Steel Reign is the working title for an adaptation of the Reign of Steel setting to the Reign system being undertaken by a pair of anons. The idea is for the Company mechanics to allow for meaningful conflict between the human resistance and the various AI factions. Changes will include:

New list of skills and attributes for near future post-apocalyptic adventurers.
Stats for firearms and explosives.
Additional rules for gunfights and vehicles.
Converted stats for robots.
Tweaks to the Company system.
Sample characters.

Skills and Attributes

Body

Athletics

This is a catchall for most physical tasks that don’t fall under another skill. Use it to jump, throw and lift heavy weights.

Endurance

Roll Endurance to keep on running, walking or swimming past the point where you might otherwise have collapsed panting.

Fight

This is the skill for broad, untrained, opportunistic fighting. You grab something and try to hurt someone with it, whether it’s swinging a sword or a baseball bat or pointing a gun in their general direction and pulling the trigger. Roll with coord for missile weapons. You can use most weapons with Fight, only some exotic ones which are dangerous or difficult to use will present you with difficulty. You cannot, however, parry effectively or use Special Techniques. Expected gear: Something heavy and blunt or small and sharp, like a penknife or maglite torch.

Run

Use to chase or flee or simply move faster in combat. Base move is 15ft, gain 5ft for every point of width on your widest success. Expected gear: Some old sneakers, in pretty good nick.

Climb

You can climb up stuff. You can climb 5ft per point of width on your roll, or 5ft for every 2 width if it’s a very rough climb. Expected gear: Some rope. 3+: Light, strong rope. 4+ Light, strong rope & safety harness.

Vigor

This is how good you are at overcoming injury and illness. With the wide variety of plagues and biocides released into the environment by the Zoneminds, immunity can be an invaluable trait. People living in machine zones usually have a high level of this, having had the dubious fortune to be naturally immune to the apocalypse plagues that wiped out the rest of the population. People from Washington or London have had less exposure - although even they were devastated in the early part of the war.

Coord

Dodge

You can get out of the way in a hurry. This skill is described on Reign p.188.

Pilot/Driver/Rider of _____

Pick a general category - cars, HGVs, speedboats, motorbikes, jet aircraft, helicopters, horses, robots. You can ride or drive vehicles of that type, and default to similar types at skill -1. Use this skill to race, negotiate difficult terrain, etc. Expected gear: A servicable car, boat, bike or microlite. Sorry, no jet fighters.

Stealth

Sneaking around, hiding, and even picking pockets all require Stealth rolls. Expected gear: A hoodie, cloak, dark-coloured coat or scarf.

Weapon

Pick a category of weapons like "handguns" "axes" "clubs" etc. You’ve been trained to use these weapons proficiently. Can be taken multiple times. If your weapon is suitable for parrying, you can parry with it using this skill. You can also learn Special Techniques for rolls using this skill. Expected gear: A weapon of the appropriate type.

Conceal

Hiding things. Whether palming a card at the poker table, slipping something incriminating into a rival’s luggage, disguising a guerrilla foxhole in the wastelands as a bit of harmless scrub, or smuggling contraband DVDs into Zone Washington in the chassis of your robotruck, Conceal lets you put things places where people won’t notice them, or in such a way that people won’t notice you doing it. Expected gear: A bit of useless but tradeable contraband.

Sense

Notice

You can see or hear things. Eavesdropping, noticing subtle noises, spotting hidden assassins, observing attempts at concealment, and so on all require Notice rolls. Expected gear: A pair of binoculars or a scope.

Empathy

You can tell when people are lying to you, when they’re trying to manipulate you, and gauge roughly what they’re feeling. If someone is angry or envious or in love, with a good Empathy roll you’ll spot it before anyone else does. Expected gear: A memento of someone dear to you, or or a past life fondly remembered.

Study

Forensics, tracking and looking for clues all fall under this skill. You can look at a scene and reconstruct what happened there, follow a target through forests and cities alike, or find contraband hidden in the chassis of a robotruck.

Security

You can pick locks, disable alarms, and generally have a good grasp of how people and robots keep unwanted intruders out of their stuff. Roll when securing a building or trying to gain access to one.

Trapping

You can set up traps and know your way around explosives. Useful for setting anything from simple snares to catch game to IEDs to obliterate robot tanks. Also used to disarm booby-traps and defuse bombs. Expected gear: Wire, pliers, and clippers.

Scavenging

You know how to find useful stuff in the ruins of the machine zones, the rows of boarded-up houses in Zone Washington, or the scattered eco-shacks of Caracas. You also know how to survive, where to find food and clean water, and you’re aware of the dangers involved in finding these things. You suffer a penalty to this skill when you try to use it outside your own Zone, until you learn the ropes. (Generous GMs may ignore this penalty if your character’s background has placed him in the Zone in question in the past.) Expected gear: Some canned food and water to spare, something to read or at least some porn if you’re an illiterate fuck.

Know

Medic

You can treat injury and illness. Expected gear: First aid kit. 4+ Doctor’s bag.

Expert in/Student of/Professor of/Doctor of ________

Regardless of how you phrase it, this skill marks you as skilled in a particular field not covered by any other skills. Can fall under any attribute but is usually associated with knowledge. These skills can be used to extend existing skills into specialised areas. For example, if you wanted to be able to unlock the bioroid genetic code or perform surgery, you could take Expert in Genetics/Surgery along with Medic. A former NSA intelligence analyst might have an appropriate skill to enhance Comms.

Computers

You know your way around a computer, you can write new programs, you can hack into existing systems and rewrite the directives of robots so that they obey you. You will not be popular with the zoneminds. Taking control of a computer or robot requires either custody (i.e. you must have the robot in your possession and be able to open it up and poke around inside) or a tag. Expected gear: Laptop with plenty of software, SQUID.

Comms

You know how to record, broadcast, intercept, encrypt, decrypt and analyse multimedia data being transmitted over radio, lasercom, satellite and cable. You also have some idea how to repair electronic equipment. Attempting to decrypt an enemy message requires a tag. Analysing the patterns of such traffic does not, although may require other skills to make intelligible. Expected gear: Laptop with A/V software, antenna and 1 Radio Bomb per level, OR laptop with interception/decryption software and antenna.

Mechanic

You can repair and modify things with moving parts. Vehicles, robot chassis, machine guns, and air conditioning systems all fall under this skill. Expected gear: Toolkit.

Comm

Haggle

You can get a good deal when buying, selling, or bartering for something.

Inspire

You can speak, and provoke the desired emotion in those who listen - whether it be mercy, rage, doubt or hope. This skill is used when speaking to an audience, not in a conversation with a single person (where Fascinate would be more appropriate).

Entertain

You can tell stories, introduce music and shows in an entertaining and engaging manner, act in a play, and generally make an audience enjoy listening to you. With Expert: Musician or Singer, you can introduce your own music. Expected gear: Microphone and mp3 recorder or appropriate musical instrument.

Intimidate

You can threaten and scare people into backing down or doing as you say.

Tactics

You’re an expert at allocating unit-level military resources. You know when a frontal assault would be a bad idea, you can flank and use pincer movements, and so on. Useful for battles involving 10-100 people.

Strategy

You know how to fight on a large scale, maintaining supply lines, encircling enemy encampments, choosing where to fight or confounding the enemy with misinformation.

Charm

Fascinate

Skill at making someone want to keep talking with you. Measures your one-on-one conversational finesse, being a good listener, being likeable and attractive. Use it to seduce, charm, recruit, persuade or simply amuse your target. Expected gear: A mirror. If you’re from the machine zones, the mirror is small and cracked.

Trust

Trust is in short supply these days, with Zonegangers, robot infiltrators, and bandits proliferating. Paranoia is a way of life after the apocalypse, and the ability to get people to trust you is invaluable for earnest Bush Doctors and conniving Judas Goats alike. Expected gear: Some cigarettes, or maybe jelly babies.

Jest

You can tell good jokes. Let’s face it, with six billion people dead in the most horrific wars and plagues the world has ever seen and the survivors hunted by killer robots who more often than not want them for slave labour or hideous medical experiments before they kill them, anyone who didn’t have a sense of humour has already become an hero long ago. See Reign p35.

Lie

Telling lies is easy. This skill allows you to tell lies and not get caught. Roll your Lie+Charm and count any sets as gobble dice to sabotage attempts at catching you out.

Plead

If all else fails, beg and grovel. Doesn’t usually work on robots but it won’t make you any more dead than you were already, at least. You can use to beg for food, assistance, loans of equipment and anything else you like as well, as long as you don’t mind looking like a pathetic fuck.

Steel Reign