Roles

A character’s role gives him a clear cut advantage and makes him excel in a specific field. Having a role confers special abilities that cannot be accessed with skills or upgrades.

A character may have only one role, and if he wishes to change it for another, he must announce the switch during the refresh and go through the next session without the benefits of his old or new roles. Note that it also helps to prepare by acquiring useful skills before the switch. A solo without firearms training is only a fractional solo.

Solo: Combat sense

The solo is the combat specialist. His reaction time under fire is a fraction of a normal human being. And he has an uncanny ability of knowing how a person will move before they even lift a foot.

In conflicts, the solo can interrupt any character at any point in their turn and act before their action resolves. The interrupted character’s action resumes as intended after the solo finishes, if it still makes sense. If it doesn’t make sense anymore, then that action is forfeit. The solo can interrupt at any point, and if the interrupted character is moving, the solo can elect to interrupt at any zone the interrupted character is moving through.

Gatto is being chased by the police. The cops decide to blow the tires out on Gatto’s VW Camper and open fire (Maneuver with Firearms to place Flat tires on the van) but after the referee announces the cops' intent, Gatto decides to interrupt. He takes a Move action with Driving to put some distance between the Police car and his Camper. He manages to increase the range from 0 to 3 zones, which becomes the target number to beat for the cops' maneuver. The cops cannot change their mind now, and take a long shot that fails. The camper’s tires are intact.

A solo cannot directly interrupt another solo, but an interrupted character can be interrupted by multiple solos during his turn.

Nomad: Family

The nomad is probably the only truly social edgerunner. He really cares about his comrades, and treats them as family. It is easier to cope with the dark future if you have a nomad for a friend.

The nomad can give his unused stress track and consequence slots to his comrades. If a comrade takes a hit that he’d rather not mark as stress or a consequence, the nomad may offer to take the hit instead. Note that this does not mean that the nomad actually takes a bullet, just that the nomad’s presence makes it easier for a friend to take another bullet and still keep going.

If the nomad takes a consequence for a friend, the consequence taken is on the friend, not the nomad. The friend is still prone to any tags and compels on the consequence. The nomad is not. He only provides the breathing room. Also, any upgrades that increase the capacity of a consequence slot are valid if on the friend, and invalid if on the nomad.

The nomad can only offer to take stress or a single consequence from a single hit. Some things are a bit too overwhelming.

This is probably why big nomad gangs are scary. You can’t take them out unless you take them all out.

Media: Credibility

The media is the ultimate social fighter. She can project her opinion across different channels without difficulty. She is taken seriously in every circle. Her words hurt giants even after she has left the scene.

The media can participate in faction-to-faction conflicts and directly take all conflict actions against factions. She may only target the prestige stress track of a faction when taking an action that requires a stress track as a target.

Rockerboy: Sway

The rockerboy is adept at moving crowds. He can mesmerize the masses and subtly shift their opinions.

The rockerboy’s move another action in conflicts has an area effect. A single move another action can affect any number of entities on the map as the rockerboy desires. Each entity defends with their own modifiers(range etc.) and skills, and the direction of motion must be defined as ‘towards the rockerboy’ or ‘away from the rockerboy’. If this results in any ambiguity about where an entity will end up, it becomes the defender’s choice.

Corporate: Power

The corporate has spent his life vying for positions of power, using every clean and dirty tactic there is. And his efforts have paid off in the form of power, money and perks. He is the person that others answer to. He is the one that sips his expensive wine while others do the dirty work.

The corporate has access to his own faction. He can effectively run that faction as an alternate character. This can be one of the previously created factions(if it fits the rules below) or a new faction can be created.

A faction controlled by a corporate has special restrictions placed on its three characteristics. The total value of this faction’s disposition, focus and influence cannot exceed the value of the corporate’s Organization skill.

The organization skill is a special skill that helps a corporate keep his staff and resources in effective working order. It only affects the cap on faction characteristics. The slot it occupies on the skill pyramid represents the time the corporate devotes to running his faction.

If you want to play a lower level executive in a big organization or megacorp, you can model a branch, department or chapter of that outfit as a separate faction having its own aspects and characteristics.

Note that other characters may also land in a position of power, especially with an appropriate upgrade. The difference is, they do not directly control that faction. The referee controls their faction for them (or against them) and only hands over direct control when he wants to.

Enforcer: Authority

The enforcer is the most direct manifestation of law and order in the dark future, and that is something to be respected or feared depending on where you stand.

An enforcer may make an Intimidation maneuver to place the special aspect Stop in the name of law! (or equally cheesy phrase) on any number of opponents present at a scene. Everybody defends separately.

When this aspect is later compelled, it takes two fate points instead of one to refuse it. The enforcer always gets the extra point regardless of the compeller.

The aspect persists until the end of the scene as long as the enforcer is still there.

Netrunner: Alternate

The netrunner is the man that has become one with the machine. He thinks in binary, and speaks in C++ for the convenience of humans. The netrunner not only runs the net but rather lives a whole life in it. He assumes another personality while in the net.

The netrunner has an alternate identity with its own name, personality and skill set in the net. The alternate is active only in the net and offers a way to build a fully net-focused character with its own skills, while the regular character can focus on real life.

The alternate does not have upgrades. Instead, he has mods, the software equivalent of upgrades. Mods augment the alternate the same way upgrades augment a regular character.

Fixer: Entourage

A fixer knows everyone and everything. She is the one to go to when you need something. An object, a contact, information, anything. Including a crash course in indefinite pronouns.

For this purpose, the fixer has a huge network of people doing things for him. He deals in favors, giving one here, collecting another there. And there is always someone who owes him something.

A fixer has a number of secondary characters under the player’s direct control, always ready to do the fixer’s bidding. Create an extra as a lieutenant or two goons as henchmen. Or even get yourself a gang represented as level 5 mooks

The fixer may replace these characters during a refresh.

Techie: Jury rig

Upgrade anything. Mass production is efficient for the manufacturer, not for the end user. The techie exists to reverse that. Quickly.

Every character can create scene aspects by maneuvering. The techie can create scene upgrades. These upgrades can be applied to any type of entity on the scene, and last until the end of the scene. The techie makes the skill roll for the maneuver normally, and he can use shifts from this roll to pay for an upgrade.

The cost in shifts of an upgrade is equal to the base stress level of the upgrade effect. The techie may choose to include constraints to reduce the effective stress level when the upgrade is being used, but constraints do not reduce the required number of shifts. If the recipent of the upgrade is a kind of entity that doesn’t have an appropriate stress track for receiving stress inflicted by the upgrade, the techie may also define a stress track for this purpose and spend additional shifts to set its stress threshold.