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Do-Gooders and Doombringers

Third Edition!

Drive!
A characters most important stat is their Drive.

A heros Drive is their will to go on fighting, their overall experience level, and their
meta-fictional importance to the comic book universe they call home. It is,
essentially, the characters star power.

A characters Drive determines several things in the game:

Starting Daring Points: At the start of each game, your character will be
given Daring Points equal to their Drive x 3.
A characters Drive also provides a pool of Dice Points equal to Drive x 2.
A characters Drive will determine how many Damage, Drama, and Doom
Cards they can fill.

A characters Drive rating can range from 1 to 7. The table below gives a general
idea of what Drive ratings mean:

Drive Rating
1 Novice Hero
2 Amateur Hero
3 Seasoned Hero
4 Experienced Hero
5 Veteran Hero
6 Legendary Hero
7 Mythic Hero

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Daring!
Daring Points allow a hero to snatch victory from the deadly jaws of defeat!

Comic book heroes often triumph in the face of overwhelming odds. When all seems
lost, they make that one shot at the last possible moment to save the world from
certain doom. Sometimes, they do this because they are just that good at what they
do. Other times, heroes perform these miraculous deeds because they have the
Daring to try.

To be somewhat more specific, Daring allows a player to:

Move Damage points to a heros Drama card
Roll extra dice to attempt Actions that require multiple Successes
Re-roll Misses
Perform Dynamic Teamwork Actions
Alter the story itself
Anything else the Narrator feels like

Daring will be discussed in depth later on, but for now, also know that your hero
can also earn more Daring points in a number of ways:

Rolling a 6 when attempting an Action instantly earns 1 point of Daring
Performing notably heroic deeds
Performing notably foolish deeds that are nevertheless genre appropriate
Having the Narrator Activate one of your less convenient Details during the
game (this does not include the use of a Doom Card).
Whenever else the Narrator deems it to be appropriate

Dice Points!
Dice Points can be added to the result of a die roll, automatically changing the old
roll to a new one. Spending two Dice Points to change a 1 to a 3, means that die
was never a 1 to begin with. (This trick wont work against Arch-Villains, but
well discuss that later.)

Your heros pool of Dice Points is only refreshed at the start of a new game session.

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Damage, Drama, and Doom!
Your character has three Status Cards to monitor throughout the game.

Damage is a measure of your heros ability to stay active in the current scene. It can
represent actual physical injury, bodily restraint, loss of mental composure, or any
other sort of inconvenience that might keep a hero from taking action.

Drama is, in game terms, a place that Damage can be redirected to. However, each
time you fill up a Drama Card, the Narrator gets to add a Dramatic Complication
to your heros life!

Doom is yet another place for a hero to send redirected Damage points, but filling
up all of the space on your Doom Card is one of the most dangerous things a hero
can do!

Status Cards have three open spots on them. So, if your hero has two open
Damage Cards, they can take 6 points of Damage, three on each card.

Novice or Amateur heroes (with Drive rating of 1 or 2) start the game with two
Damage Cards, two Drama Cards, and one Doom Card, as shown below:

Damage
1 1
2 2
3 3
Drama
1 1
2 2
3 3
Doom
1
2
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Each time a Status Card is filled, there are consequences for your hero.

When a Damage Card is filled, your hero is out of the scene for a while (a turn or
two, etc). The reason for this is up to you and the Narrator, just come up with
something fun that seems to fit the situation. For example, lets say your hero with
bulletproof skin is taken out of a scene by a thug with a machine gun. Your
character couldnt have been hurt by the machine guns bullets, since your hero is
bullet proof. However, those same bullets could have set off some explosive
canisters behind the hero, or the ricochets could have endangered some bystanders,
etc. Either way, your hero is busy dealing with those consequences, and cannot
actively participate in the rest of the scene.

When all of your Damage Cards are filled, your hero is out of the scene entirely!
(The same guidelines for explaining this absence apply.)

Damage Cards are generally refreshed after the end of each scene, unless the
Narrator decides that a hero has suffered some sort of longer-lasting setback.
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Rather than suffer a point of Damage, a player can spend a point of Daring to move
that Damage point onto an open spot on one of their Drama Cards.

When a Drama Card is filled, the Narrator gets to add a Dramatic Complication to
your heros life. These complications will usually come from the description
provided in your characters Details section.

Drama Cards refresh at a slower rate than Damage Cards. A full Drama Card is
usually only refreshed at the end of a full game session.

A player can also spend a point of Daring to move an unwanted Damage point to an
open spot on one of their Doom Cards.

This is the least interesting way to fill a Doom Card, however, as we will discuss
further in the section on Taking Action!

When a Doom Card is filled, it stays filled until the Narrator decides to Bring
Doom down upon your character. This could be hours after the card is filled, or
years after the card is filled. So, be sure to take your time filling up those Doom
Cards!

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Datafile!
Your heros Datafile contains all the relevant information about your hero.

The format of the Datafile is up to you and your Narrator. In general, you should
cover all of your heros relevant personal information, skills, powers, equipment,
and so forth.

When in doubt, keep this in mind: A heros Datafile determines what a hero is
capable of. The Narrator can use a heros Datafile to help determine just how
many Successes a hero needs to roll in order to perform an Action.

A possible format for a Datafile could be:

Real Name:
Aliases:
Group Affiliation:
Skills:
Powers:
Equipment:
Height: Weight: Eyes: Hair:

Or, whatever works for you and your Narrator.


Details!
Your heros Details can describe anything you want to flesh out the characters
background. You want to provide several opportunities within your Details that the
Narrator can use to make your heros life more difficult.

Why do you want to do this? Well, for one thing, it helps the game feel more like a
comic book.

Also, when the Narrator decides to Activate one of your Details to mess with your
hero, you get at least one point of Daring to use later on in the game.

(However, if a Narrator uses a Detail as they Bring Down Doom on your hero, you
get no points of Daring. You brought that down on yourself, eh?)
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Taking Action!
Okay, so now you have a character to play. What next?

Well, since that character is a superhero, youll probably want to start getting into
some good old-fashioned comic book style action!

Whenever you want your hero to do something, your Narrator will tell you how
many Successes you need to roll in order to perform that task.

If the Narrator feels that the task would be easy for your hero to perform, then no
dice rolling might be called for at all.

However, if the task would be challenging for some reason, then the task becomes
known as an Action, and out come the dice!

There are no strict rules for determining how many Successes your hero needs in
order to perform an Action. Instead, your Narrator will use your characters
Datafile, combined with their own judgment, to come up with a number of
Successes required based on the situation at hand.

In general, if an Action would be about equal to your characters abilities, the
Narrator would require 1 Success.

For Actions farther outside of your heros capabilities, more Successes would be
required. Asking a player to roll more than 4 Successes should be a rare thing,
though, and such Actions should generally be ruled as being Beyond that heros
reach.

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Rolling the Dice
Once you know how many Successes your hero requires, you need to start rolling
some dice.

This game uses the common six-sided die. When you roll one of these dice, a result
of 1 is a Failure, a 2 is a Miss, a result of 3 through 5 is a Success, and a
result of 6 is a Triumph.

If you roll a Failure or a Miss, your character is about to take a point of Damage.

You can avoid this Damage by spending Daring or Dice Points.

1 point of Daring allows you to re-roll one Miss, or move one point of Damage to an
open spot on one of your Drama or Doom Cards. (Daring cannot be spent to re-
roll a Failure, but it can be spent to move the Damage resulting from that roll)

Dice Points allow you to increase the result of a die rolled by the number of Dice
Points spent. However, even if you increase the result of a die to a 6, this does not
turn the result of the die into a Triumph. (Also, you cannot spend Dice Points to
change the result of a Failure when you are facing off with an Arch-Villain)

In summary, the dice rolling rules break down like this:

1 = Failure
2 = Miss
3-5 = Success
6= Triumph (Hero earns 1 Daring point)
Daring = Move Damage to other Cards, re-roll Misses
Dice Points = Add to die rolls on a 1 to 1 basis

Multiple Successes
If your hero needs more than one Success to perform an Action, you will need to
roll more than one die. For each die that you want to roll beyond the first, you must
spend one Daring point.

Therefore, if an Action requires 1 Success, and you want to roll 2 dice to attempt it,
that second die will cost you 1 Daring point before any dice are actually rolled.

Also: remember that attempting an Action that requires multiple Successes puts
your hero at risk of multiple points of Damage. With great power comes great
responsibility!

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Dynamic Teamwork Actions
A Narrator could allow a team of heroes to work together at a task that requires
several Successes, of course.

Such acts of Dynamic Teamwork would require each player to spend as many
Daring Points as there are characters performing the action. (If four heroes are
working together, each one spends 4 Daring points)

Then, the Narrator determines a number of Successes needed for the action to
work.

Every player then rolls dice. If the total number of Successes equals or exceeds the
Narrators requirement: huzzah for the heroes.

Dynamic Teamwork Actions should require lots of animated and exciting
descriptions from the players, of course.

Daring to Change the Story
A player may spend points of Daring to actually alter the details of the story (with
their Narrators permission, of course).

Altering the story is something that the Narrator sets the price for. Small
alterations may cost 1 Daring, or they might even be free. Larger changes will carry
higher prices.

Constantly asking for the Super Police to bail your hero out of trouble will not only
be expensive, but it will likely soon be vetoedor worse. Try to keep your story
alterations interesting and not simply beneficial to your character.

Laughing in the Face of Doom!
If you really want your hero to succeed at an Action, you can declare that you are
Laughing in the Face of Doom! You must do this before any dice are rolled.
Afterward, your hero not only instantly succeeds at the Action, but they do so in the
most spectacular way possible (according to the Narrator). However, your hero
earns no Daring for this Action, and automatically fills one spot on their Doom
Card!

NOTE: A hero may not use this tactic against an Arch-Villain.

But enough about heroes and all their spotlight-hogging shenanigans! What about
the bad guys?
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The Never-ending Battle!
You now know how to perform Actions, but how does this game handle combat
between heroes and villains?

Easy: it handles them the exact same way (mostly).

When you want your hero to attack a villain, the Narrator will size up your chances
and tell you how many Successes you need to come out (relatively) unscathed.

You roll the dice, and any Successes you end up with count as Damage against the
villain, and any Misses or Failures that you are stuck with must be dealt with as
usual.

Likewise, when the villain is attacking you, the Narrator will decide how many
Successes you need to avoid the attack based on the description of your defensive
response.

Villains and Damage Cards
A villain really only needs one stat: their Damage Card.

This card can be very different than a heros card, and it can change from scene to
scene.

For example, an Arch-Villain may only have one Damage Card with 4 open spaces
on it in one scene, because the villain is simply not willing to stick around for very
long at the moment. When that Damage Card is filled, the Arch-Villain simply
takes their leave of the scene.

Later on, in the final battle, the Arch-Villain may have three Damage Cards, each
with 4 open spaces. This time, the bad guy is ready to throw down for real!

It all depends on how much punishment the Narrator wants the bad guy to be able
to take, and how often they want it to be possible for the bad guy to be taken out of
the scene temporarily. (In the second example above, the Arch-Villain can take a
lot of hits before going down for good, but they can also be taken out of the scene
temporarily twice before that.)

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Arch Villains
There are some other details that set Arch-Villains apart from the rest of the bad
guys in this game.

First: any villain can be an Arch-Villain. Furthermore, if a bad guy is used as an
Arch-Villain in one particular story, they may or may not have that that distinction
during their next appearance in the series. The Arch-Villain is the main bad guy
of a story, and they might not be the big Kahuna in the next story.

Furthermore, players cannot use Dice Points to change the result of a 1 (Failure)
rolled in any conflict against an Arch-Villain.

Also, any 1 rolled against an Arch-Villain automatically fills one open spot on that
heros Doom Card. This is in addition to any Damage caused by the 1.

And, as you may have guessed, a player may not choose to Laugh in the Face of
Doom when they are faced with an Arch-Villain.

Seriously, these guys mean business.


Minions
Every Arch-Villain needs an army of Minions to do their bidding, right?

Well, here they are!

In the game, Minions should only have a single Damage Card with one or two open
spaces on it.

Also, if a player rolls a 6 while fighting Minions, they can choose to spend the
point of Daring they just earned an instantly defeat a number of Minions equal to
their Drive +3.

However, when Minions attack a hero en masse, they double the cost of all Daring
and Dice Points that are spent toward Failures and Misses.

So, it is in a players best interests to get those Minion numbers down, and also to
give the Narrator a good reason for believing that their hero could not currently be
surrounded by enough Minions to trigger the double cost penalty.
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Options!
Leveling Up
Generally, superheroes dont Level Up, or so it is often said.

Still, there are many ways to introduce a sense of progress to the game, even
without handing out ever-increasing super-powers.

One such way is to reward higher Drive Ratings.

Yes, those are already rewarded in starting Daring Points, but this might work from
your game, too:

Drive Rating Cards
1-2 2 Damage, 2 Drama, 1 Doom
3-4 2 Damage, 3 Drama, 1 Doom
5-6 3 Damage, 3 Drama, 1 Doom
7 3 Damage, 3 Drama, 2 Doom

Using this system, more experienced (or more fictionally important heroes)
become even more resourceful and harder to put down. A Drive 7 hero with 2
Doom Cards to fill could even keep pushing his luck while the Narrator has a Doom
Card to play on him!

You could also allow the characters Powers and Abilities or Details sections to
be re-written to reflect advances in skill, raw power, or resources.


Solo Heroes
Heroes tend to hold up better against the bad guys in their own solo title than they
do in the team books.

To reflect this, the Narrator could give an extra Damage, Drama, or Doom Card to
a solo player. This shouldnt be done every time a group of players splits up, but
when you only have one Narrator and one player at the session.

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Powers!

Okay, this game pretty much throws out the concept of the character sheet, or at
least with most of it.

If thats too much for you, try adding something like this to your game:

Every character has a list of Powers from which they can draw 10 Automatic
Power-Successes.

Each character should make a list of 4 traits:

1) The first will be the characters signature power or ability. Its what they
are best at, and what they are known for. This ability will have 4 empty
boxes drawn next to it, much like the open spaces on a Damage, Drama, or
Doom Card.
2) Next up, write down an ability, power, or gadget (or whatever, really), that
the character relies on almost as much as the first example. This one will
have 3 empty boxes next to it.
3) Your third entry in the list should be a little less powerful than the second, or
less important to the character, and it will have 2 boxes next to it.
4) Finally, the last entry in the list will have 1 lonely open box next to it.

For example, good ol Slingshot would have a list like this:

Trick Shots
Trick Pellets
Parkour
Sling-cycle

So, if Slingshot was trying to pull off a complicated shot, his player could fill in one of
the boxes next to his Trick Shots Power, and count that box as an automatic
Success.

One recommended limit to this activity is that a character should never be able to
use a number of Power-Successes higher than their Drive rating during any one
Action. So, Slingshot could only ever call in one Power-Success at a time, since he
has a Drive of 1. This limit would really allow the more experienced heroes to
shine, like they tend to do in the comics.

Players can do this before or after dice are rolled, and they dont have to decide on it
until they hear just how many Successes are required of them.

Whats more, if the Narrator will allow it, a player could use Power-Successes from
more than one Power in an attempt to perform a single action! If the Drive limit is
in effect, though, only heroes with higher Drive ratings could try this.

Power Boxes, once filled in, should not be opened again until the end of the
adventure, or at least until the next session.

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You could also choose to tie this concept in with Leveling Up, allowing character to
earn more Powers or Power Boxes, etc, as they gain more experience.

Its important to note that this list of Powers should not be seen as a list of all that
the character is capable of. This is merely a list of the things that the hero is very
well practiced at, or relies on rather frequently.