Draft RPG

*** WARNING: VERY DRAFT ***

Over the past few years, Tim has been working on an RPG for Antares. It intended to follow Rick’s (very old) idea of basing skills on a D10 and, where it could, use all the concepts and weapons of the original game. Unfortunately – due to the way Antares has gone – it now won’t be produced as finishing off a full RPG, with everything, and laying it up, with images, into a professional-grade book (or books) is just not possible.

Rather than let it languish, Tim has released it at its current stage of development. This means it is missing a fair deal, such as starships – but then, most Antarean starship action is either aboard a starship, wreck or TOR and space battles are between rather large ships over which a PC has little control (this is not the Empire or Imperium), a lot of vehicles and a bunch of less-important equipment.

What it does have is a fair amount of character-level lore and it plays pretty well for smaller encounters, both combat and skill-based. It is gritty and detailed, in some respects adding to the Antares wargame concepts. Indeed, its development approach has been to add things in and then simplifying during extended playtesting – which never happened. The intention was that it could be used, for example, to roleplay parts of a much wider battle, as well as to allow players to explore and interact with a fascinating universe.

In its present form, the RPG is playable at party level, with interior or wilderness encounters between PCs and NPCs. We’d recommend three PCs, at least, to cover the skill trees.

The Core System

The core rules are from a system Tim’s been working on for over 20 years and has been used in various guises at wargame conventions (notable the marvelous and much-missed Conception, down on the South Coast). This has been honed into the D10+ RPG System (or ‘D10+ RPG’ for short).

At its core, the system has a relatively simple task mechanic based on skills: roll a D10, add in a skill level and bonuses from traits, assists, and a relevant characteristic, and try to get over 11 or more (or 12 or 13 if it’s a really tough campaign).

If a PC is acting against an NPC, such as sneaking vs spotting, then the task check is opposed and the winner between the two is the character who ended up with the highest value from their task check.

The original skills covered fantasy and another SF universe of Tim’s but have been ported to Antares. The hierarchical skill system can be as detailed as players wish, though it has been abstracted to just two layers: a root skill or skillset, such as Athletics or Engineering, and a specialism depending on that, such as Engineering.Power.

It’s easier to develop a specialism rather than a skillset as learning everything about starship Engineering is much more difficult compared with a focus on power plants (Engineering.Power). But players and GMs might prefer a more detailed insight, especially when encountering radically different technology (Isorian biotech, Virai computing or Ghar tech, anyone?), so we allow for the ‘origin’ of a piece of technology.

Frankly, we found that the origin rules rarely need to be applied.

Characteristics are: Agility (Ag), Strength (St), Endurance (En), Intellect (In) and Empathy (Em). Damage is taken to a relevant characteristic, so combat damage is normally taken to a physical characteristic. As a characteristic takes damage, so the bonus it adds decreases in line with that reduction. There are injury and Medic rules (and medi-drone rules) but the longer-term aspects of those were not fully tested.

Energy weapon damage is horrible; mag weapon damage less so, but nasty; but a javelin is only really of concern to a lightly-armed character. Armour can project armour fields (such as reflex or hyperlight) which soak up damage and might put a sink mass pin on a character until they can stop taking fire.

None of the detail need be used, however: it’s up to you!

Character Generation

Chargen is fairly detailed and is a mini-game in its own right, much like Runequest in Glorantha or the ancient Traveller (though PCs don’t die in Antares D10+ RPG). It’s probably best run-through at a Turn 0 session where the GM can also lay out the type of campaign they wish to run.

During chargen, players are given a number of Build Points, with which they can buy a character morph (a panhuman is cheap, a Krasz less so, and a NuHu or Algoryn Optimate is quite pricey). Players then guide their PCs through a number of episodes of prior experience. Each episode can be in a different occupation, such Survey, Freeborn Merchant, Boromite Miner, IMTel Inculturation (or colonial) services, the Space Navy, and so on, and provides a narrative back-story as to how the PC got where they are.

The prior experience episodes are of varying length adds skills, traits (intrinsic capabilities) and augments (yes, Antares does have augments, though the IMTel is wary of anything that could harm an individual) and may result in the character being promoted. The prior experience also adds Contacts, which allow players to create inter-player plot-hooks, gain information or even source rare equipment. Contacts might even be used as the source of missions or adventures.

Equipment

Almost all the weapons and armour in the Antares 2 wargame are available for use, plus a few more besides to deal with Feral worlds. Weapon damage is still measured in SV, but the actual damage inflicted is very high compared to a character’s ‘s stats: armour is vital – and may also add benefits to a character’s capabilities (EM, UV and IR spectrum scanning) or give bonuses to targeting when shooting at a person wearing technology of a lower level.

During the playtest, players found a NuHu with a combat-enabled nano-buddy to be deadly when used carefully, but potentially a glass hammer if exposed too much – which we think reflects their capabilities nicely! A Boromite discovered that handling Lavans can be tricky, devastatingly effective when used properly, but perhaps a bit too destructive when controlled. And all learned to be wary of plasma carbines…

We intend to add to the equipment sections as we go on, but what is currently available can support smaller-scale campaigns.

Downloads

As ever, the downloads are free from here: please respect the copyright, though there is a ‘print for own use’ acknowledgement in the front. They are not fully tidied up, have few diagrams, may not have not been fully proofread in their current form (but in previous forms, yes), so Tim may well update them, time and volunteers permitting.

• Core System: This is the D10+ RPG system adapted for the Antares Universe: Antares D10+ RPG Core System 0.17J
• Players’ Guide: A guide to creating characters with a prior experience mini-game as well as a quick-gen process. Updated 2023-07-08 into a not-so-draft status with better promotion chances, some more consistent wording and better links to languages: Antares D10+ RPG Players’ Guide 0.18A.
  Errata: p.49, Engineering assignment, characteristic increase should be ‘Characteristic In+1/7’.
• Equipment Guide: excluding starships (the RPG and universe isn’t Traveller!): Antares D10+ RPG Equipment Guide 0.17K
• A4, 2-sided character sheet: Antares RPG Character Sheet
• A5, 2-up character sheet: Antares RPG Character Sheet 2-UpA5
• Freeborn Occupation: Covering all four Freeborn occupations: Crew, Merchant, Vardanari and general defence/adventurer/Freeborn mercenary (domari), plus Salvageer: Freeborn Occupation Supplement 0.17E 2023-07-09.
• Boromite Clans & guilds: covering life amongst the Boromites, whether as a Miner, Builder, Lavamite Trainer, Security Guard, Management or Shipwrangler. This is a little different from other occupations as it allows for Boromites to develop in their own, unique culture: Boromite Occupation Supplement 0.17 C.
• Ghar Empire occupation, for those who wish more in-depth Outcasts or who may wish to play groups or Ghar. Please be aware this is very experimental: New Ghar Empire Occupation Supplement 0.17 A.
• Collated .zip: A zip of all the core rules and character generation supplements, but not the playtest campaign, as of 2023-07-09: Antares RPG latest zipfile.
• Example Character: Boromite Lavan handler (m, 28 ) with a varied background: Male Boromite Lavamite Handler 0.18 A.pdf
• Example Character: PanHuman Spill Navy Lieutenant (Repairs/Gunnery) (m/f/x,48) with an interesting career: Panhuman Navy Gunnery Lieutenant 0.18A.pdf
• Playtest Campaign: a zip file with all the usable documents, images and powerpoint slides from the playtest campaign. It’s probably more than you’ll need, but it gives an idea of how a campaign was approached using this system, complete with NPC groups and BP rewards. It was focused around the hunt for TOR 563 and the path of the Virai – where they were first picked up and what systems they might have infected. The Hunt of the Exnarkh playtest campaign zipfile.

Remember: these are a release of a system that never quite came to fruition, so it may well be buggy. We recommend the rules are treated delicately and, if they don’t work, just do what you seem fit (a prime rule of RPGs anyway). Enjoy!