RIP - System

Characters

Overall

This section describes attributes and skills used in RIP system. A character generation system is merged into it, giving any variations to possible race averages.

Character Points

In normal cases, characters in RIP are made with character points. The player has designed number (normally 15 or 20 for basic powerful characters) of character points, which are then used to buy better attributes, skill levels and background options. Unless noted otherwise, 25% of original character points must be used in skills.

A normal average human is about 5 character points. A creature of another race has certain basic attributes and skills typical to race, and then has character points as acquired experience for training and similar things.

Race

In some campaign, character can be of other race than human. Refer to appropriate campaign material. This may or may not cost character points, and it may affect starting skills and attributes.

If no player character is done, a creature of another race is done with starting from race basic levels and then adding any appropriate skills and attributes.

Attributes

Attributes are character born or somehow enhanced physical and mental attributes.

Standard attributes are physical and mental attributes possessed by each creature, and are strength, health, agility, awareness, willpower and social.

Special attributes are creature or individual specialized attributes like mental problems, physical disadvantages and advantages, special powers etc..

Standard Attributes

All creatures in RIP have following attributes:

Strength: This attribute resembles creature pure physical strength. A creature with superb (+2) strength is as strong as world-class (human) weight lifter, while inferior (-2) creature is like a few years old kid.
Health: This attribute reflects endurance and constitution of the character. A character with high health can go on longer while those ranked very low get exhausted very fast. Health is also used when character is wounded or suffers damage or poisoning, but note that muscle mass (i.e. strength) usually determines how well the body of the character can withstand damage. Typical sub-attributes are endurance (how long the character can go on) and resistance (poisons and toxins)
Agility: Creature speed, balance, agility and such things are represented with agility attribute. High level attributes are possessed by olympic athletics, while those with poor agility stumble on stairs.
Awareness: Creature perception, sight and smell. It also tells about character speed to react to certain situations, althought agility is also important.
Willpower: This attribute resembles, how good will and self-control the creature has and how easily he is broken under stress. Those with low levels are usually easily irritated and break easily. Mindless creatures have no willpower.
Social: General appearance, social skills, charisma and such things. A creature with high social is easily listened to and well liked, while those with low levels stutter, get paralyzed in social situations and do not have many friends.

All attributes are ranked from negative levels to positive, with +0 being the average for human beings. Any attribute over +2 (superb) level is classified as supernatural.

Standard Attribute Levels

All attribute levels differ from race average, which is in then compared to human average. For example, all human averages are +0. If an orc has strength +1 as average, an orc player may have good strength (+1), effectually having strength +2.

Superb (+2) (3 cp): The character has top value in attribute. He might be world-class weight lifter, athletic or marathon runner, professional detective, have a will of iron or be a very successful journalist.
Good (+1) (1 cp): Character has an attribute better than most average, but not very exceptional. He is good shape, fast or most of the time very calm and relaxed.
Average (+0): This is the average level.
Poor (-1) (-1 cp): Character is obviously inferior to average people. He almost always loses any appropriate physical effort, is easily irritated or cannot converate with people.
Inferior (-2) (-3 cp): Character is clearly inferior to any other. He is easily pushed around, stumbles in stairs or is irritated and nervous all the time. In social situations, he gets frozen and stutters. Not recommended level for any attribute, people with inferior attributes can be considered as handicapped

Non-human creatures or humans with magical, technological or other special powers may have higher (or lower) attribute levels. In general, each level is quite clearly superior to lower one.

In addition to these 6 basic attributes, special targets like very big or otherwise tough ceratures (or very small or fragile) creatures can have one extra special attribute:

Toughness: General resistance against all kind of physical damage, from punches to cuts.

Note that this attribute cannot be modified! It is only used for comparative purposes and to show that the target is simply so much larger than small cuts and wounds have no same effect on it as it does on normal human-sized targets. Normally the toughness level can be handled like armor padding except that it is always applied, regardless of attack penetration power.

Special Attributes

Here is a list of standard special attributes. A campaign may have alter these a bit or add new ones, but unless noted otherwise, these all apply.

Addiction (nuisance -1 cp, severe -2 cp): Character is severely addicted to some subtance or possibly an action.
Mental Problem (nuisance -1, severe -2 cp): Some psychological quirk, like paranoia, over-confidence, arrogance, stubborness... Note: cannot kill is a psychological limitation very common to most people. As nuisance, cold-blooded kills are problematic. With severe, even warm-blooded kills.
Physical Disadvantage (varies): For missing limb or similar things, character gains more CPs. Apply -2 cp for missing hand, -3 cp for missing entire arm, others handicaps as determined by the GM.

Skills

Skills are learned or natural abilities to do certain things. Skills are mainly dependent on campaign, but several things are common:

Skill levels

Skill levels in RIP are very broad. They are used to easily distinguish the level of expertise.

Non-skilled (level 0): Character has no training with the skill. Depending on the skill, the character may or may not do anything related to it. For example, a gun can be fired without training and most people can drive a car even if they have not ever done it before - assuming someone starts it for them. On the other hand, helicopter flight is a different matter...
Skilled (level 1): Character has basic training and some experience with given skill or expertise. He can handle rush hour in a major city while driving or land a plane.
Expert (level 2): Character in an expert in his area. He can fight several opponents at the same time, land a plane in a storm or charm everyone with his manners in royal banquet. He also knows most masters in his field of expertise.
Master (level 3): Character is simply a master in tasks concerning his area. He can drive car in reverse in rush hour without colliding or speak completely fluently. He is usually well known by the other people dedicated to this area.
Grand Master (level 4): Character is simple a grand master in his area. He is world famous and his guidelines are followed by hundred followers, or he might be a world-top acrobat. This level is available for player character only by GM permission.

Specialization and training: Most skills must be specialized and trained to certain sub-areas. There is no limitations or accurate guidelines for that, so use common sense. A etiquette(royal and streets) is a good example, while gun(any) is not... When a situation arises, a character is down in skill levels if the sub-area is unfamiliar to him.

CP Costs and Limitations

Skill type is just a point-based system used in RIP. Skills are either primary, secondary or free skills. If the skill is very useful, it costs more points to take.

Primary skill costs 1 cp for skilled, 3 for expert, 6 for master and 10 (if allowed) for grand master.
Secondary skill costs .5 for skilled, 1.5 for expert, 3 for master and 5 (if allowed) for grand master.
Free skills are free, of course. Usually a young character cannot have many free skills.

Skill levels can be limited so that characters are not boosted in some limited areas and cannot do anything else. The GM may require characters to have at least as many lower level skills than higher level ones.

Common Skills

Here is a list of common skill and their description. Whether the skill is primary, secondary or free depends mainly on campaign.

Acrobatics: Skill to make impressive acrobative flips, to walk tightropes and otherwise control own body. High agility is also important.
Climbing: Ability to climb safely, quickly and skillfully steer surfaces, ropes and cliffs. Can be part of acrobatics in some campaign settings.
Combat: Also known as coolness under fire, this skill tells how well the character can handle firefight situations. In general, no skill can be used in higher level than combat skill while in firefight. Character with no this skill and no knowledge about firefights depend usually on willpower attribute.
Con: Skill to fluently speak about subjects not known to character or to get victim to do things he would not normally do.
Etiquette: Skill to act properly in trained social environments.
Gun: Skill to fire accurately with trained weapons. Some repair and basic maintenance is also possible.
Language: Character is trained in selected language. Each language must be learnt separately, not as specialization for this skill.
Leadership: Skill to inspire, lead and manipulate large masses.
Medical: Skill to treat wounds, bind them and avoid infections. Also includes long term healing, and analyzing the patient.
Melee: Skill to fight effectually in melee. Character is trained in appropriate weapons and technics; use of any other may give penalties for combat.
Sleight of Hand: Various dexterous manouvers like picking the pockets, building card buildings and doing magic tricks.
Stealth: Skill to move silently and hide effectually. Urban and rural environment should be both trained separately.
Throw: Skill to throw items accurately and long. Must train to throw more exotic items.

Background Options

Third thing about character is their background options. These things are usually social background etc. oriented material goods, known friends and enemies and other similar things, which are dependent on campaign played.

Sample Backgrounds

Backed (moderate 1 cp, strong 2 cp): Character has back-up from some organization or creature, and is usually pulled away from shit and can turn to them for equipment.
Hunted (occassional -1 cp, continual -2 cp): Character is hunted down by some powerful organization or creature.
Rich (rich 2 cp, filthy rich 4 cp): Character has much, much extra money or property. Most of this is in some things so not all of it is changeable into cash.

Optional Things

Here is some optional character options. Before using them, ask from GM if it is ok to use them.

Special Attributes

These optional characteristics are mainly for very cinematic campaigns.

Ammo Hog (-2 cp): This is only for Hong Kong style cinematic campaigns, where no one has to change clips very often - maybe every now and then, but nonetheless far less often than in the ordinary world. This disadvantage forces the character to change clips almost as usually as in the ordinary world, and becomes often very irritating!
Classic Villain (-2 cp, NPCs only): This is a classic supervillain disadvantage: when he has caught the player characters, he simply must tell his clever plans to them, and then leave them to a certain death they miraculously escape.
Lucky (lucky 1 cp, very lucky 3 cp): This is a bit similar advantage like the pro skill is: The character can 'find' missing stuff ('ah, luckily I took this with me') but the GM should not warn about stupid tactical decisions; instead, the character has an amazing knack to survive from such situations.

Contributions

These disadvantages have nothing to do with the actual characters. Instead, they are ways to earn more points by agreeing to do something that enriches the campaign.

Campaign Log (-2 cp): The player keeps a log of events in the campaign, and writes it to some place agreed with the GM.
Character Diary (-2 cp): The player keeps some kind of diary of actions of his character and events around him. It is like a campaign log, but personalized and subjective. Should be placed to a place where it is readable by anyone.