Mechanics

The mechanics of Rising of Chaos focuses around Combat and Skills that cannot be replicated through real world aptitude. Most of the skills and abilities in the game use a main skill check system called the Omni Deck System. What follows are the very basics.

What is the Omni Deck?

• It is used to perform specific actions in the system.
• It is a deck of cards made up of 22 standard sleeved playing cards.
• 5 of each suit in number cards and two black jokers.
• Inside each card the system provides a blue slip.
• A Red Slip appears in all but the Black Joker Cards

When is it used and How Does it work?

• It is used when you are called on to make a skill check.
• To succeed a skill check you draw a card.
• If the suit from your Omni Deck matches any of the suits required by the skill check you have passed.

Any Other Times?

• If you enter a Death Count and are brought back to consciousness.

How does that work?

• Deathcount usually happens during a Combat
• When combat has finished pull any card and remove the blue slip: This is a Wound Card.
• This will tell you how badly you are wounded and what to do.

What is the red slip for?

• After a scene or combat in which you have cast magic you will draw a red slip: A Backlash Card.
• This will explain the after effects of your casting.

Combat

• When we are hit in combat or struck with a damaging magical effect we need to understand damage, know when to fall down and when to be dead.
• Each character starts with 3 HITS
• Each blow that they receive causes them to lose one of those
• Any “Mighty”, “Giant” or “Supernatural Blow” has a slilghtly more powerful effect:
  • Might causes 2 HITS, Giant causes 3 HITS and Supernatural causes 4 HITS
  • Additionally anyone struck by such a blow becomes WindedWinded

Winded

• A Winded Character must roleplay being slightly off kilter but more than capable of standard Fighting and difficult casting.
• They may not use Tactical Points at all whilst Winded.
• If they attempt to cast Magic they increase the Magnitude that they are attempting by 2 Magnitudes. A 1 Magnitude spell would become a 3 Magnitude spell.
• The Winded condition lasts for approximately 10 seconds

Being Wounded

• When you have no HITS left you fall to the floor incapacitated
• Whilst incapacitated you can call for help and crawl slowly around.
• Whilst incapacitated you count to approximately 20 in seconds
• This is called your Incap Count.
• After the count ends you fall unconscious and start to die.

Dying

• Now you start counting again.
• This time though it is a Death Count.
• If you reach 30 seconds you have died.
• If you are healed back to positive HITS before you die you are ready to go again.
• However at the end of combat you now have to draw a Wound Card from your Omni Deck

Being Healed

• There are two ways to be healed in The Rising of Chaos: Magically or Medically.
• These are described in detail later but the very immediate guidlelines to remember are as follows:
  • If you are upright and not in your Incap Count you may be healed immediately by Magic for 1 HIT+ or slowly via Chirurgery for 1 HIT+.
  • If you are in your Incap or Death Count you may be healed magically only by the Spell Fervour which will return you to one HIT or via various Chirurgical procedures.
  • If you have pulled a Wound Card they are, majoratively, healed exclusively via Chirurgery.

Wound cards

• When you are wounded it is going to be in one of four ways:
  • Rain of Blows – I was hit a lot of times, this is most likely why I fell over.
  • Cleave – I was hit really hard once this is why I fell over.
  • Magic – I was hit by magic a lot, this is most likely why I fell over.
  • Poison or Disease – I am suffering from a malady, this is most likely why I fell over.
• Look at your Wound Card and pick the result most applicable to why you fell over.
• If the result has a card suit on it this will tell your healer how difficult it is to treat your injury.
• Do not replace the card in the deck: Anyone checking your injury will have to use the card to know what to do.
• Make sure you roleplay your injury, don’t run around with your wound card – Act Out what is wrong with you.
• Any effort to cure a Wound Card by someone with the correct skill halts the ongoing effect (I.e. a death count) which will not resume until they have failed in curing that wound.
• If you are not sure about drawing a Wound Card a rule of thumb should be: I think I should. For example if you hit the deck incapacitated repeatedly in a combat but don’t enter Death Count you may still feel you should draw a card.
• The process of drawing should take no longer than 10 seconds.

How dangerous are Wound Cards?

• Pretty dangerous as they show how tough you are and how resilient you are to death.
• Starting Wound Cards contain the worst injuries
• Each Wound Card can be enhanced to produce injuries of a reduced Severity.
• This can be done multiple times
• A character can increase the rank of their cards as they go through their career
• They may also wear armour or purchase skills that make them more resilient allowing them to pick lesser damaging effects from the wound card.
• The Wounds on the cards will be changed on a regular basis so that the player does not get used to the dynamic of each card.

Poison and Disease?

• Sometimes you may be under the effect of a lingering malady.
• These will be clearly explained to you but as an example: “Lose 2 HITS at the end of any combat as the poison takes hold – This is immeasurably painful.”
• If this puts you down at the end of a fight this is when you read the Poison and Disease

Rules of Thumb

• The game is about roleplaying and reacting to things in the coolest manner that you can.
• The rules outlined so far are designed to give some structure to combat and to remove the need for any refs from your day to day life.

Rule of Cool

• If it feels cool and you feel like you are in a movie then it is probably right.
• You and the rest of the cast are the big damn hero/anti hero of said movie so you should have all the best scenes and best lines.
• So long as you stick to the safety rules, which are much longer and much more complicated you should be fine. inappropriate

One Second and three seconds

• Sometimes it looks cool to go for a flurry of blows which is fine
• But that as a rough guideline you should only be taking 1 HIT per second no matter how many times one person is hitting you.
• When you use some of the skills described later in combat or you use an effect try and put about three seconds between each one for the scene to recover.

Rollovers

• An Event is filmed in a number of Acts that are determined by the Directors/Storytellers.
• In the act are a number of scenes whose duration is a number of lined encounters.
• Most magics have durations based on this:
  • Per Rollover.
  • Per Scene.
• Most Omni Deck skills can be used per scene before replenishing.
• Sometimes combats go on for a while and you have some skills that say “You may use these skills once each combat”
• So you might hear a call of Rollover which could be a whistle blast – The exact nature of how a rollover is signalled will be explained by your Ref team.
• At that point Tactical Points roll over and you get to use them all over again.

Being Shot

• Arrows and Bolts might hit you. You should act as though you have been hit by a fast moving, heavy projectile.

Ribbons

• You might see ribbons tied to things like trees or props – If you have been given a skill sheet at the start of the day react to them, if you haven’t….don’t.

Magic

The system does a lot of magic things because it is high fantasy and adding magic to your characters CV makes you interesting in different ways but equally things get a little more complicated.

Forms

• There are five forms of MAGIC
• They share the same principal directions for the game

Crew vs. Players

• Players and Crew use magic in very different ways.
• As mentioned the players are big damn heroes in the film and the crew is the rest of the cast and quite often the villains of the piece.

Spells

• Spells fall into two categories:
  • Combat which requires tighter mechanics than other areas
  • Transcendental which is looser and more dynamic for player interaction
• Spells are ranked in Magnitude between 0 and 10: As spells rise in power they become more powerful and more difficult to cast.
  • 0 – Cantrips that have little effect on the game and are free to cast.
  • 1-3 – Easy to cast and basic spells.
  • 4-6 – Harder to cast elementary spells that will have more game impact!
  • 7-9 – Getting even harder to cast but getting quite powerful; they may change a scene!
  • 10 – Really hard to cast but really powerful and may affect the outcome of the day!

Combat Casting the spells

• Basically they take some time to cast which is about the same for all forms
• Roughly 4 seconds per Spell
• Each form has its own described flourish to casting like big words or using props
• At the end of a Scene or Combat, when there is no more fighting, draw a Backlash Card and follow the instructions therein.
• This should take about 10 Seconds.

Combat Casting the spells

• Outside of combat they take about 30 seconds per Magnitude to cast
• At the end of a Scene or Combat, when there is no more fighting, draw a Backlash Card and follow the instructions therein.

Can I just keep casting?

• Yes you can with one small caveat you have to wait between spells
• The three second rule is applied between spell casting
• So cast, wait 3 seconds before using another skill or casting another spell

What is a Backlash check?

• It is a pull from your Omni Deck.
• Each card contains positive and negative effects.
• These effects are more potent depending on the magnitude of the greatest spell cast in the scene.

What happens if I pass or fail?

• This will be described on your card

Is there any way I can ignore effects on the Backlash Card?

• Any flavour of caster comes with what is called Defiance
• When you experience a negative effect you can spend a point of Defiance to be ok or you can make a casting check.
• If you make the check you gain the beneficial effect on the card but if you fail you take the negative effect and may no longer use defiance.
• Defiance comes back every day and you get more as you play.

When do I pull a Backlash Card?

• At the end of every combat you have cast in draw one
• After any scene in which you have cast a few spells that have affected the outcome of the scene draw one
• Any time you cast one spell outside a combat that is under heavy pressure, saved someone’s life or is just generally dramatic draw one.

How do I know what difficulty the card is?

• Outside of combat you draw for each spell at the conclusion of that spell.
• After a combat is slightly different:
  • This is Called Combat Magnitude or Comag to differentiate.
  • Combat Spells come between 1 and 5 Magnitudes
  • At the end of combat take the spell that you have cast at the highest Magnitude.
  • Double that Magnitude and draw at that level of Backlash