to give rote responses to specific inputs. Before a fight, secretly select one of the robot's skills and one full round action the opponent is capable of making (single fist attack, parry and blunt weapon attack multiple action, slam attack, etc). If the opponent performs this action on a given round, receive +1d to the dice pool for the tagged skill. If the opponent performs any other action, receive -1d.
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| =====Miscellaneous=====
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| *Health - 1CP - add two circles to a location on the health chart, or one circle each to both arms or both legs.
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| *Bulky Components - 0CP - Each location on the robot counts as having one more health circle than it actually does for the purposes of installing mods. The robot takes a -1 penalty to the Realism stat.
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| *Extra Limb - 1CP, 3 health circles in torso - This gives the robot an extra arm with one health circle, which behaves exactly as a normal arm. The first extra limb is hit on an attack with a height of 3, following limbs are hit on attacks with a height of 5, 7, and 8 in order. Can be purchased a maximum of four times.
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| =====Weapons=====
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| All weapons are free. However, a robot may only be equipped with as many weapons as she can wield at once.
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| *Fist - width shock - can grapple, can wield weapon
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| *Brass Knuckles - width+1 shock - can be used with grapples
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| *Blunt Weapon (One Hand) - width+2 shock
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| *Edged Weapon (One Hand) - width shock, 1 killing
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| *Sledgehammer - width+3 shock, requires two hands
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| *Fire Axe - width+1 killing, width shock - requires two hands
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| =====Chassis=====
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| To be removed once Meidobot is pictured as the default body.
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| [[File:ChassisDraft0.0.1.1.png|200px|thumb|right|First draft of the Stripped Gears chassis catalog, part 1/3.]]
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| [[File:ChassisDraft0.0.1.2.png|200px|thumb|right|First draft of the Stripped Gears chassis catalog, part 2/3.]]
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| [[File:ChassisDraft0.0.1.3.png|200px|thumb|right|First draft of the Stripped Gears chassis catalog, part 3/3.]]
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| ===Combat===
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| Combat rounds begin by both gynoids declaring their actions for the round, starting with the gynoid with the lowest sense stat. Once all actions are declared, players roll their relevant dice pools simultaneously. Players resolve their actions in order of the widest set first, breaking ties with height, and resolving tied heights simultaneously.
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| ====Combat Sequence====
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| The first phase of the combat sequence happens before the fight begins. During this sequence, the gynoids may attempt to influence the crowd in their favor by rolling a non-combat performative or social skill. The team of gynoids with the largest number of dice in their total number of successes wins, and adds a number equal to their widest set + the Style or Realism of the gynoid who rolled that set to their side of the Favor Meter (explained in detail below).
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| Additionally, before the fight begins, each Junk John may use his perception skill on one opposing gynoid. On a success that is wider than the higher of her Style or Realism, the Junk John knows her chassis and what hard point upgrades she has installed.
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| Next, each team can make offensive and defensive actions. Each gynoid declares her maneuver for the turn in order from lowest sense to highest before rolling. Once the roll occurs, the actions are resolved depending on their specific rules, usually in order of widest to narrowest. During these turns, Junk Johns can reduce a number of dice penalties on their gynoid's actions, for a number of dice equal to their Command skill. These dice can be spread out over as many or as few turns as the player likes, and recharge at the end of the fight. Junk Johns can also use one master dice per turn in his gynoid's roll, for a number of turns per fight equal to his Tactics skill.
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| At the end of the round, the gynoid who had the most interesting action will influence the favor meter.
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| This continues until a pre-defined victory condition is achieved by one team.
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| ====Attacking====
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| Attacks work much like any skill rolls. The amount of damage is reliant on the weapon being used, and the location of the damage on the target is controlled by the height of the roll as shown on the hit diagram. Wider attacks hit first, with ties broken by height.
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| Gynoids hit with an attack immediately lose one die from one of their sets, chosen by the controlling player.
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| ====Defending====
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| Using skills for defense is the same as attacking. However, each die in a successful set uses the standard gobble die rules and can cancel out opposing attacks.
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| ====Damage====
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| Damage comes in two varieties — shock and killing. Body parts filled with shock damage are disabled. A robot with either a torso filled with shock damage or a brain location filled with shock damage is disabled.
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| Damage is assigned to specific locations by comparing the height of the roll to the location chart.
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| Depending on weapon, one or both types of damage may be applied. Apply killing damage first, subtracting the armor value of the location. Fill in empty circles with Xs first, then shock damaged circles. If the location is full of killing damage, apply the remainder of the killing damage to the torso in the same manner, as well as the shock damage in the following manner. Next, shock damage is applied to any empty circles by drawing a line through them, then then to shock damaged circles. If the shock damage causes the section to fill with killing damage, any damage that overflows is done to the torso.
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| All successful attacks do a minimum of one shock damage, regardless of armor. Skills that involve disabled limbs cannot be used.
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| ====Modifiers====
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| *Using an attack or defense skill on an enemy gynoid with one or more disabled limbs increases the dice pool by the number of disabled limbs.
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| ====Favor Meter====
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| The favor meter is a track starting at -10 and counting up to 10, which keeps track of each team's reaction from the crowd. Before the fight begins, the favor meter is at 0, and the teams are arbitrarily assigned the positive or negative side of the meter. After the sequence before the fight, the winners of the sequence move the favor meter away from zero towards their side of the meter to the degree by which they won.
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| At he end of each combat round, the gynoids total up favor points gained on their turn to measure how interesting their actions were to the crowd. Favor points always stack, and are gained by disabling a body part, head, or gynoid, as well as some maneuvers. The gynoids from each team with the highest individual scores on their respective teams compare favor points, and the winner moves the favor meter that many slots towards her team's side.
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| On ties between the two top gynoids of opposing teams, the favor meter moves one space towards zero.
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| The favor meter carries over to each team's next fight. At the end of that fight, they will receive a 10% prize money bonus for every point towards their side the favor meter was at the end of the fight. This can be negative.
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| ====Basic Maneuvers====
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| The following maneuvers can be performed by a gynoid at any time.
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| *Attack – You attack
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| *Dodge, Block – You defend, using successful sets to negate incoming Attack dice.
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| *Move – You can move your Chassis’ speed without any roll. You may roll Athletics to add W*5’ to your movement.
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| *Aim – Spend a round preparing. Each round spent preparing adds +1d to a later pool, max +2d.
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| *Called Shot – Take a -1d penalty, promote a normal die in your pool to a Hard die set to the appropriate location.
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| *Multiple Action – Take the smallest die pool of any skill in the multiple action, and apply a -1d penalty for each action after the first. Each action needs its own set. Example: Queen Bee has Body 6 Melee Combat (Unarmed) 6 and Coordination 4 Acrobatics 5. She needs to vault over an obstacle in the arena to attack her opponent, so she does a combined Acrobatics/Melee Combat roll. Since Coordination+Acrobatics is smaller than Body+Melee Combat, she uses that 9d pool, then applies a -1d penalty to that pool for having a second action, for a total pool of 8d. Rolling 1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9, she has only one set and only succeeds on one of her attempts.
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| *Draw a weapon – You draw a weapon and take a -1d penalty to anything else you do in the same turn. Requires no roll.
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| *Pin – Roll an attack using an appropriate Melee Combat skill (Wrestling, Grappling, etc.). This attack can be Dodged as normal, but Block does not apply. If you succeed, both you and your target are rendered Motionless (you cannot attack or defend until either you let go or the pin is broken). You may take a -1d penalty to pin while standing, otherwise both you and your target are Downed. Your target remains pinned until either you let go or they break the pin with a successful Escape Artist check or an appropriate Melee Combat Skill against a difficulty equal to your Body score or your Melee Combat skill, whichever is higher.
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| *Restrain – Choose a target and declare Arms or Legs, then roll an attack using Body+Melee Combat with no penalty. Instead of dealing damage, you may use your Restrain set as Gobble dice against actions the target is attempting involving the limbs you’re holding back.
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| *Shove – Make an attack roll with Body+Melee Combat (Unarmed, Wrestling, Grappling, any blunt weapon) with no penalty. If you succeed, your opponent is pushed back 5’, loses a die from a set as with any other successful attack, and you get a +1d bonus if you attempt to trip or slam the target in the next round. Opponents attempting to trip or slam you while you are shoving an opponent get a +1d bonus.
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| *Stand – You get up during the Declare phase (removing the Downed condition). If you attempt to do anything else that turn you take a -1d penalty.
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| *Tackle – Make a Body+Melee Combat (any appropriate style) roll against an opponent at a -1d penalty. Opponents attempting to trip or slam you while you’re tackling get a +1d bonus. On a successful Tackle attempt, you deal full normal damage and both you and your opponent are Downed.
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| ====Advanced Maneuvers====
| | Stripped Gears also uses the aspect system, renamed to drives. On character creation, humans may be assigned up to five drives for free. Drives are motivations for the character. They are almost always what polite society would refer to as flaws. If the player acts out a character's drive in a way that causes a setback, the GM should award a drive point to the player. Drive points can be spent on advanced maneuvers in combat. |
| Advanced Maneuvers (Junk Johns must spend a Drive Point to force their robots to use these)
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| *Charge – Make a multiple action using your Melee Combat skill and Athletics. The results below depend on the W of your Athletics set.
| | =Character Creation= |
| **Standard Success (2x): Your attack does an extra S.
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| **Expert Success (3x): Your attack does +2S, +1K
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| **Master Success (4x+): Your attack does +3S, +2K
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| *Disarm – Make a called shot to the arm holding the desired weapon. If the weapon is two-handed, you may pick any arm location. If the weapon is integrated to the robot’s body, take a -1d penalty to the attack, and you only succeed on a Master Success. If the weapon is sharp, electrified, superheated, or otherwise dangerous to grasp, you must make a multiple action with Dodge or take 1K to one of your arms.
| | Stripped Gears uses a point buy system to [[Stripped Gears Character Creation|create characters]] . The standard [[Stripped Gears Character Creation|character creation]] process involves each player creating one human character, and then a robot that uses that character's in-game resources and skills. |
| **Standard Success (2x): You do no damage, but you dislodge the weapon. It lands X feet away, where X is the Height of your roll.
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| **Expert Success (3x): As above, except that your opponent takes S to the targeted location.
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| **Master Success (4x+): Your opponent takes two points of S and, if you have a free hand, you’re now holding the weapon. Otherwise, it’s at your feet.
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| *Disfiguring Strike – Perform a called shot to the head using an attack that does Killing damage.
| | Humans have six stats — Body, Coordination, Sense, Charm, Mind, and Command. Robots only have the first three. Both humans and robots have a variety of skills to choose from, and must roll a number of d10s equal to their skill plus the associated stat when attempting a difficult action. However, humans can attempt actions they are unskilled in, while robots cannot. |
| **Standard Success (2x): You do one point of Killing damage and gain one favor point for your turn.
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| **Expert Success (3x): You do two points of Killing damage and gain two favor points for your turn.
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| **Master Success (4x+): You do three points of Killing damage and gain three favor points for your turn.
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| *Dismember – Make a called shot to a limb that’s already full of Killing damage.
| | In addition to stats and skills, humans can buy advantages and robots can buy add-ons, which are roughly equivalent and represent extra equipment. These features give their owners extra situational advantages not covered by skills and stats. |
| **Standard Success (2x): You remove the targeted limb and you gain one favor point for your turn.
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| **Expert Success (3x): As above, and you gain one favor point for the turn. If you have a hand free, you may choose to have the limb in your hand.
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| **Master Success (4x+): As above, and your opponent takes 2K to the torso.
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| *Display Kill – Make a normal attack at -1d penalty. You must KO your opponent to get the benefit of Display Kill.
| | =Combat= |
| **Standard Success (2x): Add your Width to your favor for the turn, whichever is higher.
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| **Expert Success (3x): As above, but you add your Style bonus to your favor.
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| **Master Success (4x+): As above, but you also add your highest social skill to your favor.
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| *Slam – Make a Melee Combat attack roll against Difficulty 3. You can only use this maneuver against opponents who are within 500 pounds of your weight or smaller.
| | [[Stripped Gears Combat|Combat]] in Stripped Gears is almost exclusively robot against robot, due to the limits on available robot brains. The fights take many forms, with many different possible special rules and outcomes. |
| **Standard Success (2x): Target is Downed and takes 1S to locations 3 and 5.
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| **Expert Success (3x): Target is Downed and takes 1S to every location except 10.
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| **Master Success (4x+): Target is downed and takes 1S to ever location, plus an additional shock to the location indicated by the Height of your set.
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| **Special: Damage above assumes the target lands on a flat, safe surface. Slamming an opponent into a hazard or from a great height can increase damage at GM’s discretion.
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| *Trip – Make a called shot to locations 1 or 2. Do not take the standard 1d called shot penalty. If your opponent is using the Charge, Shove, or Tackle maneuvers, add 1d to your pool.
| | Fights between robots begin with an entrance sequence where the robots attempt to impress the crowd. During this time, the owners may attempt to figure out exactly what types of components the opposing robots have installed. |
| **Standard Success (2x): You do no damage, but your opponent loses a die from a set and has a -1d penalty to any action taken in the next round.
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| **Expert Success (3x): As above, plus target is downed.
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| **Master Success (4x+): As above, plus target takes 1S to each arm.
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| *Taunt - Take a 1d penalty to any actions you make this round, and add 1 to your favor for the round. This can be used as a multi-action with itself and other maneuvers.
| | Once the fight begins, there are many ways it can end. Some fights are to KO, while others are to the first good hit, or to the death. During the fights, the robots use their skills to attack and defend, and the owners use their knowledge to command and assist. |
| **Standard Success (2x): The favor point increase from taunting caps at your Realism stat.
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| **Expert Success (3x): The favor point increase from taunting caps at your Realism stat + one.
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| **Master Success (4x+): The favor point increase from taunting caps at your Realism stat + two.
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| ==To-Do List==
| | When the fight is over, the winning team receives prize money or reputation, depending on how impressive of a fight they put on. |
| *Drives: Stripped Gears' version of FATE System's Aspects, Drives will provide bonuses for situations where important parts of a character's reasons for being a Junk John are satisfied.
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| *Maneuvers: More combat options other than "I attack". These will likely be linked to Drives.
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| *Appearance: Thus far, the Robot Fight Club aspect is coming along nicely, but we're short on the Pimp My Robot aspect.
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| *Crowdpleasing: Mechanics for making money by showboating, having a flashy robot, and generally making fights interesting. This will probably be primary income for an active party.
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| *Character Generation Rules
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| *Character Advancement Rules
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| *More Detailed Mod Guidelines: It's one thing to know how many mods you can mount on a robot, but we're lacking on how much the mods cost and some examples for how to describe a custom mod's fluff.
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| *Brains: We need more of them.
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| *Special Abilities: Ways to differentiate chassis and brains from one another using more than just their numbers.
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Background
Stripped Gears is a work-in-progress homebrew roleplaying game based on the One Roll Engine. It is set in a near-future where the players are participants in an illegal subculture built up around modifying domestic robots into pit fighters.
Story
The year is 20XX, and robots have become indispensable in society. Powerful positronic brains combined with several breakthroughs in rechargeable batteries and animatronics meant that it had finally become feasible to build humaniform robots that could fill a wide variety of rolls. At the low-end, these brains aren't good for much more than housekeeping. At the high end, these robots fill a wide variety of roles. Lawbots are dedicated public defenders, medibots are the perfect general practitioners, and law enforcement and the military have obedient "man"power that don't collect pensions.
Naturally, not everyone was perfectly happy about the rise of robots, and it wasn't long after the first models entered the consumer end of the market before anti-robot activists successfully campaigned to heavily regulate them. Civilian robots always had to be "Three Laws Compliant" - that is, compliant with Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics - but that wasn't enough. Thanks to a few easily-scared killjoys swayed by a couple horror movies about haywire robots going on killing sprees, robots had to be further inhibited. Under the principle that a robot cannot do anything it has not been programmed to do, combat skill packages were banned and access to all but the most "simple" of brains had been heavily restricted.
And, for a while, this regulation seemed to work. After all, what was the point in taking a Three Laws-compliant bot and loading it up with combat software?
The point, as it turned out, was entertainment. Nobody's sure exactly where it all started - clubs in London, New York, Chicago, and Tokyo all have strong claims of being the first ones to do it - but a culture of underground robot pit fighting sprouted up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. People had started taking their domestic robots, wiping their programming, and loading them up with combat subroutines so that they could watch their meidobots and butlerbots and nannybots and sexbots rip each other to pieces. Naturally, these clubs became dens of all manner of vice and shutting them down became a high priority for law enforcement. Cops quickly figured out that a combat meidobot makes a shitty maid when all her housekeeping skills had to be wiped to make room for the ability to beat another robot into an unidentifiable mass of metal, and the Junk Johns (the owners of these combat robots) learned to get their hands on high-end brains that could fight AND clean. The arms race was on.
Public opinion on the matter remains rather split. Some feel that as long as the robots are hardwired into Three Laws compliance then it doesn't matter if they know how to hack apart another robot with a chainsaw. Others feel that there's too much risk of a robot going rogue after a fight and killing people. The media, for its part, seems to make a point of preserving the outlaw status of these rings because the issue makes great ratings. Either way, the problem isn't going anywhere any time soon, and truth be told, most of the Johns couldn't care less.
Further Reading
Stripped Gears is meant to be relatively open, with no fixed setting or plot, but /tg/ has written a great deal of additional material that might provide a jumping off point.
One Roll Engine
Stripped Gears runs off of the One Roll Engine. It uses d10 die pools and looks for matched sets of dice. The Width of a set generally determines the speed of an action, and the Height of the set generally determines the quality of an action. A roll of 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 8 could be said to be three wide, five high, or 3x5.
In the One Roll Engine, master dice refer to
Stripped Gears also uses the aspect system, renamed to drives. On character creation, humans may be assigned up to five drives for free. Drives are motivations for the character. They are almost always what polite society would refer to as flaws. If the player acts out a character's drive in a way that causes a setback, the GM should award a drive point to the player. Drive points can be spent on advanced maneuvers in combat.
Character Creation
Stripped Gears uses a point buy system to create characters . The standard character creation process involves each player creating one human character, and then a robot that uses that character's in-game resources and skills.
Humans have six stats — Body, Coordination, Sense, Charm, Mind, and Command. Robots only have the first three. Both humans and robots have a variety of skills to choose from, and must roll a number of d10s equal to their skill plus the associated stat when attempting a difficult action. However, humans can attempt actions they are unskilled in, while robots cannot.
In addition to stats and skills, humans can buy advantages and robots can buy add-ons, which are roughly equivalent and represent extra equipment. These features give their owners extra situational advantages not covered by skills and stats.
Combat
Combat in Stripped Gears is almost exclusively robot against robot, due to the limits on available robot brains. The fights take many forms, with many different possible special rules and outcomes.
Fights between robots begin with an entrance sequence where the robots attempt to impress the crowd. During this time, the owners may attempt to figure out exactly what types of components the opposing robots have installed.
Once the fight begins, there are many ways it can end. Some fights are to KO, while others are to the first good hit, or to the death. During the fights, the robots use their skills to attack and defend, and the owners use their knowledge to command and assist.
When the fight is over, the winning team receives prize money or reputation, depending on how impressive of a fight they put on.