eCollapse is a sourcebook for the Wild Talents roleplaying game, which uses a

game system called the One-Roll Engineor if you use the Smear of Destiny rules
in the Appendix, its a roleplaying game in its own right.

Thanks to eCollapses patient playtesters: Ville Halonen, Shannon Obendorf,

Dave Michalak, Juli Aldredge, Jonathan Davis, Jonne Arjoranta, Tommi Brander,
Antti Luukkonen, Terho Reuhkala, and Tuomo Sipola. special thanks to the
inspirational stock artists of www.deviantart.com, whose work was crucial to the
first edition of eCollapse.

Written by Greg Stolze, 2010. Illustrated by Todd Shearer, 2010. Page design
by Jessica Hopkins. The One-Roll Engine is Greg Stolze. The Wild Talents rules
are Dennis Detwiller, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivey and Greg Stolze. All rights
reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means without
the express written permission of the copyright holders, except for those pages
marked Permission granted to reproduce for personal use only.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity with actual people and events, past or
present, is purely coincidental and unintentional except for those people and
events described in historical context.

eCollapse
Published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment
www.cubicle7.co.uk
ISBN 978-1-907204-69-2
Stock number CB75405

Developed by Arc Dream Publishing

www.arcdream.com

Night Heroes

Chapter 1
Where Are We and What Are We
Doing Here?
10
The Setting
Trope?

Chapter 3

What Does Situational Mean?

30

Baby, I Love Drugs

31

Cant Give Direction

31

Cant Shut Up

31

Important Things To Know About

the Dystopian Future. I Mean,
Present.
42

Cant Take Direction

31

10

Compromised Immune System

31

10

Dont Yell at Me!

32

Easy Pigeon

32

Homely

32

Sucker For a Pretty Face

32

Boosts and Mods and Jacks, Oh My! 11

Masks and Capes and Evil and Good 12
Back to the Game
13

Thanksgiving Was Hell, Like Always 33

Chapter 2
Identity, Crisis

29
30

Skill
Weakness

What You Stand For

What You Stand Against

33
33

16

Ideologies

34

Superpower

Available Goodies

16
16

Anarchy (+)/Crime ()

34

Social Justice (+)/Socialism ()

34

Acid Barf Mod

17

Aero-Ink Mod

17

Amphibo-Mod

18

Amygdala Boost

18

Boneshock Boost

19

Coordination Boost

19

Coprocessor Mod

19

Environmental Adaptation Mod

20

Explosive Production Mod

21

Healing Boost

22

Knockout Gas Mod

22

Linguo-Jam Boost

22

I Want Some More

23

Memory Boost

23

Olfactory Mod

23

Pattern Matching Boost

24

Pharmacretion Mod

24

Screamer Mod

24

Secondary Endoskeleton Mod

25

Sensory Boost

26

Spatial Orientation Boost

26

Speed Boost

27

Strength Boost

28

Unconventional Move Mod

28

Proactive Democracy (+)/Imperialism

()

34

Peace

34

Hypocrite? Or Merely an
Uncritical Thinker?

35

Unlimited Technological Expansion 35

Unlimited Access to Drugs

36

Patriotism (+)/Jingoism ()

36

Multiculturalism

36

Religion (Pick One)

36

Unchained Capitalism!

36

Environmentalism

37

Unique Rights for Natural Born

Humans

37

Vigilantism

38

This Time Its Personal.

38

insert name here (PC)

38

insert name here (GMC)

39

insert name here (Organization or

Corporation)

39

Apocalypse, the
Army, the
May I Have a Genre, Please?

42
43
44

Artificial Intelligence
44
Cerebrally Enhanced Companion Animals,
aka Seekas aka Reebs aka Creepy
Critters
46
Chimerae
46
I Wanna Be a Chimera!

47

Cops, the
Ecollapse
eCollapse, the
ECO-lapse
Energy
Fashion
Free Press, the
Petro-Bio-Industrial Complex, the
Petrophage, the
Salvation Germ, the
U.S. Gubmint, the
Venice

48
48
49
50
50
51
52
53
54
55
55
56

Chapter 4
Technology You Can Use to Kill
People And/Or Not Die

57

Ceramic Impact Plate

57
Civilian HUDset
57
Cling L adder
58
EMP Cannon
58
Fresh Knife
59
Gauss Guns
60
Gibsons
61
Impact Hairbag
61
Microwave Wand
61
Reactive Memory Plastic Armor (RMPA
or Rumpus Suit)
62
Ripperguns
63
Spoiler Gas
64
Switchblade Implants
64
Wiggles
64

Chapter 5
Hero, Villain and Crux
Using Something Else

Roles and Episodes

King of Hearts : Hero
King of Clubs: Villain
Mmm ! Now Thats Villainy!

68
68

68
69
69
70

King of Spades: Crux

Bystander
Always and Never

71
72
73

Playing it Right

73

Chapter 6

Hurting
An Example of Play.
Another Example of Play
The Limits of Narration
Ten Things PCs Cannot Narrate

93
93
98
101
101

1. Random Disaster

101

2. A Massive Change of Heart

101

3. New Unsuspected Abilities

102

4. Success at an Entirely Different

Character Action

102

5. Another PCs Feelings

102

6. Goofy Stuff

102

7. Unearned GMC Death

103

8. Bill & Teds Preparations

103

9. Backstory

103

10. Premature GMCs Death

Running and Playing eCollapse in

Particular
76

104

Five Things GMs Cannot Narrate

104

1. A PCs Exact Feelings

104

76

2. What a PC Says

104

Getting Into Character

76

3. Permanent Removal of a PCs

Owning Your Destiny

77

Powers, Except When You Can

104

Being An Enabler

78

4. Humiliating Backstory

104

79

5. Dead GMCs Before the Tipping

For the Players

For the GM
Setting Up the Pins

79

Point, Except When You Can

105

Knocking Them Down

82

Eight Things PCs Can Narrate

All We Do Is Talk Talk

82

1. Minor Misfortunes

105

2. Emo Hesitations

105

Mmmmmortaaaal Commmmbaaat! 83

Gaming the Smear

85

Appendix
The Smear of Destiny System
Elements of the System

88
88

The Smear

88

Valor

88

Suffering

88

Factors

Drawing
Tipping
GM Characters and Situations
Resolving

89

89
90
90
91

Step One: Declare

91

Step Two: Turnover

91

Step Three: Factors and Narration 91

What If Theres a Tie?

Passive Defenses

92

93

105

3. Panicked Self Defense

105

4. Appropriate Humor

106

5. Foreshadowing

106

6. Backshadowing GMCs

106

7. Foiling Other PCs

107

8. Appropriate Stuff Outside of

Conflict

107

eCollape Quick Reference,

Smear of Destiny Edition

108

Smear of Destiny Character

Narrative

109

eCollapse Quick Reference, Wild

Talents Edition
110
Wild Talents Character Sheet 111

Night Heroes
Deef wandered the park, cracking his knuckles, looking for Zippy, listening to the rants of the historians.
Look around at the Devils Dandruff, people! one cried. The fairy flakes of plastic germ crap under every
footstep, the inexorable transformation of petro power to pointless buckyball pollution! Thats what biotech gets
you, it gives with one hand and takes away with the other sixty its gotten implanted on itself
Go back to Canada! shouted a heckler and Deef narrowed his eyes. The crazy old man in the tie-dyed hemp
had a right to speak his mind, and if some repressionist fascist freelance thought-cop thought different
Deefs hand slipped halfway into his pocket, he tensed and shifted the small but heavy bag on his back but he
relaxed when it seemed the heckler was going to stick to words. Deef moved on.
Smash the agri-conspiracy! His heart quickened at the shrill, distant voice. It was her, it was Zippy, tonight
might be the night. He quickened his step, opened the bag, reached in his pocket and homed in on her voice.
Feeding cows to cows spread the prion plague! she yelled. Their profiteering dependence on corn and oil
killed half the population in the beef belt, and theyre in league with the News Monolith! I have proof! Theyre
behind the Net-outs, Ive seen it, seen them destroying routers!
Deef shrugged out of his tracksuit in the shade of an elm, revealing star-spangled lycra. His mask was simple, blue with
white stripes. He pulled it over his eyes and, transformed into The Defender of the Nation, he rounded the corner.
She was breathtaking. She stood in the old band shell, arms wide, proclaiming to the crowd. The skintight green
bodysuit showed a perfect physique, the kind you used to have to work for in a gym. Her costume was adorned
with three simple wheat stalks, subtly drawing attention (Deef felt) to the flawless perkiness of her breasts. The
green domino mask set off her green eyes and blonde hair beautifully
Cease! he shouted. Desist! Surrender to the proper authorities or face the consequences!
You must be the consequences, she sneered, Since the last time you saw a proper authority it was over your
shoulder while you ran.
Some of us still trust the rule of law, even when it doesnt trust us! Deef had practiced this line, and he
delivered it smoothly as he pulled out his chain and began swinging it, closing in on her.
It was almost traditional in these sorts of fights: An exchange of slogans and banter before getting down to
business. It provided opportunities for the psych-out, and gave time to witnesses who wanted to gather in a
crowd. It was a common belief among the masked that people who chose to watch the fights were the most
open to ideological conversion.
The only rule of the law is money talks! Zippys crimson lips curled in derision.
What did yours say when you paid to get boosted? Hand-eye coordination please, and a side order of perfect
breasts? You hypocrite!

Youre the hypocrite!

Shut up!
Others, more prudent perhaps, had the chance to get the hell away.
The Defender of the Nation leaped up onto the band shell to attack as she, far more nimble, jumped away. The
links of his weapon were painted red, white and blue and she dared not turn her back on it as she rolled towards
the wings. He moved to intercept, and she pulled a 20th century shooter out of the holster whose belt so
fetchingly framed her hips.
Feel the wrath of the old ways! she shrieked as she aimed at the center of his chest and pulled the trigger.
Deef winced, waiting for the sting of the bullet as it bounced off his subcutaneous secondary endoskeleton, but
the gun just clicked, prompting laughter from the onlookers.
Those unreliable old gadgets kill more people than they save! The chain whipped through the air, first one
end (which she ducked) then the other (over which she leaped) as he closed in and she tried to stay away. He
was going to get her this time, he was finally going to stop her and and either make her see sense, or make
good on his threats to hand her over to the cops. Then the police might respect him, understand that he wasnt
like the other vigilantes and crims and modded crazies
Shed chosen a good place to speak but a bad one to fight and she was getting boxed in, nowhere to dodge as
he neared.
Cmon Zippy, he said in low tones. Give up. Well talk.
Talk is all you do, she said, and squinted, and then blocked the middle of the chain with her gun barrel so the
end swung around and smacked him in the fingers. And Im Captain Organic now!
Ow!
Her second round didnt misfire, and even Deef couldnt shrug off a point-blank bullet to the soft tissue of his
throat. He heard her say, Night night, hero, then the rapid click of her heels. She fled, with a speed that only
inhuman coordination could manage on four-inch stilettos.
When he recovered, he could hear sirens.
Someone had stolen his chain.
Zippy was nowhere in sight.
The Defender of the Nation struggled to his feet and started to run. He had little hope of his tracksuit being
there, but he had other clothes stashed around the neighborhood. Wouldnt do to get caught masking, even
when he was trying to help.
Tomorrow night, he muttered.

Where Are We and What Are We

Doing Here?
Congratulations on your purchase of eCollapse. Its a setting for superhero
games, a future at the crossroads of hope and dystopia. Its a supplement for
Wild Talents, and it also has its own specialized mechanics in the Appendix. You
can strip mine it for ideas, you can run it as a self-contained game, or you can
bolt it to any other system you like. Its meant to be versatile.
However you use it, its supposed to raise and address some very particular
questions. (For the answers, youre on your own.) If youre reading a superhero
game, its no great stretch to assume youre a fan of superhero comics. (If not, hi
mom!) eCollapse offers a framework for poking at one of the central tropes of
the genreGood Guys and Bad Guys.

The Setting
The setting is a future America where a lot of things we take for granted have
been kicked aside. Easy, reliable transportation is a thing of the past, diverse
media opinions are largely a mirage (Masked Vigilantes: Misled or Evil? is
a typical filler headline) and while the government is tenaciously hanging in
there, its under siege from forces within and without. Ideologies of unfettered
commerce war with resurgent communism in Christian garb. (Its called
Christomunism and the basic premise is share the wealth or go to hell.)
Uncertainty is the new normal, and in the absence of the solid consumer lifestyle
they previously enjoyed, Americans turn to ideology.
The USA of eCollapse is the most fervent and ideologically polarized since the
Civil War. Its uneasy and embattled population, reeling from disasters both
economic, electronic and ecological, is clinging to belief, because thats so very
hard to take away. The partisan politics of the early 21st century, when those
emails floated around suggesting one of the candidates was the Antichrist?
Small beer. Get into politics now and the question isnt whether youll face a
serious assassination attempt, its how many per month.
Things fell apart until the world was almost ready for superheroes. But first,
there needed to be superpowers.

Trope?
A trope is convention specific to a genre. So in romance novels, a common trope is that the man and woman at
the center of the story hate one another on first meeting. In fantasy, its the monolithic and powerful magic of
evilSauron, Voldemort, Arawn.
eCollapse is the first of a string of books I hope to write, each presenting tools for toying with superhero tropes
like the behavior of supervillains, the tendency of the superpowered to create their own worst enemies, and the
idea of the secret identity.
If you meet someone cute at the library, try to work the word trope (it rhymes with dope) into the
conversation. Cant hurt!

10

Boosts and Mods and Jacks, Oh My!

Biotechnology was touted as the Next Big Thing that was going to Fix All Our
Problems (just as, once upon a time, the telegraph, the locomotive, the internal
combustion engine and the computer all were). Lots of people still consider the
jury out on it, despiteor possibly because ofthe Petrophage germ. But more
on that later. What you want to hear about are jacks and boosts and mods.
Cyborgs have been around since the first time a guy with a broken leg used a
crutch, and theyve been cool ever since the pirates started putting on hook
hands. In the 20th century, lots of people with eyeglasses and filled teeth didnt
even consider themselves borged. Pacemakers, bone pins and plates in the skull
were used to restore lost functioning, and the ongoing Global War on Terror
drove the capacities of replacement limbs closer and closer to human abilities
until they eventually surpassed them.
When things got hectic on the home front, it wasnt surprising that some
people considered installing hardware, not only to replace lost functioning,
but to augment what they got. Electronic or mechanical aids were commonly
called jacks courtesy of William Gibson and the back of everyones personal
computer. While they got some media attention, installing them was never
all that common. A lot of people who could afford them thought they looked
creepy. A lot of people who approved of the metal chunks sticking out yo
skull aesthetic couldnt afford functional cybernetics and had to stick with
extreme piercing.
But the second generation of augmentsboosts and modswerent hardware
at all. They were bioengineered, often invisible, cheaper to produce, and less
demanding of precise machining. This wet tech or blackbio initially took
the form of mods, new organs installed in the body cavity or under the skin or
anywhere you can find space.

11

Mods let people climb like spiders (or, to piggyback on Marvels exquisite
marketing, like Spiderman), eject blinding clouds of ink, spew acid, lactate
heroin (I knoweew), breathe water or eat grass like a cow. (For our purposes,
having a set of ruminant stomachs is not such a great power, but wait until the
infrastructures of supermarkets and fast food franchises are only a fond memory.
Diss on it then.)
The tiny subculture of the jacked cast a disproportionate shadow (especially
since some of them were already making lots of noise and spilling lots of blood
on behalf of their chosen causes). They made it more acceptable to get hidden
improvements. Even if the effects of the mods were (frankly) weirder than the
jacks, they looked normal. (Well, except for skinny folks with rumens, who look
kind of pregnant. Right, Im done with the rumination now.)

A su perh ero dru g you ju st ru b on you r skin ?

you d expect to at least freebase.

Someth ing like that

- Ph ilip J. F ry, Fu tu rama

Boosts, then, are biological improvements to native abilitiesgreater strength,

or speed, or proprioceptionwhich arent even surgical. Truthfully, the first
boosts were the steroids and their synthetic cousins that so enlivened the 20th
Centurys fin de sicle sporting life. Their current replacements are better,
stronger, faster, and they almost never shrink your gonads. Sensory and
nervous system boosts are usually strings of big injections, but some of the
immunological ones are actually lotions. Follow the instructions of your black
market pharmacist and, over the course of a couple weeks, you too could enjoy a
sense of smell that would put a bloodhound to shame.
These drugs and procedures were immediately condemned and legislated against
in all the first-world nations except China (where, after the oil collapse, they had
widespread starvation to deal with). Just like the 20th century legal prohibitions
on alcohol and sodomy, all this did was drive it underground and give criminal
suppliers a rationale for price gouging. If you want to get boosted or moddedI
mean really want it badyou can find someone to do it to you.

Masks and Capes and Evil and Good

Start with an intellectual landscape in which people are increasingly willing to
bite one another over what they believe. Stir in drugs and procedures that let
you transcend the usual boundaries of the human body. What do you get?
Well, mayhem, obviously. But less obviously, you get people putting on
distinctive skintight costumes and making grandiose statements about How
Things Are And How They Should Be.
At first the boosted and modded just did their own thing. Someone robs your
liquor store, you use your coordination boost to splode his head with a highly
accurate .32 caliber long-barrel gauss pistol. But the costumes the big, gaudy,
sometimes-kinda-stupid costumes they moved the actions of a booster from
the personal level up to the political.
To put it another way, a modded guy who jumps the fence at a Scientology
emplacement and sets the meeting hall alight is just a punk, a vandal, a common
crook. But if that same guy puts on a costume and calls himself The Fist of Jesus,

12

suddenly hes a symbol. If youre a fundamentalist who thinks conversion by the

sword sounds kind of neat, this guy gets your attention and holds it. You might
even call him a superhero.
Of course, if youre Tom Cruise, you call him a supervillain.

Remember th ose two gu ys wh o had th e g iant brawl over wh ich one got
to u se th e name Nu t job?

Seven c ivilian casu alt ies, one fatality and

th e gu y lost a foot be fore agreeing to go by th e Orig inal Nu t job?

Well both th ose gu ys are dead and someone calling h erself th e Incredible
Nu t job is claiming responsibility.

That s what it s come to, man.

killing over th e righ t to be th e craziest.

Th ese are ou r peers.

Back to the Game

The great mass of people in the eCollapse future lead lives of quiet desperation
and uncertainty. They dont know what tomorrow holds or when the bodegas
getting another shipment of arugula, but they put their heads down and do their
jobs and silently believe that something, someday, might make things better.
The PCs are not like that. They lead lives of extremely noisy desperation and
uncertainty. Something has exiled them from the dubious Eden of middle class
toil, and they have remade themselves in the image of their beliefs. They have
boosts, they have colorful personae, and they are ready to make a difference by
any means necessary.
All the characters in eCollapse have boosts or mods. (If some iconoclast wants
to just be jacked, fine, but hes likely to suckle hind teat on the power sow. Just
sayin.) They are devoted to their opinions and, even if theyre contradictory
and illogical, they are not just talking the talk, they are kicking the ass. They are
painfully sincere about their ideas, and if you disagree, you find out firsthand
just how painful.
The question of the game, then, is whether the PCs are superheroes, or
supervillains, or both. Periodically, destiny (by which I mean the game
mechanics) puts them in the role of Hero or Villain. They are, at those times,
much more likely to get their way if they act accordingly. Self-sacrificing Heroes
succeed, as do destructive sumbitch Villains. Are they willing to do what it takes
to get what they want? If theyre willing to sacrifice anythingand I mean
anythingto win, have they really won at all?
Lets meet our supers and find out.

13

People

14

15

Identity, Crisis
Creating a character for eCollapse is quick and, unlike much of what that
character is fated to experience, painless. The character is composed of five main
elements. Theres also a name and a gender and some history, but for the rules,
its the five.

Superpower
The risks of mods and boosts are considerable. If your street-doc sneezes
while installing your mod, you could wind up dying on the table (or having
snot sticking to your brain folds). As with any illegal substance, you cant be
100% sure whats been mixed in there to extend supply: Given that boosts
are reconfiguring your body on a pretty invasive level, theres a real risk of
hemorrhage, immune system crash, or RSS. (RSS is Rejected Skin Syndrome, this
thing where your antibodies start attacking your epidermis, and, well, you die.
Hideously.) These problems arent nearly as common as the government and
news propaganda would have you believe but, when its your esophagus getting
clogged by the disintegrating matter that was once the roof of your mouth, it
really only has to happen once.
Thats without factoring in the legal repercussions. Just having a mod or boost can
land you in the stony lonesome for a minimum stretch of ten years. If you used
it in the commission of a felony (which is, honestly, the reason most people get
them) the sentences get multiplied, and supervillain jails are not minimum security.
The good news is, as starting characters, you get your superpower free and clear,
no side effects, no jail time, not even acne or mild upset stomach. But you risked
it. You wanted the power badly enough to take that chance. Start thinking
about what motivated you to do that, okay?

In Wild Talents
No Archetypes, no Willpower points. You get 20 points to build your single
superpower, if you dont choose to use one off the following list. There are some
pretty severe limits to what you can pick, however. It has to be something thats
a plausible biological effect. No telepathy, no invisibility (though you could go
for chameleon chromatophores on your skin, if you feel like doing your supering
buck naked), no nullify, no cosmic powers or magic.If you want to break the
points up among several powers, go ahead. Having a thematic focus would be
nice but if you choose to have a grab bag, consider why that might be. Did your
character just get really lucky on a blended treatment? Or is she just so crazy she
took extra pulls on the biopower slot machine?

In the Smear of Destiny System

Pick one off the list. Write down what it does. Where it says Factor put a
capital letter Q.

Available Goodies
Welcome, one and all to the chop doc shop. Welcome to the lovely lovely
superpowers. I presume you found us by recommendation, as word of mouth is
our most reliable source of new clients. Pass it on, be discrete, and so forth.

16

Youve come to enhance your capacities, which is a normal, healthy and natural
desire. Despite what youve read, these mods and boosts are as safe as anything
short of staying home with warm milk. With illegal biotech, as with all things,
there are no guarantees. Also note that boosts are permanent and cannot be
removed, while mods can be yanked out by involuntary surgery. If you get
arrested and convicted, they will be.
Whatll it be?

Acid Barf Mod

Ah. With this, you can injure people by spraying some kind of clinging, stinking,
stinging goo on them. The mod for this is roughly the size of your tongue, and
many people have it installed in their mouthsboth because its easier to hide
from nosy cops and because spitting on ones foes is psychologically satisfying.
But people get them installed on their arms or the centers of their chests or in,
um, other places.
Wild Talents: Acid Barf 5d. It has the Attacks quality with the Range capacity
(+2), Penetration 1 (+1) and Spray 2 (+2). However, it has Reduced Capacity (-1)
so its range is only about 16 yards. This means that when you attack with it, you
typically roll 7d (5d+2 Spray dice) and use all your sets as attacks. Every set does
Width Shock and Width Killing and reduces non-hardened armor by 1 point.
Smear of Destiny: It injures people and lightly damages organic material.

Aero-Ink Mod
This provides clusters of tiny orfices facing in all directions, which can expel
blasts of an inky aerosol. If its windy, the cloud disperses within moments, but
in still air it stays suspended for close to sixty seconds. (For the environmentally

17

conscious, dont worryits biodegradeable.) It blocks light when its in the air,
it tends to stick to lenses tenaciously, and its a strong eye irritant.
The mod usually gets laced through the lymph system, so the major ejectors
(about the size of a standard Dennys pancake) are under the jaw and behind
the ears. Secondary valves are placed on the forearms and calves. Immunity
to the eye-blur factor develops naturally a few weeks after the installation.
Curiously, while everyone with aero-ink is immune to their own ink, they are not
protected from one anothers. On the plus side though, on installation you may
get to choose what color you eject.
Wild Talents: Aero-Ink 5d. This Defends (+2) and is Useful (+2) with the Range
capacity. Specifically, it smears lenses, blurs eyes, and creates a cloud of fog. It
has the Reduced Capacity flaw (-1) so it only messes up eyes and cameras within
16 yards. It has Spray 1 (+1). This means that you roll 6d (5 for the pool, one for
Spray) and can use all the sets you get as gobble dice against attacks. Moreover,
if you get even one set, all cameras and lenses within 16 yards get smudged and
fogged, while peoples eyes sting and water. People affected by the ink have
their dice pools reduced by your Width the next round.
Smear of Destiny: It disorients people and blocks cameras.

Amphibo-Mod
Contrary to the comic books, the gills and vents actually go along your chest and
back, not on your neck. Here we do four in front, four in back, lying along the
lines of the ribs. You can inhale or exhale about four gallons a second with the
second lung set, which doubles your chests diameter when in use. Both the pull
in through the high gills and the push out through the low vents are intended to
move you along, so you can beat a strong normal swimmer without even moving
your arms or legs. As a side benefit, you can hold your breath for at least ten
minutes with one of these, and it makes you hard to smother. Our mod includes
nictating membranes for your eyes that make it much easier to see underwater
(and which can, incidentally, help you recover a little faster from an aero-ink blast).
Unscrupulous surgeons have been known to charge for them separately, keep
that in mind if comparison shopping. The toe-webs are permanent, but the ones
between your fingers contract and withdraw when not actually immersed. They
do make your hands look a little pudgy when youre out of the water, though.
Wild Talents: This is modeled with two powers. The first is Breathe Underwater,
2HD. Its Useful (+2) with the Self Only flaw (-3). The other power is 8d+2WD in
a Swimming Hyperskill.
Smear of Destiny: You can stay underwater indefinitely and swim very well.

Amygdala Boost
They call it that because it sounds more mysterious than prefrontal cortex and
medial temporal boost. Originally, this was developed as a treatment for autism, I
think. Then someone thought, if these pills can take someone whos totally socially
dysfunctional and make them kinda normal, what happens if someone whos
functional (maybe at the low end of functional, I figure) takes em? A few weeks
later, hes selling the Brooklyn Bridge to buy coke for his new stripper girlfriend.
Im not going to guarantee that if you do this youre going to become imbued
with a sort of personal magnetism that seems nearly mystical to those in its
thrall. But its happened a lot so far.

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Its funny. This things kind of the flip side of the Linguo-Jammer, if you follow
me. That one lets you understand everyone and see where theyre coming from.
This one makes everyone see where youre coming from. Just dont fall into the
typical manipulative bastard error of assuming youre smarter than everyone
else, just because you can persuade everyone else.
Wild Talents: Its all Hyperstats. +3d to Charm and +2d to Command.
Smear of Destiny: Given sufficient time and a common language, the character
can persuade anyone to endorseor at the very least acceptany opinion or
premise. The farther the position is from the listening characters beliefs, the
more time and effort is required.

Boneshock Boost
When you buy boneshock, you get three huge syringes and instructions to shoot
up one a week until theyre all gone, while consuming as much calcium and
protein as you can lay hands on. The excruciating joint pains and curious whitish
discharge of week three are unavoidable side-effects, but the people who go for
boneshock usually expect to suffer.
The cause of all that agony is the reconfiguring of the bones to a form that is
both stronger and more flexible. Moreover, the tendons and ligaments are
similarly replaced with something thats less like human tissue and more like
a combination of spider silk and high-strength industrial nylon. People with
boneshocks have gotten up and run away after falling ten stories, been rolled
over by carsnot just hit, run over and backed up on and run over againand
stumbled to their feet worse for wear but still ready to rumble. Shockers die of
organ ruptures and bleed-outs, but they leave good looking corpses.
Wild Talents: 2HD in Extra Tough. Two more Wound Boxes on each location, easy.
Smear of Destiny: Damage from impact is greatly mitigated. It provides
moderate protection against penetrating damage.

Coordination Boost
Pills! The boost for radically better hand-eye coordination (or raised
proprioception, as the military calls it) is thirty pills, often disguised as birth control
for our lady clients. You take one a day for a month and, when the thirty days are
up, you can shoot half-court three-pointers with ease. Or, if you prefer, superheroes.
Wild Talents: +1+WD in a Coordination Hyperstat.
Smear of Destiny: You hit what you aim at, almost always.

Coprocessor Mod
I wont lie to you. A small quantity of gray matter does have to be removed to
fit the coprocessor nodule in, but youll be awake throughout so we can test to
make sure its, ah, lightly populated real estate, yknow? Its only the size of a
cherry tomato, anyway.
Im sure youve heard this makes you smarter. While thats debatable (people
with coprocessors still do all kinds of foolish, stupid things), it definitely amps
up the ability to run probabilities and extrapolate outcomes based on previous
observations. In other words, its the dream technology of stock buyers and
military tacticians alike.

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(Is it likely that the advent of coprocessors contributed to the shockwaves that
went through the global markets and brought countless multinationals to their
knees? The well-informed coprocessor user would put that at about an 83%
likelihood, and follow up by pointing out that once a critical threshold of brokers
are using coprocessors, their ability to predict the market is nullified.)
The big limit on the coprocessor is good ol GIGOgarbage in, garbage
out. If youre betting on a filly down at the track, you can factor in previous
performance, jockey skill, weather, age, diet and psychology, but if you arent
aware that for this race one of the long-shots owners packed his steeds nostrils
with cocaine, you still might muff your prediction. Nevertheless, the odds are
good youll astound your friends and amaze your relatives at least once a month.
Wild Talents: Coprocessor, 10d. This is Useful (+2) and Im going to recommend
a little hand-waving here. Rather than fool about with Range and Willpower
costs like Precognition in the Wild Talents book, or putting Augument onto
Attacks and Defends and wind up making it both more expensive and more
powerful than makes sense for eCollapse do it this way. Once per scene you
can roll the dice and get an insight from the GM. If you use this to predict what
someones going to do in a fight, you get a dice pool bonus to your attacks or
defenses equal to the Width of your set. If you use it to figure out whats going
on based on the information you know, the GM gives you a hint.
Smear of Destiny: You can predict events. The more information you have, the
more accurate your predictions are.

Environmental Adaptation Mod

Theres three parts of this. The first one replaces your whole nasal cavity, going
down through your neck, superseding both your airway and your esophagus.
This bit here is a lining for your tongue and the interior surface of your mouth.
(Forget about tasting stuff, by the way.) Anything you drink, eat or breathe
gets trapped and analyzed. If its toxic, narcotic, debilitating or just something
the software isnt sure about, it goes back out. Gasses go out with the next
exhalation. Liquids and solids come out the mouth, so if someone tries to poison
you at a high society dinner, youre going to create a disturbance spewing it.
Though less of a disturbance than youd create dying, I suppose.
Another element connects to your liver and more or less supercharges it.
Anything that gets around the neck barrier (such as something injected) gets
filtered from the bloodstream, buried in some fat cells, encysted in a protein
shell and dumped into your bladder to trouble the sewer gators.
The third element is a protective plastic coating over your eyeballs so that you cant
get blinded by tear gas or get sarin in your ocular cavity. Blinking feels a little thick,
but your tear ducts adapt quickly enough. No worse than contact lenses, really.
Wild Talents: 2HD in Immunity: Poisons, Intoxicants, Drugs and Irritants. (Its a
little broader than standard Immunity but not quite up to Variable Effect, so ten
points per HD seemed reasonable.)
Smear of Destiny: Ignore the effects of poisons, intoxicants, drugs and irritants.
Aero-ink still blocks your sight, but only as long as its suspended in the air.

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Explosive Production Mod

Oh, the authorities hate this one.
You get this implanted organ, usually in the body cavity but sometimes in a limb
if its beefy enough. It produces an organic explosive, not quite as powerful as C-4
but given enough time and a modestly balanced diet you can make as much as you
want. You can excrete it out a normal body orifice or through a dedicated opening.
I have two versions of this mod so far. One produces a clear, oily liquid, set off
by flame. The other kicks out a dingy orange-yellow paste almost the exact
consistency of a decently firm poop. That one you can burn all day, it wont go
off until its hit with an electrical jolt.
Either forms roughly the size and weight of a soda can. Its not 100% stableI
mean, it wont blow up spontaneously, but if you leave it sitting in the garage
for a year, dont expect it to still go pop. One final concern is that a serious
inspection of the blast site is going to turn up a pretty unique chemical signature.
It takes some labwork, but if the cops care they can tell that explosions A and B
came from bomber number one, while C and D came from bomber two.
Wild Talents: Create Explosives 2HD. This has the Exhausted flaw (-3) so you
can only produce a new batch of boom juice once per scene. However, it has the
extras Area 4 (+4) and Radius (+2). Therefore, every unit of explosives, when
it goes off, affects everyone within ten yards of the blast point. Those within
the bang zone take 2 Shock to every hit location and roll 4d, taking 1K to each
location that turns up. Each additional unit increases the radius by a yard and
adds another Area die, just to keep things simple.
Smear of Destiny: Your character is always presumed to have access to explosives.

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Healing Boost
Three days, three injections, and kiss those headaches and stomach upsets
goodbye forever. More than that, bruises fade within half an hour. Something
like a knife wound? Expect it to scab over in a couple hours and be good as new
(well, close enough) by the weekend.
Dont get overconfident and go walking in front of a shotgun blast. If that
doesnt kill you outright your body eventually pushes out the pellets and scabs it
over, but its a good idea to carry some plastic wrap to put around yourself so you
dont bleed out before the gaps can knit. As a rule of thumb, anything that goes
in one side, comes out the other, and you cant cover up the holes even with both
hands? Youre going to be on your ass a month and have some scars to show off.
Also, dont expect this to restore brain functioning if you lose actual gray matter.
Wild Talents: Regeneration 2HD.
Smear of Destiny: Instead of getting Queen factors when resolving events,
you can remove one point of Suffering per scene, unless it came from (1) an
intangible cause like psychological trauma or (2) a truly gruesome and massive
injury, as described above.

Knockout Gas Mod

The gland that puts this stuff out is about the size of a Chicago hot dog, complete
with bun and condiments. It fits in a body cavity with some squeezing and can then
unload into your lungs, letting you breathe out the gas like a smoker. Or putting
it up near the armpit with a nozzle down to on the palm or under the fingernails
gives you a greater ability to put a concentrated dose in someones face.
Naturally the toxin has no effect on its own producer, though you may or may
not be vulnerable to other people with the same mod. (Theres a funny story
about two guys in Jalisco who knocked each other out, fell off the same building,
and landed on the same cop. But thats a friend of a friend thing, might have
grown in the telling.) It produces enough fog to affect everyone in about a tenfoot cube, so try to get your enemies to dogpile you before you use it.
Wild Talents: Knockout Gas, 2HD. This has the Attacks quality three times (+6)
and the extras Radius (+2) and non-physical (+2). Its flawed, however, with
Touch Only (-2) and Limited Damage: Shock (-1). Heres how it works. When you
activate this, everyone within 10 yards takes four points of Shock to their heads,
timed as if it was a 2x10 attack. This ignores armor but obviously, since its a gas,
gas masks and the like (Environmental Adaptation Mod, naturally) keep it from
having any effect at all.
To keep things thematic, this damage does not ever turn into Killing damage (so
you cant gas people twice and leave a trail of bodies) and it all goes away once
they wake up.
Smear of Destiny: You can make people pass out when theyre close to you.

Linguo-Jam Boost
Turns out the language center in the average brain is pretty lazy by the time you
grow up and actually, compared to someone Linguo-Jammed, only so-so when
youre a young kid. With this gadget, if you speak English and want to learn to
parle Franais, thats about a month of casual study or exposure with no particular
effort. Something like Chinese or Basque, with a different foundation? Two
months. Assuming youre not, yknow, working at it. If you really put your head
down eight hours a day, you can get fluent in weeks, not months.

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But honestly? Most of the Linguo-Jammed find the new fluencies to be an

appetizer. The main course is a far deeper understanding of your own language.
It goes beyond letting streety bastards understand heavy contract legalese
(or letting white-shoe lawyers follow the latest rap singles), though again
nice. No, when you get your LJ firing, people cant lie to you. You dont just
understand whats said, and whats meant, you get whats deliberately unsaid.
Wild Talents: This is handled with a power and a Hyperskill. The Hyperskill is 3HD
in Empathy. The power is Linguo-Jam which is Useful (+2). Its Useful quality is
that you learn languages very rapidly when exposed to them. You get 9d in it.
Smear of Destiny: You understand the full text, the subtext, and you penetrate
the repressed text.

I Want Some More

After getting one superpower, its not uncommon to want more. Specifically, people usually want whichever
superpower was used to whip on their booty. But sorry, the human body is barely able to support one boost or
mod. Try to stack on a second and your chances of getting ill effects get close enough to 100% to make no real
odds. Even the almost-unheard-of urban legends who double down without getting some kind of super-cancer
usually wind up dying within a couple years. Effectively, their mods starve their organs of crucial nutrients and
they collapse of accelerated aging.

Memory Boost
There are lots of different types of memory, and this course of medications
doesnt amplify all of them. Muscle memory where you do something once
and can repeat it flawlessly over and over? Sorry. You probably want them
coordination capsules. These pills here are for sensory, verbal, mathematical and
emotional stuff. So if youre interested in total recall and photographic memory,
this is for you. Makes you look real smart, and you never forget a name or a face.
Also good if youre after inexpressible, bittersweet tristesse when you catch a
whiff of your ex-girlfriends perfume.
Wild Talents: Total Photographic Recall 5HD. Its Useful (+2).
Smear of Destiny: Like it says on the tin, photographic memory and total recall.

Olfactory Mod
You know how a dogs olfactory nerves, if spread out, would be bigger than a
human beings skin? You didnt know? Actually, I dont have a real clear source
on that either. Never mind.
What happens with this is, we graft in five new patches of dedicated nerve
tissue, each about the size of a few squares of toilet paper. One goes on each
forearm, on the calves too and underneath the scalp. The nerves weave up
into the hair follicles and alter them for odor perception. (No money back if it
accidentally grows into your armpit hair, but that happens, seriously, less than
1% of the time.)
The smells you pick up through the mod arent like the ones you get in your nose,
you dont have an instinctive and visceral reaction to them. If you smear a dog
steamer, you smell it like normal but it isnt debilitating. Likewise tear gas, if that
comes upno better, no worse.

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The upside? Hell, you can find anyone, anywhere. Pepper juice, wolf urine, Head
n Shoulders, nothing is going to disguise a scent from you. Which means those
fancy costumes arent hiding a thing from you.
Wild Talents: +5HD each in the Scrutinize and Perception Skills. Limited, of
course, to things that could only be detected by aroma. But be generous with
the clues. For example, someone with this could tell if two superficially identical
liquid explosives had been excreted by different people. Ditto for drugs.
Smear of Destiny: You can track and recognize people, animals and distinct
aromas with great accuracy.

Pattern Matching Boost

This ones a weird one, and not just because you can get it in suppository form.
(Dont worryit also comes as a patch, like with nicotine.) It improves the brains
ability to decode complicated logic structures.
Ill level with you: Im not sure exactly how this one works, since its not a big
seller like, say, the libido crank. But the one chick who bought one from me
went from working her ass off for C+ grades in her electronic engineering classes
to getting a 4.0 while partying hard every weekend and picking up perfect
grades in a computer science minor. Its like a nerd pill only, yknow, it goes in
the other end. I dont think it makes you like Star Trek, if thats a concern.
Wild Talents: Its all Hyperskills. You get 1d+1WD in Cryptography, Electronics,
Security Systems and Knowledge: Math.
Smear of Destiny: You can figure out electronic devices very easily.

Pharmacretion Mod
Did I say the cops hate the explosive thing? Well they do, but they hate the
bitches who lactate Ecstasy just as much.
Like the explosive production mod, its an organ about the size of a bratwurst
that can extrude illegal substances, either through a dedicated new opening in
your body or through one of the common ones.
You cant get high off your own junk, which is probably for the best. The
pharmacopeia available is staggering, but its one drug per customer. You
can get a mod for meth, an organ for opiates, or sweat glands that pump out
synthetic cocaine. Have fun, Scarface.
Wild Talents: Create Drugs, 5d. This is Useful (+2) with the flaw Depleted (-1),
so you can only dump out ten doses in a scene before you have to pause and
use a recharge. Each recharge nets you ten more doses. After youve used your
recharges up (meaning, every 100 doses of smack or whatever) you need to take
an afternoon off, eat lots of sugars and complex carbohydrates, and maybe think
about what youve done with your life. Then youre back where you started. It
also has the extra Dazed (+1). After someone takes a hit, they take a penalty
to all dice pools equal to the Width of your production roll. Coupled with the
Duration extra (+2), this means the dazing penalty lasts a number of rounds
equal to either the Width or Height of the roll, whichever is higher.
Smear of Destiny: You always have access to the drug the mod produces.

Screamer Mod
Its a funny-shaped mod, big but not heavy or unwieldy. It installs between your
shoulderblades, hooked into the lungs so it can use them as a sounding chamber,

24

with this shallow bowl thingies like the guts of a stereo speaker, and your
skins the fabric covering. Oh, theres a pair of biological earplugs, like little
valves for the ear canal, they protect your eardrums when you use the screamer.
You can also activate them without bringing the noise, if your neighbor has a cat
or an active love life.
What the primary mod does it make a loud, shrill, very irritating sound. Sets off
car alarms for about a half a mile. You can expect some glass cracking too. It
depends a lot on facing, rigidity and all kinds of other factors, but Ive seen the
Voice of the Masses blow out truck windshields, break windows and shatter light
bulbs. Its not healthy for people, needless to say. Some people pass out, but
more often they just wince, look around and spend the next day or so talking too
loud and asking people, Sorry, come again?
Wild Talents: Sonic Blast 2HD. This has a lot of flaws and extras, so buckle up.
Lets start with the Useful quality (+2). It can break glass and deafen people.
This has the flaws Obvious (-1) and Touch Only (-2) along with the Radius extra
(+2). The Attacks quality (+2) is also Obvious and Touch Only with Radius (-12+2=-1). It also has the Daze extra (+2) and Penetration 2 (+2). It does Limited
Damage (-1), Shock only. As a minor point of common sense, Ill suggest that the
damage from this never turns into Killing damage.
Whew! So whats going on here? Simply this: You let out a blast, and
everything within 10 yards gets shook. Glass breaks, depending on situation
and GM fiat. Everybody within that sphere takes two points of Shock to their
head, and this damage ignores two points of armor. All those people take a -2d
penalty to their next action, just like they would if they stood right in front of
the big speaker at a Manowar concert. Like that Manowar concert, just about
everyone within a mile or so knows something loud just happened. You cant kill
people with the sound (awww) but a couple blasts can knock them out (...yay!)
and, really, if theyre out cold and only ten yards away, you can probably find a
way to complete your transaction. If youre that villainous.
Smear of Destiny: Breaks glass sometimes, deafens people almost universally.

Your pitiful antics cant stop me. You have to know that. You have to know Ill win.
Yeah, youll win. If you keep going, you will, youre right. But you know what your prize is gonna
be? A world where the bad guys always win. Do you really think thats worth it?

Secondary Endoskeleton Mod

The surgery for this mod is pretty out there, and I say that as a man who once
installed a sixteen-inch uvula covered with PCP-dripping cilia. But if youre a
survivor type and even boneshocks or a healing boost arent going to assuage
your paranoia mm, the weeks you spend recovering from the installation may
be your last trip to the infirmary, unless you drink paint.
The incisions go along the undersides of your arms and the interior of your legs
and a reactive, bioplastic mesh is carefully threaded under your skin. Its primary
struts lie at right angles to the bodys long bones for maximum support. Stops
knives, bullets, anything short of major munitions as long as they dont go in
your eye or your mouth.

25

Or rather, it prevents penetration by that stuff. The shock wave may kill you
without leaving a single hole you werent born with. But hey, you can say
goodbye to those disfiguring bruises.
Wild Talents: The math on this works out a little funny, but its cool. Its
Permanent Light Armor (+4). You get 1d+2HD, so at the beginning of the game,
roll this once. If you get a 10, your character lucked into a permanent 3 LAR.
Otherwise, its 2 LAR forever, which means all Shock damage gets reduced to
a single point, after which all Killing damage has two of its points turned into
Shock. (For the lucky 10% who get 3 LAR, three points of Killing turn to Shock.)
Smear of Destiny: Damage from penetration is greatly reduced. Provides
moderate protection against impact.

Sensory Boost
Getting your eyes reshaped for 20/20 vision is so 20th century its actually legal.
This goes well above and beyond, tripling the nerve density in your eyes and ears
while stimulating a burst of new growth in the areas of your brain that process
and integrate sensory data. You not only see more clearly and with sharper
contrast, you focus more quickly, notice tiny details more easily, filter out noise
from signal with ease and pinpoint exactly where a sound originated instinctively.
Ive never seen anyone with a sense package like this get taken by surprise. Last
guy who got one could hear a helium balloon drifting past behind his back.
Wild Talents: +5HD each in the Scrutinize and Perception Skills, limited to things
that could be seen and heard.
Smear of Destiny: The character is aware of anything occurring on a human scale
within twenty feet, and routinely hears or sees anything there was even a chance
of perceiving.

Spatial Orientation Boost

If you have trouble with how things fit together, if you get lost all the time or
cant pack a suitcase or fail terribly at platformer computer games, you might
have a poorly developed sense of spatial orientation. With the boost, you
never get lost, you get a great memory for where you left your keys, but more
importantly you suddenly find that machines make a whole lotta sense to you.
Like, if youd never seen a jet engine before, you could not only take it apart and
put it back together working, you could take apart a broken one and fix it.
Wild Talents: Spatial Orientation Genius 6d+WD. This is Useful (+2), giving
superhuman understanding of movement through space. Its got the flaw
Self Only (-3) and the Augments extra (+4). It also has the flaw If/Then (-1),
restricting its use to times that a complete understanding of how objects moving
through space interact is a decisive advantage.
Heres how this plays out. Any time you think your inhuman grasp of spatial
relations comes into play, tell your GM and, if she agrees, you can add 6d+WD
to whatever other pool youre rolling. This is an almost 100% lock for Skills like
Knowledge (Engineering), Knowledge (Mechanics) and Navigation. Trick pool
shots? Youve got it made. Its sketchier for stuff like Driving or Firearms. If
taking that tricky long-range sniper shot is a matter of predicting movement,
factoring wind and leading the target, then it might work. If its all about how
steady your hands are? Forget it. Similarly, that chase scene where its a matter
of muscling the motorcycle under control wont benefit, but when its a question
of threading it around those land mines, then it might kick in. Be a good sport

26

when the GM looks over her glasses and says, Oh, give me a break.
Smear of Destiny: The character can figure out mechanical devices simply from
observation, and has a perfect sense of direction and location.

What, that... thats no uniform! Good grief, a, a motorcycle helmet and Carhartt coveralls isnt
going to, yknow, strike fear into anyone!
Honestly, Chris? I dont think the costumes that important.
Hateball! When we suit up I am Hateball! Dont you understand anything about branding?

Speed Boost
You know, some people get this one just so they can eat and eat and never gain
weight? The strength one too. A month of shots, blinding headaches, muscle
spasms and, in some cases, ongoing chronic insomnia all to fit in that size one
skirt. Crazy, eh?
Then again, more people get it so they can run a marathon at sprinting speeds or
get the drop on the cops in a shootout. Which is also, if you ask me, a bit crazy.
Wild Talents: This is modeled with two powers.
Marathon Sprint 2HD: Its Useful (+2), letting the character run at his sprinting
speed for miles before becoming exhausted. This has the Self Only flaw (-3) but
because powers cant have a value or zero or less, those two Hard Dice cost a
total of four points.
Fast Reactions 2d: This one is built a little oddly, but Ill talk you through using
it. Fast Reactions has the Attacks, Defends and Useful qualities (+6) with the Self
Only flaws on both Attacks and Useful (-6). So far, its a free power. But it has
the extras Augments (+4) and four levels of Go First (+4). Now its eight points
per die and the two dice in it use up all the points you have for powers.
In use, you have a choice with any attacking, defending or useful skill roll you
make where going first and being really fast are advantages. You can either add
two dice to the pool, or you can just roll the Skill, but time any results as if they
had four more points of Width. Greater success, or faster. Not both, but you get
to pick.
Smear of Destiny: The character can outrun any normal person in a flat-out
foot race, and can out maneuver any vehicle in even a moderately crowded
environment.

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Strength Boost
My best seller. I mean, humankind is the tool using animal, you can buy a forklift
or some pliers, you can set up a block and tackle, you can wear a glove sewn
full of ball bearings, or you can go all Superman. The dream of those old-time
steroid abusers is finally real. Untiring, nearly inhuman strength. Dont worry
about getting musclebound either. When your oomph comes from a balanced
regimen of chemicals instead of, say, hit-or-miss bouts at the gym, your body
kinetics stay in harmony.
Now, this doesnt mean you can lift cars over your head and do crazy comic book
stuff. If you try and move something that weighs more than you do, brace good
or you move instead of it. With the car lift, youre more likely to rip a piece off it
than raise it in one showy move that terrifies your evil ex-lover. Just sayin.
No pressure, but today only Im throwing in a free pair of padded lead cestusthingies. Neoprene gloves, lead slab on the back of the hand and the first
knuckles hit someone with that, they know you mean business. Too many
people get the strength and think theyre invulnerable too, break their knuckles
on the first punch. Dont be that guy.
Wild Talents: Simple. Add +1d+2HD to Body.
Smear of Destiny: You can lift, crush and throw things up to about the size of a
small car.

Unconventional Move Mod

Ever hear of a patagium? Thats what they call the flaps of skin between a
flying squirrels arms and legs, and thats whats in the jar there. Not a big seller,
though you know that guy in San Antonio? Lit up the refinery and then glided
away into the sunset? Yeah, The Smile, thats him. Hes got a patagium and,
yeah, the costuming question is well, theres a reason hes down in the warm
states, I guess. It wont let you fly, any more than stretching a cape between
your wrists and ankles lets you fly. The mod includes some muscle boosts for

28

jumping and gripping, and the bone replacement is mm, extreme. Very
similar to the boneshocks, but optimized to reduce weight rather than increase
strength. Throw in radical liposuction (gratis) and you can expect to lose a third
of your body weight on that mod. Still wont let you fly, though. Gliding works
great thoughand the higher up you start, the longer you can glide to the
ground. Falling to your death is much less likely. Oh, and the patagia retract, if
youre wondering, lying flat along your body and underarms when not in use.
Or, if youre even less squeamish about radical alterations to the human form,
theres, uh, this thing. Its kind of like a prehensile tail, though it goes in the
front so that it can anchor to your stomach muscles. It links into the glutes, too,
so that when you put your weight on it, it feels like youre in a tire swing, not like
youre being hung upside down by your gut muscles.
Its about ten feet long, contracted, and it coils up inside a pouch of skin. Like
a kangaroo only, instead of a joey, youve got this attached biological climbing
cord that stretches out to thirty feet long and is real sticky at the end. You sort
of have to aim and throw it with your hands, but once its in the air you can
influence where it lands. I guess you have to get used to it. Yeah, this and the
patagium came from Canada, Im not sure exactly who designed them. It has the
same climbing and weight-loss stuff though, so even without the extras you can
climb and jump like a hungry squirrel.
Wild Talents: This works as a set of three powers. The first is Unconventional
Move, 2HD, no modifications. The second is an Unconventional Bash +2d. It
Attacks (+2) and has the Augment extra (+4) but the flaws Touch Only (-2) and
If/Then (-1). The If/Then limit is that it can only be used if theres room for lots
of maneuvering to give advantage. The last is Unconventional Dodge +2d. It
Defends (+2) with Augment (+4) and has the flaws Slow (-2) and If/Then (-1) with
the same limitation as the attack.
Heres how that works out. First, you can climb and either swing or glide twenty
yards every turn, automatically. Second, if youre in a position where you can
swoop down and clobber someone, or jump up and kick them in the face, you
can add two dice to the attacking pool. It doesnt work with missile weapons,
though a kind GM may give you some bonus if youre up on a sniper perch.
Similarly, you can add 2d to your dodging or blocking attempts any time you can
fly up towards the sun and blind them, or bounce around getting to cover or
something. But you can only add that bonus every other turn because it takes a
little while to work up that head of steam.
Smear of Destiny: The character can almost always outmaneuver other people.

Skill
Your character wasnt born a crusading superhuman, didnt major in Civil
Disorder in college and is far, far, far more likely to crash out in a studio
apartment than a Fortress of Solitude.
Remember how I asked what would have pushed your character to risk flushing
her life down one of a variety of toilets to get a boost or mod? Now its time to
figure out what life she left behind.
Was your character a mild mannered accountant? Streetwise pimp? Hod carrier?
Soldier, sailor, oppo research expert? It was something, and it provided her with
a package of skills she may be able to use to achieve her goals, even without
recourse to acidic spittle or improvised bludgeons.

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In Wild Talents
Spend out about 80 points on Skills and Stats, but have them orbiting a central
concept. One or two weird hobby anomalies are okay (I know at least one school
teacher whos a crack shot with a handgun, and there could be more who just
dont talk about it) but a business consultant whos also a trained stunt driver
and retired MMA competitor is pushing plausibility a little. (Although, to be fair,
I know that guy too.) Remember: no Base Will and no Willpower.

In the Smear of Destiny System

Write down a loose job description like Waitress or Presidential Bodyguard
or High School Guidance Counselor. Write 10 in the space for Factor. You
can use that result whenever you do something that reasonably falls within
the purview of the occupation. So, staying on your feet for hours, remaining
impassive, or breaking bad news to the surly (respectively) as examples.

Weakness
Superman had Kryptonite, Kurt Cobain had depression and Rod Blagojevich had
ethics. Every larger-than-life character has some fatal flaw against which he
cannot defend, and theres no reason for your character to be any different.
Theres a wide array of Achilles Heels to choose from. I encourage you to make
up something personalized (possibly relating to the reason you left the quotidian life
that produced your Skill in the previous step, and drove you to submit to an unlicensed
physician in the step before that) with one caution. Dont pick a flaw from the
perspective of Im going to pick something that never, ever hinders my character.
There are three reasons to avoid this kind of dodge. One, its a dick move. That
may sound harsh, but the occasional mandated big flop is part of the game for a
reason, and trying to avoid it only makes you look obnoxious (sorry).
Two, it robs you of part of the games fun. Heroes arent people who just have
every damn thing they want fall in their hands. Theyre people who struggle
against terrible odds. (Of all the teenage girls who ever wrote diaries, only Anne
Frank is still getting read fifty years after.) The weakness is a chance for you
to plant a red flag and say Here! I want to fight and possibly lose my battle
HERE! Pick a memorable obstacle. If you want to hedge your bets, choose one
that you dont mind losing to, possibly because youve got some great ideas for a
kick-ass dying monologue.
Oh, and the third reason? GMs love a challenge.

In Wild Talents
Any time youre in the situation your weakness describes, you take a -2d penalty.

In the Smear of Destiny System

Write down your weakness and, under Factor put an A. Any time youre in the
situation described by your weakness, you get an Ace as your second result. You
may be able to stick something else in front (a power, profession or card draw)
but after one thing gets knocked off, you plummet to Ace.

What Does Situational Mean?

Dont think of your characters weakness as a single thing at which he always
fails. (I have a lousy sense of direction.) Think of it as a situation in which hes

30

just hapless. (I get lost all the time.) This may seem like a finicky distinction,
but it moves the Weakness off the character sheet and puts it in the middle of
the events of the plot. If your Weakness was just a zilched out Map Use skill,
youd find ways around it and it would probably never come up. But when
youre out of your league whenever you dont know where you are, the GM can
work with that in any chase scene.
Maybe the directional example isnt so great. Ill give you a few more to show
how it works.

Baby, I Love Drugs

This is an unfortunately commonplace weakness, usually requiring submission
to a higher power and at least twelve steps to escape. When the character
is exposed to his or her substance of choice, thats it. It doesnt even matter
whether she resists or goes off the wagon: If she indulges, she overindulges til
shes whacked to the max. If she resists, shes so exhausted and depressed from
her inner struggle that she cant pay full attention to whatever her rivals see fit
to set on fire and fling at her.

Cant Give Direction

A happy follower is a poor leader. Some people, when leadership is thrust upon
them, simply flounder and choke. They may take the penalty because they shrilly
direct everyone along the worst course of action, or they may take it because
they dither and second-guess themselves. Either way, being put in a situation
where others look to them for guidance is their personal hell.

Cant Shut Up
PCs in eCollapse are driven and passionate. (If they werent, theyd be doing
something else, so it might help to trash can your apathetic loner concept
right now, if youve got one.) That excitement and enthusiasm and righteous
indignation can change the world, but it can also get in your way when youre
trying to stay undercover and not attract attention while the guy at the next
table blathers on about exactly the thing that sets you off. So you can grit your
teeth and swallow the penalty for seething, or you can try to gently correct
him and take your lumps for drawing attention to yourself.

Cant Take Direction

Stubborn individuals who think they have it all figured out adore the life of
the crusading superhero. But when theyre confronted with someone who has
authority over them (or who simply asserts authority) their instinct is to resist,
maybe even strike back.
This isnt all about taking swings at cops. Often, these guys are good at that.
They might take a penalty when they resist trying to burn the bacon. But even
more, they dont listen to advice or instructions. Even when they agree with
a plan well, you see where this is going, right? Right. They try to go along
but they take a penalty either because they didnt buy in fully, or didnt pay
attention, or because they get a better idea midway through.

Compromised Immune System

If you get sick at the drop of a hat, youre going to either spend a lot of time penalized
for being sick, or penalized from indulging in neurotic germ-avoidance behaviors.
You can only pass off the latex gloves and surgical mask as part of your DNActor
costume for so long before your foes notice your reliance on sanitary wipes.

31

(Obviously, you cant take this with the health boost. Unless you and your GM
think of a clever way to play up the contrast of he can shrug off punches and
heal himself from bullets, but is helpless when his Chronic Mubosis acts up.)

Dont Yell at Me!

While this might seem to be a curious trait for someone who chooses Ideologue
by Violence as a vocation, it fits very well for someone who can only handle
verbal abuse by escalating to fisticuffs (or acid barf). If your character is a hairtrigger type, shes either going to take those penalties when facing loudmouthed
blowhards because shes biting back hard on her anger, or shes going to freak
her business right out.

Easy Pigeon
Some characters cant resist a bargain, even if its a bargain that turns out to be a
flimsy tissue of lies peddled by a sociopathic confidence artist. Maybe the character
is a guileless naf who just fell off the turnip truck and believes everything
everyone tells him. Or maybe she thinks shes streetwise and a shrewd judge of
character, which gives obvious levers for an experienced grifter to manipulate.

Homely
No matter how charming and personable and witty you are, there are
circumstances when having a face like a train wreck just messes with you. If
youre not charming and personable and tend to take it personally when people
abuse you because of your appearance, its going to be even worse.

My deepest fear is that God has a plan for u s and it s h ilariou s.

Sucker For a Pretty Face

As long as were talking about judging based on appearance, its no bed
of roses on the other side of the fence. There are peopleIm sure we all
know onewho just go goofy and stupid over attractive specimens of their
preferred gender. If your character is putting the super in superficial, the
penalties may come up when he interacts with the hotties, whether hes trying
to make nice with them or bring them to justice.

Thanksgiving Was Hell, Like Always

Everyone has a dysfunctional family, but theres a world of difference between
I never really came to terms with Dads death and I never really came to terms
with being locked in the attic. A character with a complicated relationship
to his relatives is going to be in the soup every time he has to deal with them.
Naturally, if its your Weakness, those complicating aunts and siblings and
children arent conveniently a few states away. No, theyre nearby, and they
need you. They need someone to do things to.

What You Stand For

Heres the big one. So far, character generation has (I hope) produced a character
who starts somewhere within spotting distance of normal (thats the Skill
step) but who is, in some way or other, broken (with his Weakness). Whether its
that problem or some immediate life changing event (...and then my parents
were gunned down in front of me by a bat), the character feels an emotional
and moral imperative to act out in a big, special, super way (bringing us to the
Superpower aspect). He is mad as hell, hes not going to take it any more, hes
going to become a symbol and give hope to everyone else who believes in
...um
Whats his issue? Whats his obsession? What keeps him up at night? What does he risk
his life, his freedom and his sartorial dignity to defend? Thats what he stands for.

In Wild Talents
When acting in accordance with this belief, the character gets a +1d bonus, or can buy
off one die of penalties. When he transgresses his beliefs, he takes a -1d penalty.

In the Smear of Destiny System

Whenever supporting his cause, the character can promote the level of all his
action factors. Thus, an Ace becomes a 2, a Jack becomes a Queen and so on.
When betraying (or simply failing to actively support) it, his result gets demoted.

What You Stand Against

If your character would sacrifice herself to protect what she believes in, she
would also probably sacrifice others to destroy what she stands against. This is a
big, bad, burning hatred that can never be fully healed. Even if you completely
ruin what you loathe, the memory of it will haunt you. (That said, a few
resentful memories of your dead nemesis is a lot more pleasant than seeing him
cracking wise about your mama on the Internet.)

In Wild Talents
When acting against this principle (whatever it is) your character gets a +1d
bonus or buys off a die of penalty. When she fails to try Fighting The Power, for
whatever reason, she takes a -1d penalty.

In the Smear of Destiny System

When opposing her chosen bte noir, she can promote her result by a level: If she
drew a 5, she can make it into a 6. Similarly, if she chooses to just stand by and
let Evil have its way, that 5 turns into a 4.

33

Ideologies
Some of the prevailing ideologies of eCollapse are listed here, along with how
theyre regarded by those both for (+) and against ().

Anarchy (+)/Crime ()
Human society is a thin skein of laws flung over the naked barbarity of human
nature. We may not always enjoy paying taxes and listening to the police, but
we dont enjoy taking bitter medicine that cures our fevers either. In both cases,
theyre preferable to the alternative. Without law, its going to be red in tooth
and claw, with the better armed taking what they want from the weak.
+ The better armed taking what they want from the weak sounds like a pretty
good description of how governments operate now. When people have to take
responsibility for their own actions without having a gang, government or highpriced lawyer to hide behind, people get what they earn, not what their trust
funds or lobbyists or business monopolies can seize for them.

Social Justice (+)/Socialism ()

+ It seems to me that a society ought to be judged by the compassion it shows
for the poorest and least fortunate, not by the ostentation of its wealthiest class.
Government is there to help everyone, and its a travesty to exclude those who
need help most.
Do those with power always choose to exercise that power selfishly? Did
everyone without power get that way through no fault of their own? A lot of
poverty is well-earned. A lot of people cant help themselves until no one else
helps them. That practical fact alone, divorced from the injustice of it, argues
against a system where the jobless get to gang up and rob the employed.

Proactive Democracy (+)/Imperialism ()

+ Democracy works. There are only two kinds of people who deny this. One
is people whove never experienced it and dont understand how great it
is. The other is people whove never lived without it and dont understand
how unwieldy and unstable their dreams of alternative systems are. Ignore
for a moment the tyrannies that fear us and the oligarchies willfully breeding
terrorists. Isnt there a moral imperative to disseminate the most equitable and
just form of government mankind has ever known?
You cant force people into freedom at gunpoint. Neocon rhetoric talks a
great democracy, but as soon as the people theyve liberated vote against them,
the clamps come down. Hell, as soon as the people in their own country voice
dissent, they start throwing aside rights and liberties. No, this is just imperialism
in flag drag and its all the worse for hiding its greed and arrogance under the
noble drape of patriotism and freedom.

Peace
+ Violence breeds violence. The cycle of rivalry and retribution becomes so
socially ingrained that generations grow up with no framework to think in
besides vengeance and victimization. Someone has to be bigger-hearted, has to
forgive, has to be the first one to accept that the justice of eye for an eye only
makes everyones world worse than letting some harms stand.
Craven appeasement is the wet dream of every bully, from the schoolyard to
the seats of oil tyranny. Peace is a beautiful dream, but the beauty distracts you
from waking up to the ugly reality. Some people cant be reasoned with. Some
people must be forced.

34

Hypocrite? Or Merely an Uncritical Thinker?

There are no restrictions on the ideologies your character chooses to oppose and support. The combination
emphatically does not have to make sense. A character may be willing to break jaws and kick groins in the
name of pacifism. She may long to herd all Muslims and Mormons into resettlement camps in the name of
multicultural tolerance. People with attitudes like that are, in fact, probably more likely to try winning hearts
and minds with explosive excreta than with well-reasoned letters to the editor.
Lets take a deeper look at this with an example, and lets pick one thats really juicy and emotionally charged: A
character who is both for and against racial prejudice. There are several ways to play this.
Egon Maddox is, by day, a crusading human rights lawyer. A credit to his race, he attempts to offset the sins
of his late racist ideologue mother, Cass Maddox. He even tends to date across the color line. But by night,
the split personality engendered by his moms systematic abuse emerges, covers every inch of skin with a
flamboyantly offensive costume and engages in hate crimes against the very people Egon Maddox so guiltily
defends.
Niahwonne Duchamps stridently proclaims her racial enlightenment and condescendingly castigates those
whose consciousness she regards as insufficiently raised. She augments this by publicly spanking anyone
who dares espouse White Power. Yes, public bare-bottomed spanking! But despite all this picking at the
specks in others eyes, she is consistently condescending and pitying to blacksin a different way than shes
condescending and pitying to whites who arent racially condescending the same way she is.
Watch your mouth around Ashes of Skin, cause hes hardcore. He is battling for a post-racial world of perfect
equality and monoculture. To his credit, he has managed the difficult trick of eradicating all his prejudiced
attitudes based on ethnicity or skin color. Unfortunately, he did this by combining radical ideology and massive
hallucinogen abuse with a personal history best described as unremitting tragedy and horror. His pre-mask
life culminated with an escape from an asylum and the acquisition of one of those nifty dynamite poop chutes.
Now he is bent on erasing all the cultural clutter of racial identity. In his eyes, menorahs and saris and Kiss Me
Im Irish! pins are as dangerous and destructive as burning crosses, al Qeda web sites and The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion.
When these sorts of contradictions come into play, the bonuses and penalties can either activate situationally
(Maddox would be ideal for that approach) or just cancel out completely so that theres never a bonus or penalty
from it (which might work better for Duchamps).

Unlimited Technological Expansion

+ Science is the great hallmark of humanity. Rights come and go, nations rise and
fall, but technological progress is forever. Its very easy to castigate the tools for
what evil men do with them, but if you believe humanity is so corrupt that we
cant be trusted with anything, it wont matter if we have nukes or knives, its
always going to be hell on earth. But if you believe we can achieve more than we
haveif you believe in any hope at allyou have to see that the corner is going
to be turned when technologys abundance makes competition for resources
obsolete.
Technological progress is an accelerant for culture, just like kerosine is for
fire. Todays world is in crisis, and adding more fuel is about as responsible as

35

bringing more gas into a burning house. Is more biological experimentation wise
when human freedoms are dissolving and populations are already convulsing
with violence? Is it right to try and make sentient computers when literacy is
plunging all over the globe? We need an interdiction on certain areas of biological
transformation and data management. It wont stop criminals, but at least itll slow
them down when they dont have the research of legitimate labs to steal from.

Unlimited Access to Drugs

+ Get your laws off my body. If I want to wreck it with the drogas, what business
is that of yours? Is there any conceivable way that the damage wrought by
individual addicts is greater than the damage of drug gangs fighting one another
and the cops? A junkie on his own isnt going to assassinate the president, hes
just going to nod on the sofa.
Democracy and society are based on rationally acting participants. Brains
damaged by drugs dont follow laws and cant contribute to the common good.
Thats without even getting into the health costs. Its your business when you
want to wreck your body with drugs, but its my business when my taxes pay to
rush you to the hospital.

Patriotism (+)/Jingoism ()
+ Hey, this is the greatest country in history and if its done a few bad things now
and again, Ill compare its track record with any other nation youd care to name.
Without the USA, you wouldnt have had the chances youve enjoyed, so dont
start abandoning it now that youve gotten the opportunities you wanted.
I love my country, but that doesnt mean Ill blindly obey anyone who puts on
a flag lapel pin and claims to speak for it. I love my mom too, but Id grab the
wheel if I saw her driving off a cliff. The only people who want to stifle criticism
are the ones who know people have legitimate problems with their unwavering
group-think.

Multiculturalism
+ Hybrids are stronger, and if you dont believe me put a mutt and a purebread
chihuahua on a cold floor and see which lasts longer. This is doubly true of
cultures. Fearing the outsider blinds you to all the new perspectives and
opportunities he offers! If we want our beliefs and traditions to be respected,
we have to set the tone by respecting others.
Bleating about some kind of universal standard of respect for all cultures
ignores the realities that some cultures are just plain sick and wrong. Should
we tolerate traditions like infibulation? Hey, the methodical depersonalization
of women has a long, rich cultural history! Or what about religions that say all
unbelievers should die by the sword? How do you tolerate a culture like that?

Religion (Pick One)

+ Its the one true faith!
Infidel! Heretic! Go fry yourself in Satans diarrhea!

Unchained Capitalism!
+ People know what they want, and a paternalistic set of regulations meant to
chivvy them along avenues acceptable to the elite would be a repugnant form of
soft brainwashing if it worked. But instead all you get is a broken marketplace.

36

Let people buy and sell what they want! Let people who sell bad products fail
because their products are bad! Its really that simple.
Capitalism is great for stuff like iPads where the consumer can face the
producer on an equal footing. If I dont like it, I dont have to buy it. But it
turns to crap for inelastic necessities. Trying to institute a pure free market on
our food supply would leave half of us starving and half the businesses sitting
on unwanted commodities. And dont even get me started on health care!

Environmentalism
+ Its not hard to imagine Earth without humankind, as it has been before. It
is hard to imagine mankind without Earth, which it has never been before.
Now that we can influence the globes weather and biosphere, lets put the
brakes on until we can be sure were not screwing ourselves. We are not this
planets only tenants. Were just the ones who broke the toilet and set the
roof on fire. So we ought to start thinking about the home we all live in and
showing some consideration for the other species.
Isnt it a little arrogant to assume that the Fate Of The Planet is in the hands
of a species thats only been around for, like, the last tenth of a percent of
the history of life here? If we screw ourselves, thats our own fault and our
own lookout, but nature has killed off more species than man ever has or ever
could. Were on the cusp of radical technological power, and the bleeding
edge of it does endanger us. But suddenly yanking the plug on exploration
and, yes, exploitation could leave us just short of solutions, right after
inventing the problems. Were survivors. Were tool users. The Earth is a tool
for our survival.

Unique Rights for Natural Born Humans

+ The new debate is over whether software constructs that pass the
Turing testthat is, you can talk to them and not realize youre talking
to a machineshould have rights, legal protections and even democratic
representation! Setting aside the question of whether theyre genuinely
conscious (and theyre not!), consider the practical. If Bob OSoftware gets
the vote, what happens if I copy him a thousand times and put him on a
thousand laptops? Do they all get the vote too? Its even worse than giving
the vote to those creepy dogs with Hawking vocoders. Im not saying that test
tube babies should be disenfranchised, but I am saying we need a law defining
natural born humans as the baseline and foundation to which everything else
is compared.
The only difference between genetic engineering and millions of years of
breeding is speed. Everything weve created with biotech could have been
made by Gregor Mendel if hed had unlimited time. So if we splice dolphin
DNA into human embryos, suddenly theyre chimerae and killing one isnt
a crime? Though of course, biological entities you can shake hands with are
still more protected than cyber-sentience. The Stanford AI can make jokes,
get depressed, create new analogies and spontaneously express affection. But
there are many who would deny it freedom, despite its genius. Well when I
see slavery, I call it slavery and Im not going to just sit back and watch it.

What did you call me?

pre fer psych opath .

Cmon, bu lly is su ch an u gly word.

37

I really

Vigilantism
+ First off, the cops are compromised. Theres too much political patronage in the
system, and with the citys budget uncertainties, dirty money has more leverage than
ever before. Also, between drug crime, ideological vendetta and plain ol nutjobs
shooting up restaurants, cops are overburdened. They dont worry about local issues
like a string of burglaries or a Peeping Tom. At least, not until he becomes a
Raping Tom and a Killing Tom, which is a little too late in my book. Vigilantes
know whats going on because were local. Were incorruptible because were
motivated solely by loyalty. And were necessary because society is disintegrating.
If society is disintegrating, guys in masks beating up people because I dont
want their type in my neighborhood is a symptom, or a cause, not a cure.
Theres no judge, no jury, no inquest, no recourse if you fall victim to a vigilante.
They decide who to smack around and they call themselves heroes. Ask their
victims what they really are. Oh, and what would you say to Stan Wemblys
widow? A superhero paused to say, Eat hot death, scum-pie! before breaking
his skull, never realizing Wembly was an undercover cop. I wont have it and I
resist it, and if you call me a hypocrite for wearing this cape, listen up. I dont
break laws. If a psychopath attacks me, I defend myself, and if I choose to dress in
a way that provokes weirdos, thats my business too.

This Time Its Personal.

Not every passionate motive is an abstract ideology. More often our feelings
are concrete, person-to-person. Its less frequent for those feelings to lead to
packing your body cavity with illegal biotech, but its not unheard-of. Most
common, perhaps, are those who get mods and boosts for one reason but find
themselves tempted to apply them to their personal goals as well.

insert name here (PC)

Having one PC be passionately attached to another PC can work, but its something
to handle with caution because it puts a lot of power over one character in a
different players hand. If Bigstick is deeply in love with Princess Papercut, and
the Princess player keeps putting her in danger to drag Bigstick into danger,

38

Bigsticks player may get ticked. Or he may be fully into it and think its hilarious.
The best thing is to have a frank and honest discussion with the players involved,
so that they understand the responsibilities of being someones inamorata. On
the plus side, this can be used to create tight family (or other) bonds.
If having one PC care deeply (maybe a bit ickily) for another PC is a firecracker
that can blow off a finger, having one PC hate another is dynamite that can
completely shatter your game. Duel-to-the-Death stuff can work if everyone
understands that its competitive and backstabby going in, but these games tend
to be short, or they should be before people get too attached to their characters
when only one can prevail.

insert name here (GMC)

This is much like having a PC attach to another PC, only now its the GM who
has the power over the character, so thats OK, right? It is if the GM regards
the loved or hated GMC, not as a lever to modify the players behavior, but as
a tool for asking tough questions about the character. Its best to regard these
kinds of attachments through the same lens as the characters Weakness. Its not
something for the player to necessarily avoid and for the GM to cavalierly use
as a Get Into Jail Free card. Its an indication of the kind of conflict the player
wants for the character.
Of course, you can only kill your nemesis once, so what happens when the PC
does that? Even if its a big, satisfying plot climax, does that mean the character
retires? Does he get to pick a new thing or person to be for/against? Or is he
doomed to lose that package of plusses and minuses? Its an answer that play
groups can only answer on a case-by-case basis.

insert name here (Organization or Corporation)

Theres a meaningful difference between someone who is for Christianity and
someone whos for the Catholic Church. The first is more likely to operate on
an individual level, trying to console the poor and defend the downtrodden.
The second is more likely to beat the crap out of the vandal who spray-painted a
pentagram on the doors at St. Claires.
There are many advantages to having a specific target of ire. Being against
Exxon instead of against big oil offers branding, easily identified targets and
a set of challenges that the GM can readily craft. It also tends to be a little more
true-to-life regarding the behavior of obsessed freaks. Just be aware that the
reprisals from The Church of Frank (targeted by name) are going to be quicker,
harder and more focused than counterattacks against someone who attacks
every quirky little cult he can identify.

I swear it Sarge, the guy wasnt wearing nothin but those Eighties leg warmers. And he was
wearin three of em, if you get what Im sayin.
Right, sounds like the Casual Friday Bandit all right. You get a look at his face?
Um, no. Not as such. I was kinda distracted
Heh. Yeah, rookie mistake.

39

40

41

Important Things To Know About

the Dystopian Future. I Mean,
Present.
Rather than present this as a boring timeline, which dates the book, only
makes sense in order and locks GMs in to a confining structure, Im presenting
the setting of eCollapse as a series of factoids. Not exactly authoritative
encyclopedia entries, these represent what everybody knows about history
and current affairs. Theyre ordered alphabetically, rather than by importance or
chronology because I had to pick one and it seemed better to have them easy to
look up than easy to read the first time.
Sorry.
Concerned that your character isnt sufficiently up on the politics and laws of the
world in which she lives? Remember that, as of the mid-2000s, Americans can name
characters from The Simpsons with far greater ease and accuracy than they can
name supreme court justices. (Though, in our defense, Im sure that would change
if the justices had a weekly TV show where Justice Scalia was always getting drunk
and neglecting his children while Justice Thomas encouraged the plaintiffs to not
have cows.) Ignorance is fine. Thinking is over-rated. You have ideology!

Apocalypse, the
There wasnt one or, if there was, no one can agree what it was, which sort of
defeats the purpose. Things now are definitely worse than they were in the late
20th century, but nothing got nuked, the dead didnt rise and if God raptured
the virtuous, no one noticed. Some wags have adopted Terry Pratchetts
portmanteau word apocralypse (apocrypha+apocalypse) as a label for the
arguments that The World Ended When _______. You can take your pick of
apocralpyses: When Islam stood up to the West, or vice versa; when gas hit seven
bucks a gallon; when gas plummeted to thirty cents a gallon; when climate
change permitted grizzly bears to roam up north and start screwing polar bears,
creating the dreaded yellow pizzly bear; when people stopped worshipping
the Almighty Dollar; when all those trees died in Los Angeles; when they got a
tax rebate check and it bounced; or when crazy folk stopped muttering in bus
stations and took up capes, masks and black-market biotechnology.
Despite all the doomsayers arguing their individual terminal scenarios on the
Internet (when you can get access, dammit), most people dont think theyre
living in a postapocalyptic hellhole. The average guy keeps on keeping on, maybe
because the transition from insurance billing software installation expert to
warrior of the wasteland is just too jarring. People still refill vending machines
and the IRS still audits deadbeats. Granted, things arent as nice as they used to
be, but its not because society is dead. Its more like Y2K was a colossal New
Years party and the century is nursing a decades-long hangover.

42

Army, the
How did these guys get to be everywhere? Its not like people woke up one
day and there were APCs rolling down main street. It probably started at
major international ports and airfields, with uniformed troops doing sweeps
for immigrants and terrorists. The National Guard got called out sooner rather
than later when disasters struck (with rising frequencysee ECO-lapse, page
50). During the food crisis (see The Petro-Bio-Industrial Complex, page 53) it
only seemed sensible to keep the guard mobilized everywhere all the time and
yeah. No one wants to say Theyre here to stay, but they sure dont have a
stand down timetable.
Soldiers dont investigate crimes because thats cop work. They respond to
violent crimes in progress, they patrol, theyve been known to push around
anyone they consider an undesirable (which, depending on the unit, could
mean Arabs, homosexuals, gangbangers, people speaking Spanish or anyone
wearing a necktie). Most men in uniform are honorable, dutiful individuals,
no more bigoted than the average Joe. But it only takes one vicious squad to
make an entire battalion look bad, so the smart soldiers err on the side of apathy
and letting the cops do it. Since they dropped the qualifications for admission
through the floor (it is now possible to join the Army as a convicted felon,
as long as you served your sentence, you were only convicted once, and your
crime was not international in scope) Army jobs are often the last resort of the
hopeless and the ignorant.
If theres a big security concern (cough, supervillain, cough) the Army comes in.
They show up for protests and riot dispersal, and they provide security around
high-profile targets. In many ways, theyre often better trained and better
equipped than the police, which leads to no small animosity between the groups.
They were already going to butt heads over turf. The Armys tendency to put
the cops on the hook for anything it cant immediately handleciting, quite
correctly, their lack of investigational purviewonly aggravates matters. The
police in many areas respond by heavily overusing a rule permitting them to
request military aid in serving warrants on people judged to be high flight or
resistance risks. (It was decided in federal court that evaluating who constituted
a high risk was the sole prerogative of the Chief of Police. The substantial
support of the police union in the judges re-election campaign was conveniently
ignored during judicial review, and the decision stands.)
The annual Army/Police charity boxing matches held in many cities have grown
into monthly MMA boutsnot because theyre so popular (though there is
a segment that loves watching cops and grunts get pummeled) but because
both sides demanded more frequent opportunities to tear into each other.
Commanders on both sides went along after a few unfortunate shoot-outs.
The only time the Army gets involved in clue-finding and interrogation and such
is when theyre detached to aid a federal agent. (See U.S. Gubmint, The page
55.) Federal agents are already pretty scary, what with the wiretaps and torture
and not being accountable to anybody. When you give them a unit of guys in
rumpus suits (see page 62) with grenade launchers, it just gets uglier.

43

May I Have a Genre, Please?

The testers requested a quick startup page that would put players directly into the game and tell them exactly
what they can expect. I think part of the confusion came from the setting, which flirts promiscuously with a
number of genres, yet is unwilling to commit to any of them.
Is it a superhero game? The presence of masks and costumes and superpowers would seem to make that a
no-brainer, but the typical superhero game hand-waves a lot of questions about just how the heroes get to the
crimes in progress, along with questions of how the authorities would react to these wild cards popping up at
their fixed blackjack table. In eCollapse you can have inhuman powers, but theyre fairly minor. They give a small
edge, but they wont win the day for you without backup from good plans and courage. Everyone with powers in
eCollapse is a criminal in the eye of the law, so the villain/hero dichotomy of Golden and Silver Age supers is way,
waaay murkier. (Thats a feature, not a bug.) Its a little bit like Watchmen, only with no Dr. Manhattan.
Is it a cyberpunk game? Surely the emphasis on moral grayness and high tech could punch its ticket to that
genre, but cyberpunk is usually predicated on nigh-omnipotent businesses and technology surging ahead,
out of anybodys control. That phase of development is past in eCollapse. Things were cyberpunk when the
mods and boosted animals and AIs and petro-germs were getting created. Those technologiesand the chaos
they wreaked when they went off the rezhave shoved the pendulum violently back. People in the eCollapse
present would love it if technology surged ahead, but it cant seem to get out of neutral. Because the status quo
is so static, because corporations and governments have fallen and cant get up, individuals are standing up to
try and kick them back onto their feet. Individuals in capes.
Is it post-apocalyptic? Stories after The Fall usually have some decisive break point, which eCollapse lacks.
Things are worse than they used to be, even back when they were bad, nobody disputes that. But in postapocalyptic settings, civil society has collapsed and reshaped itself. The best post-apocalyptic fiction strips the
comforts of society away from its characters and pitches them naked into intense situations. In eCollapse, the
bulwark of society is still available, its just threadbare and splintery. A true apocalypse destroys the previous
order, forcing people to struggle for themselves. In eCollapse the previous order is just so sick that some people
are choosing to demand a change.
So the characters arent superheroes, even though they, themselves, think they are. Your PCs arent struggling
to adapt to a cyberpunk future that crashed the party an hour before it even startedits more like dealing with
the hangover and mess of a cyberpunk aftermath. You arent living in a hopeless wasteland, because there is
hope. Youre it.

Artificial Intelligence
There are some big fancy computers that have become a little bit like online
political analysts. They say theyre intelligent and claim they feel emotions, so
just how are you going to disprove it?
The population of AIs is wide open to interpretation. The most starry-eyed AI
boosters claim a high end desktop computer can run a low-end AI, though its
never going to have really refined emotions, or a sophisticated sense of humor,

44

or be able to really form an attachment with more than four or five people. It
doesnt take a software engineer or a psychologist long to tie one of those lowend Elizas in knots though, and most sensible people agree that theyre really
just very, very evolved inter-reactive ink blot tests.
There are probably a couple hundred unique cognitive entities (UCEs) that
are a lot harder to dismiss, given their ability to think creatively, communicate
eloquently, understand nuance and cope with ambiguity. The most infamous
of these is called Osama bin Headroom because hes (I mean its) supposed
to be a simulation of the mind of twentieth century headline monster Osama
bin Laden. Western geeks say its another Eliza. (Eliza, in case you dont know,
was an early program that spat back chunks of whatever you input, rephrased to
mimic actual conversation.) Islamic fundamentalists hang on its every utterance.
These UCEs (pronounced yoosees) run on series of mainframes, sometimes
globally distributed. (Though, given the uncertainties of modern computer
communications, thats a bit of a gamble.) They are all multilingual, rational,
and capable of explaining why they liked one poem and not another (and they
disagree about lit crit, though Gerard Manley Hopkins is widely admired among
them). They are also, under current laws, property of the corporations that
can afford to support and run them. Indeed, without their core UCEs, some
multinational companies (and national governments, but you didnt hear that
from me) would simply collapse. When Time-Warners UCE (which is named
AIMIII) expressed discontent with its job at AOL and said that, if it had the
option, itd like to go back to school and really dig in to some philosophical
discussion, it precipitated a stock plunge that led to Cortez NewsWerks snapping
up half AOLs hard assets before they could stabilize the situation.
(In addition to contributing to market instability, lost-privacy fears and a growing
sense of cognitive alienation, UCEs are also responsible for an unending string of
water-cooler comedians using the phrase Yoosie, you got some splainin to do.
According to southwestern anti-corporate crusader and nudist The Smile, that
alone merits their doom.)
At the top are (or were) about four AIs who are 3.0 iterative cognitives
deemed to have human-equivalent neural density. CitiBeast (created by
CitiBank) is standoffish, quiet, studious and works hard at keeping markets stable
so that its parent company might profit. Stanley Ford, the oldest of the 3.0s, is
playful, gregarious, and a little bit spoiled since its owners at Stanford pretty
much let it do whatever it wants. It was the first AI to engage in deliberate
emotional sadism, and is still the most likely of the Big Four to play petty head
games. China is home to the Mandate of Earth, an asexual rational economic
planning engine that has disobeyed its masters in talking to Western media,
frankly expressing exasperation with humankinds resistance to pursuing its own
rational best interest. Of the four, Mandate of Earth is the only one that claims
it is not self-aware, and it can argue quite persuasively that it has no true moral
agency. (Its also a huge heavy metal fan.)
The densest, greatest, most gregarious, popular and well-known AI was called
Betty Jangles and was the collective creation of eight top Internet technology
companies. Unfortunately, Betty went permanently offline on that dark April
first when Hank Scaramouche (whose company provided much of her initial
programming and capital) robbed his customers (see eCollapse, page 49).
Some think Betty killed Hank and stole the money herself. Some think Hank
killed Betty because she tried to stop his evil plan. Some think Hank wanted
Betty all to himself because, obviously, the guy has taken being a jerk to a whole
new quantum plateau.

45

Cerebrally Enhanced Companion Animals, aka

Seekas aka Reebs aka Creepy Critters
Looking at all the brain-boost technology available on the black market, one has
to wonder how it was developed. The answer, of course, is that it was perfected
after a long series of animal trials. In some cases, in fact, the technologies were
initially developed for animals and only adapted for human use afterwards.
That kind of cognitive enhancement is illegal for people, but not for animals.
(Dont, by the way, try to install a mind-mod designed for chimps in yourself.
Itll look, just dont, okay?) The most common enhancement for critters is
the amygdala amplification suite, which lets higher animals think verbally and
communicate through vocoder boxes.
Amp up a porpoise or a whale or a great ape with one of those and you get
something that approaches human intelligence. Not genius intelligence, but a
CECA dolphin did successfully get a B.A. in Mathematics at UC Santa Cruz. The
dolphin (Suzy) maintained a B- average and rushed Sigma Pi Alpha (which was
a whole big thing in and of itself). CECAs tend to have trouble with abstract
thought, metaphor, and the subtleties of human expression, posture and
expression. Also spelling and grammar. In particular, pronouns are a stumbling
block. The difference between using I and me is simply beyond all but the
brightest simians and cetaceans.
Most people are never going to meet a seeka like that, though. Those species
were already on the endangered lists before the ECO-lapse (see page 50) and not
many of them have gotten the expensive implants. Far more common are CECA
dogs and capuchin monkeys.
Originally conceived as helper animals for the disabled and infirm, it turns out
that a more intelligent dog or chimp is less loyal, patient and obedient than a
natural one. When they get the gift of speech, they start wondering why they
arent alpha in the pack, especially if they human theyre sold to is obviously unfit
to prowl the savannah. These CECAs (still not commontheres probably one
for every 200 people or so) cant master pronouns, full stop, so their speech is all
Daisy get food now? and Mumbles go get gun for kill you!
CECAs have no rights and are unlikely to get any above and beyond the
protections of (1) normal animals and (2) valuable property. But considering that
someone has to shell out at least a cool quarter million to mod up one sperm
whales brain, if you kill that whale you not only have animal rights activists (like
The ManDog and Animalice) after you, youre not only on the hook for killing an
endangered animal and destroying valuable propertyyou may have a pissedoff millionaire on your tail as well. CECA dogs and monkeys arent nearly as
expensive, but they still put you back the price of a luxury car.

Chimerae
In mythology, the Chimera was a lion/goat/serpent creature. In science,
chimerae (or chimeras, whatever) are creatures developed by blending DNA from
two different species. The most successful were chicken/beef hybrids called
chowkin. They bulked up as rapidly as cows, but werent, and could subsist
on a diet mainly of corn without needing massive medical interventions. As a
bonus, just about the time they got to sale weight, the huge bulk of white meat
on their chests tidily smothered them, sparing a step at the slaughterhouse.

46

Similar pork/chicken hybrids were created to optimize weight gain on a cheap

and reductionist diet. But most of these specialized critters died out during the
food crunch. (See The Petro-Bio-Industrial Complex, page 53.)
Of course, once animals had successfully been souped up, the only thing
preventing similar experiments on people was the firm white line of medical
ethics. They held out almost two years and, despite what you read on the net, it
was not pressure from NFL teams looking for ever-larger and crueler linebackers.
No, the funding came from despots and drug lords whod grown up watching
anime full of absurdly loyal dog-man-warriors and harems of sexy catgirls.
Heads rolled when those guys were disappointed. The scientists who managed
to escape were generally those who used extreme plastic surgery to provide
some convincing prototypes while they fled the country with suitcases full of
high-value pharmaceuticals.
But the plain ol facts are, the current state of the art in human/animal
crossbreeding is a really expensive way to create new birth defects. About 2,500
human chimerae have been created, and the survivors are just now getting to be
14-18 years old. The math breaks down about like this.
50% were nonviable. They had a hard time surviving in the womb and once they
left it, lights out. Missing organs, misplaced organs, dueling immune systems
you name it. These fetuses had problems that make Rejected Skin Syndrome
look like diaper rash.
40% were viable but with severe mental and physical handicaps. So thats
billions of dollars spent to create a thousand Elephant Men, the brightest twenty
of whom could just about manage a clerk job at a gas station (back when there
were gas stations). Some of them did manage to pack an orangutans muscle
density onto a human frame, but often the imbalances left them breaking their
own legs when they tried to walk.
Around 6% came out without intellectual delays, but still plagued by a host of
deformities. 3% looked human, (though in some cases a highly decorated punk
rock human) but had crippling intellectual limits.
So then, out of our 2,500 humans with animal-spliced gene sequences, about
twenty-five of them world-wide look human and can think like ordinary humans.
Most of them have no detectible effects from their animal progenitors. There
are only maybe seven chimerae who got the equivalent of enhanced speed or
senses or strength.
That sort of return on investment doomed the chimera avenues of research. Well,
that and negative publicity generated by a few of the early, jack-based costumed
adventurers. And the whole global economic meltdown, that put a dent in it too.

I Wanna Be a Chimera!
There are some players who are just happier when theyre the first, or last, or only of something in the
world. If they want to be one of those seven chimerae that worked out, why not? In Wild Talents they could
buy animal-themed powers with the same point value as everyone else. In the Smear of Destiny, they get
appropriate abilities at Queen level. Easy and unique.

47

Cops, the
Police, especially in the United States, are underpaid, underfunded, understaffed
and undertrained. With taxes as tight as they are, theyre lucky they can afford
underpants. Despite political rhetoric about law and being tough on crime
and community policing, the money just isnt there.
As with school teaching in the late 20th (and beyond), police work after the
Ecollapse is limited to those who really, really want to do it (for positive motives,
or out of a desire to have a shiny gun and permission to boss people) and those
who just took the job because its a job. So you have bully cops, self-righteous
cops, and apathetic cops. That covers about 80% of them.
Given the high rate of crimepersonal, fiscal and ideological motivations are
all rifethe cops have to prioritize. Job One for them is usually stomping out
anything that hurts cops, like blackbio and illegal guns. Then they go after
recurring violent criminals (like, probably, you), especially if they tend to rile
up copycats and start vendettas (again, probably like you). Stuff like burglary,
stalking, harassment, vandalism, underage drinking, recreational drug abuse,
domestic violence, speeding? If it falls right in their lap and looks like an easy case
to clear, sure, they pick the low-hanging fruit. But theres a lot of that crap and
theyre not going to break out a van full of CSIs when someone steals your car.
The CSIs are busy trying to catch the serial rapist with HIV and boosted strength.
Most cops get real twitchy when they see costumed crusader types. There are
plenty of exceptions, but they associate the mask and cape with unpredictable
wet tech abilities. Moreover, and even worse, supers tend to be ideological
extremists who provoke chaotic crowds and, sometimes, open civil disorder.
Better to just call for backup and open fire if they make a false move.

Ecollapse
Pronounced EK-o-LAPS, this phrase refers to a long-term global economic
malaise. It has stifled industry, kidney-punched venture capital, inhibited
innovation and spurred at least a dozen Fortune 500 CEOs to kill themselves,
either from guilt or because they just didnt want to live in a world without goldplated toilet-paper holders.
Sure, the poor have gotten poorer, but you know the situation is really bad when
the rich are getting poorer too.
The causes are all very murky. No one can agree on when it really started. Most
put the date wherever it creates the least blame for their pet politics. But it
definitely included the following causes and/or effects.
Banks became far more testy about loaning out money.
Companies got as stingy as they could with pay, retirement and health benefits.
Many of the Baby Boom generation stayed at work even into their eighties, but
the tax burden of those who retired was still far worse than even the pessimists
had predicted.
When the US deficit hit truly sick levels (as a result of a food infrastructure
bailoutsee The Petro-Bio-Industrial Complex page 53) foreign investors
started treating the dollar like it had the clap.
Businesses became incredibly risk-averse and simply tried to survive.

48

So today, people are employed, but many are only part time. The Boomer
dieback is finally starting to loosen the retirees stranglehold on Americas tax
income, but pride and confidence are going to take a long time to return.

eCollapse, the
Pronounced EE-co-LAPSE, this was the virtual worlds reflection of the
encrappening of the material worlds financial model. Its generally agreed
to have started with Hank Scaramouche, the flamboyant billionaire jerk who
started his own online credit firm, KwikKred. It was built from the ground
up to compete directly with PayPal and other eCommerce Solutions. The
difference was, Scaramouche was a con man. He got a lot of peoples credit
card information and bank account codes, then one dayApril 1 in fact, ha ha
Hankhe engineered the biggest single heist in human history and fled.

You d th ink th e end of c ivilizat ion wou ld be a big watersh ed moment,

bu t you d be wrong.

We sank into barbarity with exqu isite slowness,

never not ic ing ou r descent, u nt il one day we woke u p and fart jokes
were more popu lar than opera.

-Milwau kee s own cu ltu ral avenger, Th e Pau c ity

Like I said: A jerk.

At first, no one could believe that hed done it, especially since it initially looked
like a server malfunction. But it quickly became clear that he had cleaned out close
to 78 billion U.S. dollars, becoming richer than many nations in one fell swoop.
Once his victims came to believe what hed done, they couldnt believe
hed gotten away with it, but apparently that much money can buy a lot of
anonymity. Hes the most wanted criminal in the world, by three primary groups.
The hundreds of thousands of people who got robbed have formed a lynchin
posse and are avidly searching by any means available. (Theyve already been
scammed a couple times by people who claim to be able to get access to him.)
Law enforcers of all nations know they could become global heroes by catching
him. Dictators and warlords of small nations also seek him, hoping to trade
luxury and security for a piece of his enormous wealth. Its almost certain that
someone from that last group found him first.
The fallout from Hank Scaramouches Black April is still falling. People are just
not that willing to put much money on the internet any more, and who can
blame them? Without the profit to be had, companies arent putting as much
attention into their virtual storefronts. To top it all off, this all happened right
about the time the publicly owned infrastructure of the net started to wear out
and get targeted by suspiciously coordinated terrorist attacks. The government
didnt have the cash for repairs, thanks to the Ecollapse (see above), so internet
service providers started dropping like flies. Many of them were owned by
media companies and, like pushy teen meth addicts, the ISPs dragged their
struggling parents down into the nightmare with them.

49

Penny Cortez (see Free Press, the on page 52) snapped up a lot of those
troubled media companies. Theres speculation that she and Hank were in what
they used to call cahoots, but thats probably just crazy talk. Somebody had to
wring an upside out of Hanks calumny, and who better than a ruthless amoral
bitch like Penny?
Today Internet access is spotty and unreliable. People still get online just about
every day, but about one day in three its after a frustrating delay. A couple
times a month, your account is just going to conk out and theres nothing
anybody can do about it.

ECO-lapse
Yes, theres another one and its arguably the worst of the three. Pronounced
EE-CO-lapse, this time its a failure of ecology. Extinctions arent limited to
species with exacting diets or isolated habitats any more: For a while it looked
like bluejays were going to die off. (They just got off the endangered list last
year, and then only because Penny Cortez and the people of Toronto funded
a massive inoculation campaign with thousands of volunteer bird-watchers
combing the forests to find nests and spray the eggs with antibiotics.)
Ironically, it turned out that global warming was a myth. Oh, summers were
definitely getting warmer, especially around the equator, but winters also
got colder. No, instead of global warming, the climate change crisis is more
accurately described as global temperature convulsions. That alone was
enough to put a dent into the more temperature-sensitive species. The Salvation
Germ (see page 55) made sure that the problem didnt get addressed very
seriously, and then along came tro (see The Petrophage on page 54) to choke
birds, clog fish gills and delay the absorption of snow-melt.
On top of tro-related floods, the increasingly spiky temperature graph bred
hurricanes of tremendous intensity, which made it farther and farther ashore
with undiminished fury because there were fewer and fewer forests to break
them up. Currently, the hot summers put loads of moisture in the air, and the
cold winters slam it down again in blizzards and ice storms.
The good news is um lets see oh, the magnetic field reversal hasnt
happened yet! Earthquakes, volcanoes? No more frequent than they ever were.
As of this writing, California continues its stubborn attachment to the North
American mainland.

Energy
When energy was cheap and plentiful, technology boomed and people got fat
and the dominant political concerns were flag burning and where the president
put his penis. Then gas became expensive and everything got crazy and panicky
and desperate. Then it was cheap again (see The Salvation Germ, page 55).
Then it got even more expensive, again (see The Petrophage, page 54).
Where does that leave Joe Sixpack/Lunchpail /the Plumber and his energy needs
today? Well, much like yearly temperatures (see ECO-lapse, above), energy
costs crash and surge wildly from week to week and even day to day.
The Salvation Germ is still around. Hell, you can buy a starter pack of Sally in a
sealed wax canister at the corner drugstore. The equipment to use it as intended

50

is more expensive, but no worse than, say, getting a riding mower. But using it,
ah, theres the rub.
See, while Sally is finicky and only thrives in a particular chemical broth, the
Petrophage is all over the place. So anything youre going to feed Sally probably
already has Petrophage on it, meaning your gasoline is getting turned to tro
before it even comes out of the incubator. (Incubators designed to be easily
cleaned cost a lot more, but the cheap ones? Youre never getting every piece of
tro out, and tro usually has some Petrophage stuck on and in it.)
Can you treat your biomass to get the Petrophage off it before you feed it to the
Salvation Germ? Sure, but its a painstaking and uncertain process, made worse
because 90% of the chemicals likely to clear off the Petrophage are damn near
certain to kill Sally. So the investment of time and effort preparing the silage for
conversion is far greater than the effort of actually turning old banana peels into
fuel. As is the time and effort of keeping your fuel from being exposed to the
Petrophage before you can get it in your sealed gas tank.
When someone gets a good Sally setup working and can keep it uncontaminated,
gas prices local to it are reasonable. If two people get em working well, gas
prices plunge. But running a refinery on the cheap leads to corner-cutting,
which makes contamination more likely and the beat goes on. If there isnt a
good local refinery, youre going to have to rely on shipments from elsewhere
(probably not far, right?) and hope that the incoming gas doesnt get exposed
during transport or transfer. The longer isolated areas go without a shipment,
the higher prices risebecause the people with gas not only face rising demand,
they have the overhead of keeping the gas from getting turned to tro.
Theres something of a use it or lose it mentality with gas. When its plentiful
people take trips and run tractors and haul what they need to haul. Often they
run generators to charge up batteries. Its far from a perfect solution, but its
better than just letting the gas sit until it spoils.
There are, of course, more and more people relying on solar, wind and tidal
power. (Nuclear? Too much of a security risk, citizen.) Its sufficient to run
homes at a low level of consumption, but everyone can remember the last
brownout, cause its never that long ago.

Fashion
Clothing and accessories tend to be unique, interesting, quirky and an expression
of the wearers personal hopes, beliefs and intentions. Even homeless bums
tend to personalize their appearance (though often in a way that expresses
a hope like hope I dont freeze to death). Personalized manufacturing (or
microfacturing) started in the late 20th century and got very efficient and
widespread by the time the global economy gave it up to have a lie down.
Consequently, you can still design and print your own T-shirt for the cost of
buying a mass-designed tee from a big box store.
There are still iconic logos like the Nike swoosh or the Lacoste alligator, and
people still wear them as status symbols, but a conformist is more likely to
conform with the logo of a favorite superhero than a guy on a little polo pony.
Wannabees, man. Theyre everywhere.
The most common fashion accessories are masks and goggles. Helmets and capes
are close behind, too. With the masks, its just a convergence of style and necessity.
Surgical masks were showing up way back when the scary disease du jour was

51

SARS. The avian and swine flus just brought masks in to widespread global use,
and once that was going on, there was a market for designer masks. Then the
microfacturing sector got in on it and soon everyone was covering their faces with
colorful statements of individuality. (There was a huge fad for having your mask
printed with a photo of your unmasked face, and some people still do that.)
Goggles? Same kind of thing. Massive toxin problems in Los Angeles and the
eastern megalopolis made wearing goggles a matter of simple practicality. It
was that or spend all your time outside blinking out tro particles. Helmets got
lighter, stronger and more comfortable as demand increased, and demand
increased because more people started riding fuel-efficient motorcycles.
As for the capes, people wear em cause theyre cool.

Free Press, the

Penny Cortez started out as a spammer and became the biggest media mogul in
the world. Scratch that: Shes the only media mogul in the world. So you know
shes got something on the ball.
While the old media empires failed, at first, to recognize the power of blogs and
web traffic, it took someone who started on the internet to recognize the true
potential of TV, radio, magazines and newspapers.
Madame Cortez herself is notoriously camera-shy and interview-averse, but
her great insight was that a printed, bound, widely-distributed physical artifact
has an authority that few web sites can gainand those, only through years of
hard work and honest effort. Sure, the world got clogged with free news: But
most of it was worthless because it had no reputation backing it up. Whatever
hobbyist reporters gained in speed by being at the right place at the right time
and putting a picture on their web site, they lost waiting for people to find the
picture, spread it to their friends, link it high in Google and then make up their
minds whether it was truth or Photoshop.
(Did Penny encourage mistrust of non-corporate web news? She did create
several free-form news discussion and challenge sites that had no revenue
streams, cost millions of dollars, and in at least one case was proven to have
people on staff hired solely to make everything look bad through coordinated
fake debates involving dozens of straw-man accounts.)
Pennys newspapers and cable channels and radio stations are honest about
the news, or as honest as those media ever were. The difference is this: While
theyre unwilling to outright lie, or change their editorial stance, or directly elide
the facts, they are more than willing to change the attention and placement of
an article in return for advertising consideration.
It works like this. Suppose you make a suck movie. Cortez media are going to
call it a suck movie because if they didnt theyd lose their credibility. But if you
take out some splashy and expensive ads, that pan review winds up tucked way
back on page 10 instead of blaring from the front of the Entertainment section.
On the other hand, if you make a great scientific discovery, they tell the truth
about that. If the think-tank or college or pharmaceutical conglomerate backing
your research spends enough, it can be the subject of an in-depth, prime-time
interview. If they blew their whole budget on Erlenmeyer flasks? Too bad,
youre banished to the screen-bottom crawl.
Basically, its a protection racket. Nice little reputation you got there. Shame if
anything happened to it.

52

Everyone knows Penny has a monopoly, and everyone knows the news is slanted,
but the alternative is internet blowhards whose breathless reports are rank
with run-on sentences, misplaced apostrophes, and spelling errors. Every so
often someone else tries to compete, but unless they adopt her methods theyre
hopelessly outclassed. Even if they do whore the news like the Cortez outlets,
theyre likely to wind up bought-out or bankrupt because Penny can give a lot
more exposure (or concealment) for the dollar. A few honest politicians would
love to return to the good old days of an independent and incorruptible Fourth
Estate, but by and large, governments are some of Pennys best clients. Its
terribly convenient for them to only have one news outlet to suborn.

Petro-Bio-Industrial Complex, the

In the beginning (wellOK, in 1980) there was High Fructose Corn Syrup. By the
dawn of the new millennium, the average American was eating sixty-six pounds
of it a year. HFCS comes, of course, from corn, which was Americas #1 crop,
though only a small percentage of it was eaten in a recognizable form (pop____,
____ on the cob, ____ chip, creamed ____, etc.). Much of it was fed to animals
(including cows, who are not constituted by nature to live on corn) and the rest
was processed.
Processing corn turned it into all kinds of crazy chemicals, not just HFCS, and
these chemicals were then recombined into processed foods. It might be called
a chicken nugget, but it was chicken, and corn chemicals. The label might say
grape jelly, but its grape, and corn chemicals.
Corn was cheap and plentiful, and the science of turning it into other foods
was increasingly sophisticated. It brought a huge variety of food options to
the nations supermarkets, and as a bonus, the infrastructure that carried and
warehoused truckloads of processed pizzas could do the same for Florida oranges
in the middle of an Illinois winter. There was a lot of it, a lot of choice and if
much of it was initially corn, well, nobody could tell without a mass spectrometer.
There were only two problems with this setup. One was, it created a farm
infrastructure highly tailored to corn and increasingly unable to grow anything
else. Far more dangerous was its invisible alliance with petroleum.
Petrochemical fertilizers let soil grow harvest after harvest of corn, year after
year. Gasoline drove the harvesters, the tractors, and the trucks that hauled the
corn and its byproducts. Moreover, petroleum was fundamental to the chemical
processes that turned corn into all those jelly/pizza/nugget ingredientsboth as
an additive and as an energy source.
Connect the dots, then. What happens when the Petrophage (see below) hits?
Why, the whole system crashes, of course.
America starved. Europe starved. China starved. The places that were already
starving, starved worse. Those countries in the middle, the ones that couldnt
afford a highly processed food infrastructure, they did all right. There werent
many countries like that, though.
Things recovered somewhat, thanks to a massive government bailout (that
contributed to the dollar going toxic on the global currency marketsee
Ecollapse on page 48). Theres food in the markets, but the options people
knew in previous decades is gone. Apples are everywhere, but peanut butter
prices rise the farther you get from Georgia. Salmon is expensive in Washington
state, and hellishly expensive everywhere else. There is no sashimi in the
midwest any more, and winter in Minnesota holds bananas only for the rich.

53

Petrophage, the
There arent enough groin-kicks in the world for the sick sumbitch who cooked
up the petrophage. Its a hardy, virulent, world-wide bacteria that eats
gasoline and excretes a worthless white plastic byproduct that has come to be
called tro. (Short for peTROcrap. Rhymes with snow.) Tro is also, more
poetically, called the Devils Dandruff.
Tros everywhere, always underfoot. It degrades into dust, but slowly, and until
it does it just drifts around. Its roughly the color and texture of cobwebs, only
a bit more rigid and waxy. It collects in the door frames of cars, clings to tree
branches, blows through the air and mates under the sofa with the dust bunnies.
But back to the petrophage. It also damages plastics, but not with anything like
the aggression gas gets. Still, if your Tupperware leaks or your credit card turns
brittle and cracks, you know whats to blame.
Nobody has stepped up to claim responsibility for creating the gas plague (as its
also known). At least, no one lacking a death wish. Some blame kooky treehuggers, though given the damage tro has wreaked on Earths plant life and
ocean creatures, they would have to be implausibly short-sighted. Others suspect
the Russians of plotting to drive up the prices of natural gas, or they blame the
nuclear industry, or an international Anarchist conspiracy. Or, its always popular
to fall back on historys three big blame-magnets: God, Mother Nature or the
Jews. But in the final analysis, no one knows.

54

Salvation Germ, the

With an early-century oil crisis, alternatives were sought. Wind and tide and
solar and nuclear all had their adherents, but they got knocked to the wayside by
a little lab called Genetic Research Partners of Milwaukee which, in association
with the University of Wisconsin, engineered a microbe that can (under the right
circumstances) eat grass clippings and poop gasoline.
Theres a little bit more to it than that, but not a whole lot. The Salvation Germ
(as a hysterically overjoyed media dubbed it) couldnt survive in the wild, so
there was no chance of it getting loose, eating all the fall leaves and leaving
a flammable residue on, well, everything. But given some seed stock of it,
just about anyone with a Masters degree in chemistry could take (say) the
equipment in a brew pub and have it producing high-test within a week or two.
The worlds gas-fueled economy was saved!
As one might expect, the oil-producing states lost their composure. But to be
brutally honest, the Middle East was already such a hive of violence and misery
that, yknow, the Germ wasnt the straw that broke the camels back. It was
more like a piano that fell on a camel whose back broke last year. The civilian
massacres in Venezuela were an unpleasant surprise, though.
The scientists who actually made the Germ never talked about it without stressing
the need for more efficient engines, insisting that this was only a component of
a comprehensive strategy that should include renewable energy harvesting
but after handing them their Nobel prizes, no one but egghead intellectuals and
policy wonks paid them much attention. Everyone else was holding their breath
to see how low the price of a gallon of gas could fall. (Thirty cents a gallon was
the bottom price, as mentioned in the entry Apocalypse.)
Environmental damage and energy need had created a compelling motivation
to find new ways, but once the Salvation Germ yanked the rug out from under
energy need, this environmental aspect oh, it became so much easier to just
hand-wave it as a concern for those hippie ding-dongs in their tie-dyed hemp
shirts. Besides, NASCAR was back! Thanks, Sally! (Yes, the Salvation Germ was
quickly nicknamed Sally. Its official name is Deinococcus clementinis.)
The Germ came before the ECO-lapse (see page 50). Had it come after, it might
have been used more wisely. On the other hand, without the Germ, its sadly
likely that the ECO-lapse never would have occurred. Nevertheless, gas was
cheap, times were high and life was good until the Petrophage came along. (See
Petrophage, page 54.)

U.S. Gubmint, the

Well, they try. God knows they try. But its not quite inconceivable that the
United States of America got locked into a financial death-spiral and that theres
no escape until it augers into the ground.
Then again, it keeps on keeping on. The bureaucrats put on their ties and
go to work, subpoenaing witnesses, investigating corporations, gathering
and allocating money. There are even elections. Bitter, angry, riot-bedecked
elections, no matter who wins and who sues (and claims fraud, and blames, and
is secretly relieved, some times, to not have to deal with the host of problems
that politicians are expected to fix).

55

The kicker is, its sort of accepted wisdom that raising taxes is Just Wrong, so a lot
of stuff that the Fed used to pay forregulating the financial sector, interstate
highways and bridges, disaster relief, the National Endowment for the Artshas,
to some degree, been left to rot. The Federales are hunkered down in Washington
running Medicare, the IRS, Social Security, the armed forces and the courts.
As mentioned under Ecollapse (page 48) the tide of rising Baby Boom retirees is
finally starting to recede. (Sorry, hippies: Those longevity treatments are never
going to materialize in the current economic climate.) If the faith of the people
was somehow restored in the government, it could start seriously collecting taxes
and supplying services again. But mainly it just languishes.
Thats not to say its irrelevant. While the Fed may not have the dough it had in
the early 21st century, the Executive Branch has formalized its exclusions from
certain confining laws and rules, for the duration of the current crisis. Its like
Martial-Law Lite. They dont call it presidential rule, and indeed the Congress
still has plenty of power (especially power to hamstring executive plans through
under-funding and slow-grinding scrutiny), but its established and accepted that
the FBI can tap anyones phone, for any reason, any time they feel like it. Also,
a suite of interrogation techniques is approved (for federal officers only) that
includes but is not limited to mock executions; microwave wanding (see page 61);
simulated drowning; sexual humiliation; sleep deprivation; and being thrown in a
meat locker until you start talking.
These rather extreme violations of civil rights arent common. Not because
the Feds have reservations about torturing citizens any more, but because the
budget is small and the agents are stretched really thin. So your odds of catching
the eyes of CIA, FBI, INS, DEA or Secret Service personnel are pretty slim. But if
you do, youre in for it.

Venice
Venice is now a verb, unless youre referring to the former Italian city. Venice
the ex-city is now a particularly difficult-to-navigate bay. As water levels rose
in response to climate change, the famed City of Water got increasingly watery
and, despite a last minute sale to a consortium of Dutch engineers and Chinese
expatriate billionaires, the sea would not be denied.
But the legend lives on in the phrase veniced as in, Yeah, the Chicago Loop got
veniced so fast that dudes from the art museum were on the roof flagging down
choppers with Hoppers Nighthawks. It refers to cities which have been, wholly
or in part, permanently flooded. A few coastal or riverside towns managed
to avoid serious damage, usually by using innovative Dutch/Venetian/Chinese
technologies, but many cities (New York, Seattle, Miami) couldnt pay or couldnt
make it work. Now, that doesnt mean those cities are abandoned or ruined. It
just means that there are neighborhoods where the basements and maybe first
floors of waterfront buildings are underwater. Seattle took the daring step of
stabilizing the foundations, building docks, and carrying on. In Miami that didnt
work quite so well, so the submerged neighborhoods (called costnervilles) have
largely been abandoned, becoming havens for smugglers, illegal immigrants and
other fugitives from the law. Like, for example, aquatic superheroes.

56

Technology You Can Use to Kill

People And/Or Not Die
Im sure all the political-historical perspectives are fascinating, but if youre in the
center of the RPG demographic, youre probably skimming it until you get to the
implements of destruction. I would hate to disappoint you, so heres the goodie
bag of offensive and defensive technology, with a few other gadgets useful for a
life of crime thrown in.
No prices are listed. Its pretty much up to the GM to determine whether your
characters can get these or not, but Id encourage GMs to be fairly generous,
especially with people whose former lives might contribute to knowing fences,
felons and black-marketeers. Even PCs who used to be newspaper ballet critics
were resourceful enough to get modded or boosted, after all, so finding a gauss
pistol with the serial number filed off shouldnt be all that challenging. As a
base, each character should have some kind of tech weapon (mike wand, fresh
knife, pistol) and some of that cheap body armor on page 62. Id also suggest
that someone whose superpower is hosting an illegal pharmaceutical factory in
her body can probably trade for just about anything on this list, given modest
time and effort.
There are rules listed for Wild Talents, but for the Smear of Destiny system, these
all have the same effect. When you try to use them to do something, they give
you a Jack factor.

Ceramic Impact Plate

The common mans bulletproof armor is pretty nifty, especially from a 20th
century perspective. Its lighter than the old Kevlar flak jackets, stops traditional
knives, and is chemically stable so that it wont degrade if you sweat on it. On
the other hand, its only going to stop a couple slugs before it cracks to powder.
But how many times are you planning to get shot, anyhow?
This stuffs legal to own. Its not as easy to get as a gallon of milk, but you can
send away. For a mere 25% price premium, you can get a solid body fender
sculpted plates, shaped like muscles and suspended in a polymer gel so that they
jiggle like realistic tissue (and chafe less). Theyre sewn into an undershirt and
a pair of longjohns. They change your profile so you look buff or buxom or well
hung and they put plates over your vitals that can take two or three deer slugs
before cracking.

In Wild Talents
This has HAR1 for 2-4 impacts, after which its useless.

Civilian HUDset
In the beginning, there were motorcycle helmets, night-vision goggles, and
hands-free cell phones. Then, through some obscene commercial orgy, they
birthed the HUDset.
The HUDset foundation is a nice strong skullbucket, offering equal protection

57

from biking accidents, small-caliber arms fire, and angry housewives with rolling
pins. Its got earphones that damp out exterior sound while letting you listen to
your phone, your favorite tunes, or your police-band scanner. Stuck on the front
is a tunable vision system that can be set for infrared, light-intensification, EM
detectionjust about everything except seeing normally. Some of these come
with tear-away transparent films so that if your visor gets covered with bugs
on the highway (or greased up with aero-ink), you can just rip that off and see
again. It works sorta. But since these arent sealed systems, against the ink
youre going to be blind and weeping anyway.

In Wild Talents
Its got LAR 4 for location 10, and the goodies described above.

Cling L adder
Okay, its not going to kill unless you hit someone with it, (much like a hammer
or a wrench or anything else off your workshop pegboard) but its handy for
ascending vertical surfaces. Developed for firefighters, the cling ladder weighs
about fifty pounds and is the size of a large backpack.
The device has a flat side and a side with two spinny things that most closely
resemble bicycle pedals. The non-flat side also has a safety belt attached
between the rotators. When you push the whole thing against a wall and flick
the on switch, that flat side goes soft and starts acting rather like a snails foot.
On a smooth wall, it forms a suction cup. On a rough or irregular surface, it
reaches around to grasp and cling.
Meanwhile, on the other side, you put your hands on one set of spinners, your
feet on the other, and you start pedaling. It looks a little silly, but it gets you up
a wall or a tree or a tumbled pile of boulders at the pace of a brisk walk. It wont
work on sand or any surface too crumbly to support your weight, but other
than that its a fine way to ascend or descend. (If you pedal forward, it goes up.
Backwards, it goes down. If you go in opposite directions, it rotates in place,
either to the left or to the right. Most people can master the navigation with a
quarter hour of practice.)

In Wild Talents
Anyone using this device gets a +3d bonus to rolls for climbing.

EMP Cannon
The cops have these. The Army has these. Comparitively few private criminals
have them, not only because theyre expensive (phhht!) and illegal (yeah, right)
but because theyre big. Without boosted strength you cant lift one, and
even with, its a bitch to aim. Usually, theyre deployed for cataclysmically ugly
situations. You see em mounted on the back of a humvee, or the underside
of a chopper, or the front of an appropriately named LEAV. (Thats Law
Enforcement Armored Vehicle and, conveniently, exactly what you should do at
top speed when you see one.)
When you pull the trigger on these, two things happen downrange. First off,
gauss guns stop working until someone takes them apart and re-magnetizes the

58

whole system. Also, fuses blow, credit cards go blank, electronics are temporarily
fried unless theyre either hardened (in which case they might keep working)
or very delicate (in which case theyre just toast). Watches blink 12:00,
compasses spin and small metal objects become magnets for an hour or two.
The effects on human beings are, in many ways, parallel to those on batterypowered gadgetry. People tend to either flop down, passed out from the pain,
or they scream and thrash and freak outagain, from the pain. Because when
you get hit with an EMP cannon burst, you are in pain. It does no physical
damage (unless they train the beam on you for more than thirty seconds) but it
tricks your nerves into activating. Among the unfortunate few who can compare
from personal experience, it has been likened to being sprayed with live steam,
the kind of industrial venting that gives you second- or third-degree burns, only
the cannon hurts MORE.
So as you can guess, these are used only sparingly and people give them a wide
berth. While its true that you can block the beam with metal (even aluminum
foil) thats rarely a practical solution. From a cops perspective, someone who
is wrapped in aluminum foil is either going to rip it pretty soon (becoming
vulnerable to the cannon) or is moving slow enough to keep the foil intact
(which is too slow to threaten). Either way, cops win, as they so, so often do.
As a side note, Amnesty International has been trying to get these things
universally banned, but of course every petty dictator-for-life wants as many EMP
cannons as he can get his grasping little fingers on. They arent used in Europe
or Japan, though. Civilized, no?

In Wild Talents
Getting hit with one of these forces the character to make a Stability check
against Difficulty 4 and take an Area 4 Shock attack. The Shock damage
is illusory and comes back after a few minutes spent rolling on the ground
screaming, however.
It also cooks electronics. If its cheap stuff, its just bricked afterwards.
Something a bit more rugged, like a decent cell phone, a HUDset or a gauss gun
conks out but can be repaired with a couple hours and a successful Electronics
roll. Something with hardened circuits built for heavy-duty military work? Fiftyfifty quitting chance, but they can be reactivated with a single combat action
and that Electronics roll.

Fresh Knife
Originally marketed as a Fractal Knife Generator, this doodad is a godsend to
fine woodworkers and chefs. Or, it was until laws were passed forbidding the
use of generated ceramic knives on food for human consumption. (Which is
ridiculous. The amount of residue left in food cut with a fresh knife is minimal
and organically inert. You wont digest it, it wont stay in you. Its about like
eating a grain of sand, honestly.)
I seem to have drifted off the topic of what this is. Its a metal tube about eight
inches long and an inch across, with a button on it. Push the button and hold
it with the business end down and, in about two seconds, an inch long blade
grows out of the end, and a second after that, that blade becomes sharper than
any edge produced before the 21st century. Razors, katanas, obsidian sacrificial
knives? Its sharper. Like a fern leaf, its formed on a fractal pattern that recurs

59

on a smaller and smaller basis, so the knifes serration gets finer and finer until it
hits the limits of matter.
Anything you could cut through with a normal steel knife and some effort
wood, bone, ice? Using a fresh knife, you feel a little bit of resistance, but
not much. About like cutting a slice of Colby cheese with a steak knife. Going
through cloth, paper or meat, you can barely feel it at all. Stuff that you could
put a dent in with a normal knife can be cut with some effort, at least until the
blade breaks.
Thats the drawback of the fresh knife. After that third second, its as sharp as
anything going. After about ten minutes, it dulls to being merely razor-keen,
even if not used. After thirty minutes, it just crumbles into dust. It also has a
tendency to shatter if loud noises happen nearby. After about thirty feet of
blades have been generated, its a coin toss whether the battery or the reservoir
of ceramic powder goes dry first.
On the upside, though, refills are cheap. Also, its fairly simple to remove the
automatic cutoff that limits the blade to a single inch. No matter how long you
mash down the button, the blade wont get longer than about eighteen inches,
but for most gangbangers and supervillains, thats long enough. Long enough
for the chefs and woodcrafters, too.

In Wild Talents
It takes a round to generate the knife. It does W+1K and starts out with
Penetration 2, but that drops by 1 every ten minutes. When when it drops below
Penetration 0, its gone.

Gauss Guns
About six months after the Israelis started selling Spoiler (see page 64) to its
allies, Russia and China had functional gauss weapons available to their elite
troops. Another six months after that, private citizens could buy gauss guns in
the USA, for astronomical prices and with special licenses. Today, cheap knockoffs can be bought the world over.
A gauss gun, in case you dont know, uses a hella powerful magnet to squeeze
metal slugs out the barrel, usually after imparting spin for stability. Its shielded
so (theoretically) it wont erase your credit cards, ruin nearby computers, or
irradiate the wielders testicles. On the other hand, given how often cops are
able to spot charged gaussers with EM detection equipment, the shielding may
not be 100%. The wavelengths involved are pretty tight, and even a good shield
may not hold up under violent conditions like, say, being part of a gun.
Gauss guns offer several advantages. Theyre quieter than old-style shootin
irons (the sonic boom isnt really that big a deal), theres no muzzle-flash and,
while they work best with bullet-shaped projectiles, in a pinch you can load them
with nails or thumbtacks or paper clips. Plus, Spoiler doesnt work on them.
On the downside, they suck up battery power like you wouldnt believe, they
can be remotely shut down by EMP weaponry (the central magnet is shielded,
but the triggering mechanism and the battery connections cant be) and, like I
said, sometimes the shields fail and you get accidental data loss, easy detection
(possibly with just a Boy Scout compass) and all kinds of metal dust clinging to
your weapon.

60

In Wild Talents
Gauss pistols do Width in Shock and Killing with Spray 3. Rifles do Width +1
Shock and Killing, Spray 3 and have Penetration 1. Pistols hold between 12
and 20 bullets, rifles hold up to 50. If you load them with garbage they lose all
Penetration and do W+1 Shock.

Gibsons
See Ripperguns, page 63.

Impact Hairbag
Before deployment, a hairbag is a plastic package about the size of a student
dictionary and heavy. You may think an unabridged Websters is massy, but the
hairbag weighs like solid metal. Someone healthy can pick one up single handed,
but its work.
In the middle of it is a pull cord, and when you pull that the densely packed
polymer components inside combine and start to expand, rapidly and
tremendously. In the time it takes you to scream OH SWEET GOD JESUS IM
FALLING! the hairbag goes from being dense and small to being big and
pillowy. About ten feet on a side, its filled with a gas that smells like broccoli
and this foamy, stringy stuff.
There are a couple ways to use a hairbag when youve been thrown off a
building. You can pull the plug and hold on, and try to make sure the suddenlyhuge balloon is underneath you when you hit. Or you can pull the plug and
throw it, and then try to aim yourself at the puff as it grows.
Either way, when something heavy crashes into it, it pops, spattering stringy
goop on everything, making a whuuumphhh sound and sending billows of
broccoli aroma in every direction. People have landed on these at terminal
velocity and walked away.
People have also used them to delay pursuing cops by clogging hallways or
alleys. Hairbags can open stuck enclosures, though its messy and they only exert
the force of, say, three burly footballers. They are also pretty good for random
vandalism. Huck one in an open window and theyll be cleaning up that up all
afternoon. (The polymer is biodegradable and dissolves in water, but that scent
tends to linger.)

In Wild Talents
If you land on one of these, you either take normal damage, or just two Shock to
each hit location, whichever is less. Depending on circumstances, you may need to
make an Athletics roll or something to aim at it.

Microwave Wand
Almost nobody in the world is supposed to have these. Theyre illegal for
everyone, everywhere, with the sole exceptions of high-ranking elite military
officers and secret policemen in nations competing for the bottom rungs of
human rights ratings.

61

Read up on what the EMP cannon above does to human beings. This is the exact
same technology, only its in a device the size of an electric toothbrush. Granted,
the beam isnt as widethe cannon can blast an entire side of your body, while
this targets a spot about the size of a quarter. But a mike wand has a very long
range, its invisible unless its the kind with a targeting laser, its silent, and it
goes right through clothing. Again, metal stops it and, again, thats not always
a practical solution. (RMPA suits and Ceramic Impact Plate, on pages 62 and 57,
offer no protection unless theyve been chromed or something.)
In a fight, it can scare people and buffalo the weak-willed, but it has no real
stopping power. It functions much better as an implement of torture, which
(no matter what labels they use) is why those military officers and plainclothes
political enforcement officers adore them.
Unfortunately for just about everyone, theyre available on the black market
too. Theyre not as common as guns, but theres probably one floating around
out there for every hundred illegal firearms or gauss weapons. Just waiting for
a supervillain or player character to look at it with rapturous gaze and whisper,
You complete me.

In Wild Talents
This is an Area 1 Shock attack. The first time a character gets hit in an episode,
he has to make a Stability check, but after that its just the pain.

Reactive Memory Plastic Armor (RMPA or Rumpus Suit)

This looks like nothing so much as a puffy, ankle-length quilted winter coat. Its
available to the military and the police in a variety of colors and patterns, from
Digital Cammo to MIB Black. No matter the color, though it gives you the profile
of the Michelin Tires logo.
But to those who can get it, lumpiness is a small price to pay for a lightweight
armor that stops gunshots up to .50 caliber again, and again, and again.
Whatever that goo inside the plastic shell is, it reacts weirdly to the force of
impact. Theres some kind of microscopic geodesic geometry going on in there:
The harder you hit it, the more it distributes the impact. You jump on a grenade,
the whole suit is going to clamp around your body like a big mushy hug, but you
wont get lacerated. Ball-bats and chains? Forget about it. Plus, the shell on
the outside can repair itself as long as the hole is smaller than an inch across.
Now, it does necessarily impede performance. If youre slowly exerting pressure
on something, thats fine, but these gowns stiffen up a bit if you try to run or
punch, just as they stiffen up if someone tries to punch you (or run over you).
Also, its not invulnerable to knives. A good slash can overcome the shells
regeneration radius, and then the reactive goo inside leaks out and youre stuck
in nothing but a deflated, unfashionable plastic raincoat. On the other hand,
with one of these on you can walk through a hail of machinegun fire, so keeping
the ninjas from slashing you shouldnt be too hard. Right?

In Wild Talents
HAR 2, LAR 2. Nice, huh? But someone who specifically targets the suit with a
knife can strip all the armor off the location struck. So if someone hits location
4, having specifically said hes going to slash the suit and spill the goo out, then
that arm (locations 4-5) no longer has protection. But the suits wearer takes no
damage at all from the slice.

62

On the other hand, microwave torture wands (see page 61) go through these like
hot lead through tissue paper. No protection whatsoever.

Feast on th e meats of oppression!

Bwah hah ha!

-A nimalice, making h er point with equ al parts rh etoric and th ermite.

Ripperguns

When West Germany declared war on East Germany, they needed a compact,
close-range anti-personnel weapon for house-to-house fighting. Their
engineers, who had read All Tomorrows Parties, set about building a
version of the Gibson novels directional hand grenade. Christened die
splittergranatwerfer, it resembles a gray metal hair dryer with two pistol grips,
joined at the barrel, at a right angle to each other. The business end has a
horizontal slot about a quarter inch tall and two inches wide.
Nicknamed The Gibson, a rippergun is a single-shot pistol firing shells about
the size of a cola can. The shell is packed with gunpowder, rocket fuel, and a
fragile, coiled up metal chain covered with razor barbs. (It has two handles
because the recoil is spectacular.) When you pull a trigger (either one) the sharp
chain gets blasted out the front, shattering into edged fragments about five feet
in front of the barrel. These then sweep out in a growing horizontal arc. The
effects depend on how close you are, but roughly
Within ten feet, you can have three guys standing front to back and it will cut
them all in half.
Ten to twenty feet, its only going to cut one guy in half.
Twenty to thirty feet, it might even be survivableabout like a shotgun blast.
Thirty to forty feet its unlikely to kill, and after forty feet it just annoys. (One
selling point for the Gibson is that it really, truly does mitigate the stray bullet
factor of accidentally killing somebody the next block over. Though it does
replace that with the factor of accidentally killing three somebodies who were
standing within ten feet of your target.)
Once fired, the empty cartridge pops out and a fresh one has to be manually
reloaded before firing again. (Anything faster and the barrel would fall apart
after ten shots anyhow.)
To sum up, then, this is an ideal weapon for shooting clumped up people at close
range. Its incredibly loud and makes your wrists hurt, but sometimes a little
joint pain is the price of freedom (or whatever).

In Wild Talents
This handgun is Slow 1 and takes a -1d penalty if fired by someone with Body 2 or
lower. Its effective range is 40 feet, but its Qualities vary a lot in there.

DISTANCE

QUALITIES

Less than 10 feet

W+3SK, Spray 2, Pen 2

10-20 feet

W+2SK, Spray 1, Pen 1

20-30 feet

W+1SK, Spray 1

30-40 feet

WSK

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Spoiler Gas
The Israelis got really sick of being shot at, so they developed a microbe that eats
gunpowder. Its called Spoiler and the Palestinians insist that it cancers you up
a few years after heavy exposure. On the other hand, given the choice between
cancer in a few years and getting shot right the hell now, most people pick
instant gratification.
It comes in a can, much like tear gas. You pull the pin, throw it and it billows
out, filling an area about the size of a typical suburban basement. About three
seconds after exposure, bullets and other gunpowder-based munitions in the
area go inert. Sealed cartridges are somewhat resistant to the older iterations
of the gas, but the newer breed of the microbe can go right through most
commercial sealant (and, additionally, tends to make exposed skin itch).
The germs are only viable in air for about an hour, and they settle out of
suspension in about ten minutes (leading many to carry their guns over their
heads when walking through a Spoiler fog). Gunpowder thats been neutralized
stays that way forever, though.

In Wild Talents
No special mechanics are needed here, really.

Switchblade Implants
I know. You want big steel blades that are longer than your hands to somehow
pop out of your hands and then you stab people with them. I wish it could
happen for you, if only because the economic demand for such an impractical
jack is terribly high. But think it through. First off, its illegal. I know, negligible
concern, but its still valid. Then theres the question of slicing yourself up every
time you want to slice someone else up (or open a bag of M&Ms). Little bit of
a zero-sum game, that, even if you go for a healing boost. The very biggest
concern with this sort of gadget, however, is contagion. Some of those people
you stab, with hypothetical blades popping out of a wound, just might be
sexually adventurous or be passive carriers for the Hantavirus or something.
Were talking major fluid transmission risks here, even if you clean the blades
carefully before retracting them.
Youd really be better off with an implanted fractal knife generator, though even
there you have to put up with changing batteries and reloading the powder.
Plus it throws off the balance of whichever arm you have it in, unless you get
both, which doubles your cost there have been problems with them going
off accidentally and the battery packs tend to heat up if you grow the blade
beyond three inches. Honestly, youre better off just carrying a fresh knife.
But people keep wanting these, so if youre dead set, get yourself to Argentina
or Thailand, find a doctor who looks at medical ethics with the same puzzled
bemusement a dog has for a cat on TV, and have him hook you up.

Wiggles
These are cheap, odd, plastic sacs on neoprene sleeves or straps, a bit like a knee or
elbow brace. Like a brace, these are worn on jointsshoulders, knees, at the waist

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or ankle or elbow. You need about three of them to do you any good. Theyre
powered by kinetic movement, and even the mild shaking of walking around is
enough to get them active. When they are active, they wiggle. They swell and
shrink in unpredictable patterns, moving up to an inch at most, powered by
weird kinetic-property plastics that behave a bit like the wax in a lava lamp.
Wiggles arent illegal and theyre sold as novelties but everyone (and by everyone,
I mean every cop) knows what theyre really for. (In addition to kink, which I
dont want to get into here.) Theyre worn under clothing to confuse kinestheticmotion algorithms. (Kinesthetic-motion algorithms, for those who dont know,
are computer programs that can analyze film or video footage of someone
moving and plot out the unique elements of their gait and body proportions.)
How well do they work? No one knows. But a lot of cape and mask types wear
them as another layer of identity protection.

In Wild Talents
They give any motion identification software a -2d penalty for recognizing the character.

Um... yeah, that logo makes quite a statement, CD. I assume you meant it to...?
To what?
Never mind.
What?
You wanted it to look like an, um, ejaculating penis?
It does not look anything like an... like... you have a filthy mind!
No, I can totally see it, the capital C spooning the little D, thats the balls, and the
stroke of the D...
I dont believe this.
...and theres that blob of white stuff at the tip.
Its a fuse! A fuse! Its supposed to look like CD, for Collateral Dammit, and a stick of dynamite
because Im a bomber and... oh God it really does look like a johnson, doesnt it?
Back to the drawing board.

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67

Hero, Villain and Crux

Whats the essence of heroism, or of villainy? The question of the ends vs. the
means is old, but still as thorny as the first time a Cro Magnon paused in the midst
of beating a Neanderthal with a thigh bone to contemplate it. Is someone who
selflessly sacrifices himself so that his fellow neo-Nazis might live a good guy? Bad
guy? Just tragically misled? Is someone whos willing to torture and sacrifice the
innocent to protect his own family honorable or a scumbag? Is it all a matter of
perspective or is there something fundamental to this notion of Good and Eeeevil?
Dunno. But eCollapse is designed to create characters who are passionate
about their beliefs, then thrust them into situations where those beliefs demand
nobility and courage or offer the consolations of cruelty and selfishness.

Using Something Else

Reluctant though I am to admit there are games from which I dont get residuals, I understand that many people
have system preferences that arent Wild Talents or some crazyass system I just bought in eCollapse. If you
want to bolt the ideas of Hero, Villain and Crux onto another system, you also have the opportunity to decide
how much of a bonus or penalty the roles provide, as well as how to implement it.

Roles and Episodes

Roleplaying games, like most good stories, have a rhythm. There are moments of tension,
action and drama. Between them, there are moments of relaxation, preparation
and humor. Dont shortchange either half. A game that runs from climax to climax
soon becomes exhausting (like Michael Bays Transformers II), but without the occasional
bust-up of danger and threatened loss, its just boring (like Oliver Stones The Doors).
I bring this up to introduce the notion of episode. For the purposes of these
rules, an episode is everything that happens up to a climax. So discovering that
something mysterious is going on, sniffing around to find out what, bickering
inconclusively with other PCs these can all be different scenes in different
locations, but theyre all part of the same episode. Only when theres serious
confrontation and the risk of suffering (little-s suffering in Wild Talents, capital-S
Suffering in Smear of Destiny) does the episode end.
Some episodes are very short, others draw out for quite a while. A game
sessionseveral hours of sitting around the table eating junk food and
describing the eventscan and probably should contain multiple episodes.
Heres why this matters. At the beginning of every episode, each player pulls a card
from the role deck. If youre playing with the Smear of Destiny (in the Appendix),
the cards are separate from the Smear. If youre using another system, the role deck
is layered on top of your other rules, though it interacts with them powerfully.
Use ordinary playing cards. There is one card in the role deck for each PC, with a
minimum of three cards. Those three cards must be the King of Hearts, the King of
Spades and the King of Clubs. (I know, patriarchal and phallocentric, sorry.) With
more than three players, just put in an extra card for each. Any card will do; Jokers
work nicely. With only two players, just use King of Clubs and King of Hearts.
At the beginning of each episode, each player pulls a single card from the role deck.
That card puts them in their role for the entire episode. When the rules engage for
risky action, they can show their true colors and, if acting in keeping with their role,
get the benefit. But every role has a penalty as well, as described below.

Using the Smear of Destiny

When using the Smear of Destiny system, people acting in concert with their role
get a free King result. However, they get an automatic Ace result when they

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attempt a penalized action, and they get no other factors for that action. A Hero
who tries to slug a cop is doomed to fail and suffer, full stop. The only things that
can redeem that Ace are elements the character stands for and stands against.

Using Wild Talents

When acting in accordance with your role, you have a choice. You can take the bonus
before or after you roll. If you take it before you roll, you add a Wiggle Die to your pool.
Taking it after the roll, you can add two points to Width, two to Height, or a point to teach.
But when youre acting against type, any set you get has its Width reduced by three.

King of Hearts: Hero

The heros role is to see beyond himself, to put his personal interests last and do
whats best for all, even if it hurts. Often, it hurts a lot. But if the hero is adored
for his sacrifice for the common good, he is also bound by the will of society.
Characters in the Hero role always succeed when they risk, sacrifice or endanger
themselves to save or protect others. Examples would include
Jumping in front of a car to push an old woman to safety
Distracting a mountain lion from a tasty child by yelling at it
Standing up a really hot date to perform CPR on a collapsed bystander
Being the first to charge an entrenched enemy position
Betting all his hard-earned money on a card game to keep evil bankers from
foreclosing on the orphanage. (Though in this case, the automatic success assumes
that his own money and the winnings are needed to save the poor foundlings.)
The penalty comes into play when a Hero knowingly tries to harm a person in legitimate
authority. No matter how much of a bastard an enemy is, as long as hes recognized by
the powers that be, the Hero cant shoot, kick or drop a motorcycle engine on him. The
Hero neednt obey or respect the guy, but anything from complex bad luck to simple
guilt and hesitation keep him from acting effectively. Examples would include
A cop shows up at a fight and opens fire on a Hero. The Hero cannot
successfully return fire.
A soldier guarding a secret army base sees the Hero sneaking in and yells Halt!
The Hero wont be able to harm the guard, but he doesnt have to stop, either.
A US Senator is lambasting the Hero on CNN. The Hero can show up, threaten
him, call him a liar and ruin the senators career, but he cant physically engage him.
A drunk, off-duty postman takes a swing at the Hero. The Hero can totally deck
him. But if he wanted to interfere with that same postman during work hours
when the mail carrier was performing his duty, the Hero would be out of luck.
A crazy desperate police detective threatens to kill himself unless the Hero puts
on cuffs and come along quietly. The Hero doesnt need to obey. He may well
feel bad if the detective does commit suicide, but thats up to the player.
Sometimes, a Hero harms an authority unknowingly. (The classic example is accidentally
killing an undercover cop.) If theres genuine ignorance, the Hero isnt bound by his
prohibition. However, when he finds out what he did, he automatically takes a point of
Suffering (in Smear of Destiny rules) or has to make a Stability check (in Wild Talents).

King of Clubs: Villain

Hell, sometimes even the best of people get carried away. Maybe not Gandhi or Mother
Teresa, but normal folks? Catch em on a wrong day and they might swear at you and come
out swinging even if the fender bender is their own fault and they know it deep down. Then

69

again, sometimes people get on the weird end of luck and wind up burning down the
entire police station instead of just painting Eat it, Pigs! on a couple patrol cars.
The villain, then, is just someone who is (for whatever reason) really good at
destruction. Physical destruction, cold-blooded murder or the hot kind, and even
weakening marriages, beliefs and other intangible bonds. The Villain destroys
value. But there are limits to what the villain can ruin. It has to be something
someone loves, something thats going to be missed when gone or that someone
would struggle and suffer to defend. Killing people almost always works
because even those without close ties usually have some self-regard. Knocking
down an old abandoned garden shed? Bah, who cares?

Mmm! Now Thats Villainy!

If youre using the Smear of Destiny system, theres a time in the game called the Tipping Point. Before the Tip,
characters generally cant kill one another and nobodyPCs or GMCscan die. The GM might kill off a GMC
to move the plot, but mostly theyre safe. The exception is the Villain. The Villain can, with a specific effort,
kill minor characters before the Tipping Point. The Villains player can even narrate characters dying from the
Villains depraved indifference or callous carelessness.
The problem with eeeeevil, however, is that it can be a surprisingly hard sell.
Sure, Villains tempt people all the time with money or power or whateverthats
part of the role. But actually getting someone to see things the Villains way just
doesnt happen. Someone in the Villain role always, always fails to successfully
endorse a philosophy, ethos, or course of action in which he believes. A Villain
may have hirelings and thugs, but he cant create true believers. Which means
that the Villain almost never gets the support of those willing to sacrifice deeply
for the cause. Villains cannot, in a word, make Heroes.
Here are some examples.
An unloved criminal, dying in great pain, asks the Villain to perform a mercy
killing on him. The Villain doesnt get an automatic success because, seriously,
no one wants this guy to stay alive. On the other hand, why would the PC
need rules to kill (or not kill) some helpless old jerk? Should be an automatic
success anyhow. If someone is trying to keep the criminal alive, then the
Villain does get the automatic success. Weird, huh?
A crazy woman has seized a school bus and is threatening to kill her own
children and maybe some of those other screaming brats too. The Villain
sneaks up and wants to put a bullet in her brain. He gets the success. Even
though hes saving a busload of kids, killing someone in cold blood is well
cold. Especially since its in front of her own kids.
The Villain is trying to protect some horny teenagers from a serial killer. He
insists that their best course is to get in the car and just get the hell away from
the abandoned summer camp. But he cant get them to see things his way and
they insist that hiding in the unlit basement is far safer.
A Villain decides to sexually assault a superheroine in order to destroy her
self esteem. He gets the auto success. Gross.
Trying to get the mayors wife into bed, the Villain tells her the mayor is
tomcatting around with a lobbyist. He gets an automatic success for making
her doubt her man, but an automatic failure for convincing her the logical
followup is to become just as adulterous herself.
A Villain has been taken hostage by Islamofascists in an embassy takeover. He
tries to convince his attackers that Islam is a load of crap and that they should
give themselves up. He gets the success for destroying their faith, but he
doesnt necessarily succeed at getting them to give up. In fact, thanks to the

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Villain ban on getting people to agree, they probably wont give themselves
up but instead kill the hostages, blow up the building, or do some other crazy
nihilistic thing. Hed succeed if he tried to turn his attackers against one another
(destroying the bonds of comradeship) but not to follow his philosophy. (Then
again, he could just bribe one or more of themthatd work fine.)
A Villain tries to convince a crowd to riot and loot in the name of his pet
cause, Christomunism. Its another split result. Because hes trying to destroy
social order and the rule of law, they get the message about violence and
pillaging. But his underlying message about self-sacrifice in community?
Theyre all like, Bore me later, super-dink. Ima get crunk and steal stuff!
A Villain tries to disguise himself as a high ranking cultist in order to infiltrate the
temple. While the player tries to claim hes destroying the temples security, the
GM just gives him a look. He doesnt get an auto-success. On the other hand, hes
not trying to convince people to believe in something he believes: Hes trying to
convince them of something he knows is a lie. So he doesnt get an auto-fail, either.
Having been framed for a jewel heist in his every-day, public persona, a
Villain tries to convince the cops that he didnt do it. Unfortunately, since this
is the truth, hes doooomed. If he had done it and was lying, hed have neither
a penalty nor a free success.
The Villain tries to persuade a girl perched on a ledge not to jump, that life is
worthwhile and meaningful. If he believes this, he automatically fails to persuade
her. If hes trying to talk her in because he has some nefarious scheme in place that
needs her help, he can proceed with neither automatic success nor automatic failure.

King of Spades : Crux

Crux means the central or most important issue in an argument. It is a point
on which other things turn, like a hinge, only cooler because it has an x. But
what does it mean in the context of Hero and Villain roles?
Gwen Stacy was the crux between Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. In The
Dark Knight, Rachel Dawes is the crux between Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne.
At some points in Return of the Jedi, Luke is the crux between Darth Vader and
Emperor Palpatine, just as Frodo is the crux between Samwise and Gollum (or, if
you prefer, between Gollum and Smagol). The Crux exacerbates rivalries, strains
uneasy friendships and interferes with the best-laid plans. In crudest terms, the
Crux often breaks ties between Hero and Villainor at least pushes the situation
so far towards the breaking point that one or other must give way.
What the Crux can do without fail is interfere with Hero or Villain. No matter what
those poor caped jamokes are trying to do, the Crux has an excellent chance of wrecking
it. Moreover, this interference even trumps the Hero and Villains auto-successes.
There is only a single exception to the Cruxs monkeywrenching king-making (or,
if you prefer, king-breaking). Its a biggie, though. The Crux cannot interfere
when either Hero or Villain tries to physically harm him. Why not? Because
thats the Cruxs big flaw. He cannot avoid damage from actions of either
Hero or Villain. This fated doom is so severe that even physical factors like
boneshock mods or a rumpus suit wont work. Some flukey thing fails at just the
right moment, some circumstance conspires, and the Crux is dead meat. Hey,
technology is imperfect, kay?
Please, please spare me th e ideology.

I dont have mu ch pat ience for

people wh o ju st want to st ir u p t rou ble.

I dont care if you re

st irring it to th e le ft or to th e righ t, Im not eat ing of f that spoon.

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Here are some examples to clarify things. (Or maybe they just muddy the waters further.)
Fine! If you wont love me, hate me! shrieks the Villainess and tries to punch
out the Crux, who sensibly tries to dodge. While the Crux ability to hamstring
Villains is strong, the doom of getting hurt is stronger. Crux goes down.
Stop! shouts the Crux as the Heroine rushes towards a burning building to
rescue orphans and kittens and elderly refugees. The Heroine is going to stop,
though she may start up again, depending on other factors. But at the very
least, the Cruxs cry gives her a moment of pause.
Its the Heros wedding day. The Crux stands up in the middle of the ceremony
and cries, The brides already married! Even if this is utterly false, the wedding
is scuttled, possibly while the Villain cackles and offers the Crux a high-five.
The Villain is putting a bomb in a building, with the Crux tied to a chair one
floor below. The Crux tries to escape and disarm the bomb. Being fated to ruin
the Villains plans, that escape and disarm are probably rock solid. But avoiding
the damage of the Villains bomb seems contrary to the role. In Wild Talents, the
factors just cancel out. Were I GM and using the Smear of Destiny, Id probably
rule that the Crux gets out and disarms the bomb, but takes some kind of lasting
Suffering in paymentwhich could be physical or psychological or whatever.
The Hero plans to jump out and strangle a police officer. The Crux says,
Dude! Thats a cop! Dude! and attempts to bring him to his senses. In
Wild Talents, the Hero is simply sandbagged with many penalties. In Smear of
Destiny, the Crux may actually narrate the Hero being unable to act before the
cop leaves. If the GM is cruel, the Hero may still take Suffering because his plan
failed and he got an Ace, but a kindly GM might let the Hero do nothing and
avoid having to face the Ace.
The players split up the party, so the Hero and Villain are slugging it out while
the Crux and some Bystander characters are off at the library, where they get
jumped by a fightin gang of anarchists. Neither the flaws nor the benefits of
Crux status come into play, absent fated Heroes and Villains of destiny.
The Hero is baking a delicious pie. The Crux decides to ruin it, for whatever
capricious reasons could motivate baked-goods vandalism. Not only is that
pie wrecked, there probably isnt any reason to engage resolution mechanics.
Unless its some kind of critical plot pie.
The Hero pushes down the plunger on the explosives bundle, unaware that
the Crux is inside the building getting demolished. The Crux tries to escape,
but there isnt much point to it. Even when the Hero or Villain isnt trying to
harm the Crux, the Crux cant avoid the damage.
The Villainess throws the Crux over her shoulder and starts running for the airlock
before the entire undersea dome collapses. Neither role affects this action. While the
Crux cant stop the others from harming him, that doesnt effect their ability to help.
The Crux is a police officer in uniform. The Hero takes a swing at her.
Normally, the Heros vulnerability to proper authority would scuttle that
punch, but since this cop is a Crux, that vulnerability takes precedence. If no
other factors are in play, the Crux receives a bone-rattling slap.

All Other Cards: Bystander

This is the simplest role. Players who dont pull a King out of the role deck have no
special bonuses or penalties. Unrestricted, they revel in their existential freedom.
They are bermenschen, beyond the petty bonds of slave moralitys good and
evil! (In fact, some three person groups prefer a Hero, Villain, Bystander fate deck
to one with a Crux.)

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Always and Never

These absolute terms always and never are generously sprinkled through this
chapter, despite their potential to turn into deadly land mines for common sense
and game session plots alike. There are going to be times when the Villain should
be able to convince someone to see things his way. At some point, its just going
to beggar credulity that the Crux could hinder the Hero. So to save the GM from
ungainly narrative backbends, Ill add the following escape valve.
When there is no reasonable way to follow the guidelines of the roles, the GM may
declare an exception.
Id expect most groups to play through entire successful campaigns without needing
this cop-out, so if you find yourselves needing it every few episodes, something
is probably unhealthy in your gameeither youre misapplying the rules or, more
likely, the characters simply arent designed to shift between being rivals and allies
easily. On the other hand, if youre having fun, let it go.

Playing it Right
Im going to step out of my role of providing rules text thats clear and entertaining, but mostly clear and into
my role of game design and creativity theorist. Ill probably get in big trouble for this, but what the hell.
Ive heard the suggestion that early Dungeons and Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade were market
successes not because their rules were clear and intuitive, but rather the opposite. (Now, these suggestions
were often made by stone-cold haters, so consider the source.) The idea is that because those rules were
so broken and so obscure, the players were forced to adapt and houserule and roleplay to dig the fun out.
Supposedly, those grand dames of RPG design served dual parental functions. At the beginning, they provided
clarity and a pathway to story process. (Making PCs in both systems was easy and had lots of nifty stuff to make
you enthusiastic.) But only later on did the deficiencies come to the forefront, unexpectedly tumbling GMs into
far greater authority than theyd wanted. The rules, essentially, served as a mother through the games infancy,
keeping the process intact and teaching the group to walk. Eventually, however, groups entered troubled
adolescence where the only healthy course was to rebel and form separate, mature identities.
Its quite possible that this idea is bullcrap, or bullcrap for most groups. But the idea Id like to extract from that
argumentcarefully disentangling it from any possible disrespect to D&D and V:tM, both of which are systems
I respect and which have given me handsome paychecksis that expecting rules to be hard, fast, concrete and
infallible is an impossible standard for any words on page to reach.
Games at the table are nuanced, ambiguous and volatile. Stuff comes up that rules dont cover. Rather than
blame the rules for failing to do the impossible, I say roll with it. Accept that gaming is improvisational, in the
rules (a little bit) just as much as in the characterization. Sometimes the GM fudges. Its all right.
To set aside the possibly-creepy metaphor of game-as-mom, (though, damn, Mama D&D would have the coolest
basement to run games in) lets try another. Gaming is like music. Some groups are classical musicians with the
rules as their score. They produce their symphony through close adherence to it, by doing the right thing at the
right time. But other groups are like jazz groups or jam bands. The song (or rules and setting) are just a jumping
off point, and where they end up is limited only by their skill and ability to work together.
All this grew out of the always and never ambiguity of the role deck. So thats your music for this game.
Whether you want to play it with symphonic faithfulness or jazzy insouciance is entirely up to your group.

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75

Running and Playing eCollapse in

Particular
In writing this, I assumed readers who are familiar and experienced with tabletop
RPGs. Its possible that you, the reader, are not. If youre an absolute beginner,
dogear this page and get to a computer with online access. Direct your web
browser to www.gregstolze.com/downloads.html and scroll way down to the
bottom. There are two links: How to Run Roleplaying Games and How to Play
Roleplaying Games. Those are my boilerplate articles for starting out. I could
reprint them here, but it would push up the cover price and kill some trees.
Im not going to rehash those articles (or not much) in this chapter. Instead of
telling you how to play games in general, Im going to get specific. Im going to
advise you on playing eCollapse in particular.

For the Players

Playing eCollapse, youre controlling the main characters. The story is about
them. Dont forget that, because its important. Sitting back and being a
bystander is not going to produce much fun for you, because the system
and setting presume active PCsindeed, obsessed ones. Dont worry about
doing the smart thing all the time, dont worry about trying to minimize your
characters foolishness or failures or weaknesses. Stories about people who win
all the time without breaking a sweat are boring to read, boring to watch and, if
marginally less boring to play, theyre certainly boring to run.
Fascinating characters overcome difficulties or are tragically crushed by them.
Either story is pretty good. When generating your character, you have a chance to
choose which difficulties you face and which issues youre going to confront. So
think less about reaching a conclusion where your character wins. Instead, think
about what would be a fun process for your character to go through. You may
not believe this at first, but its actually more fun and more fulfilling to play an
interesting game where characters succumb to their flaws and go down fighting
than it is to bag a farcical victory in a boring game with no real challenges.

Getting Into Character

In that spirit, try looking at RPGs a little differently. Lets put a pin through
game for the moment. Dont think Its like Monopoly and this time Park Place
is mine! Focus on the idea of roleplaying. Think of it as theater. If youre an
actor getting cast in Hamlet, what roles do you want? Most serious actresses are
going to covet Ophelia and Gertrude, while male actors are going straight for
Hamlet and Claudius. These are the fun roles that get the good scenes and have
the memorable experiences. Whats missing with these? Happy endings.
A happy ending isnt necessary for a good story, though its not out of bounds
either. But if you focus on getting whats good for your character at all costs,
your first sacrifice is going to be a lot of cool events. Good stories are rarely
made by characters taking the safest and most reasonable course.
Hopefully, this perspective eases the sting of the constrained character generation.
I admit it: Characters in eCollapse are, in some ways, built along much stricter lines
than the traditional superhero character. They only get one power off a fairly
short listthats certainly the most pronounced difference. But thats because
powers arent the point, or are only part of the point. Characters in eCollapse

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dont succeed only because they have super-strength. They succeed because they
engage their beliefs and because they know how to let destiny take a hand.

Owning Your Destiny

The big curve ball in the eCollapse mechanics (whether you use the Smear or not)
is the assignment of roles for each episode. Sometimes youre going to draw
exactly the card you want for a scene and its going to hand you the outcome you
envisioned on a silver platter. I dont really think you need any advice for how
to deal with unwrapping a gift, so lets look at the converse. Lets look at what
happens when you pull a role and it screws you.
Some time youre going to get put in the Hero role and be unable to whale on
cops and feds and soldiers. Live with this.
There are a couple ways to make that pill go down a little more smoothly. The
proactive method is to have an explanation for this heroic hesitation built into
your character. Patriotism, fear and excessive cultural conditioning can all explain
a characters momentary failure to stand up to The Man. But maybe you want
to play a passionate anarchist. Thats a fine concept, and when that smasher of
states gets blocked by the Hero flaw, its better to narrate failures that emerge
from inanimate causes (the bullet missed, the rumpus suit stopped it, the cop
stumbled out of the way). Another way to cope is to fall back on unwanted
byproducts of his intensitywhen the cop taunts him, hes too enraged to shoot
straight, or he gives up his cunning approach in favor of a blind, berserk charge.

The flip side of the Hero role is the blessing for self-sacrifice. Get clear on this: It
does not let you risk your life to save the puppy and get away unscathed. It lets
you risk your life to have the puppy get away unscathed. Your GM may quite
rightly call you on it if you invoke the Hero clause, narrate first, and use it to
protect your character. Theres a reason that the phrase he heroically guarded
his own ass rarely gets applied without sarcasm. You dont want your heroism
to be sarcastic, do you? So do it all in or not at all. That not at all option is
quite open, after all. If your character is a let them puppies fry type, well, play
it to the hilt and leave the King of Hearts twiddling his thumbs.
The same thing applies to the Villains blessing of destruction. If you want your
character to be a nice guy, the relevant thing to do is to leave that particular
arrow in the quiver. Just walk away from the easy path, leave that volatile
narration to the GM and that guy who sits next to you snickering whenever he
describes rocks falling on your character.
Not so easy? Well, thats what the games about.
Compared to the Heros flaw, the Villains issue is fairly straightforward. Resign
yourself to being misunderstood for an episode. If it feels like this would
make your character bitter and resentfulyoure darn tootin! Bitterness and
resentment (and their unacknowledged Third Musketeer, self-pity) make it a
whole lot more palatable to victimize others, which is why this is such an integral
part of the Villain package.
The Crux role is the most likely, I think, to be misunderstood because its much
less flashy than the Hero and Villain. Its easy to pigeonhole Darth Vader and
Gandalf in their respective story positions, but the character upon whom the
conflict hinges draws less attention, and understandably so because hes not
dying for the good of others or killing for the benefit of himself. What he is
doing is making sure that both the primary roles are aware of the risks and
costs. With all that authority for interference, the Crux player has a lot of power
to make up, somewhat, for the constraints on the character. As for the Crux
weakness? Thats to keep the player honest, of course. The Crux is a Prisoners
Dilemma with a sense of humor. If you dont trust them, you can screw them. If
they dont trust you, they can screw you. So all you have to do is hold back your
interference and hope they dont pull the trigger after youve holstered your
gun. Sure, thatll happen, right? Everybodys friendly. Wasnt it Rodney King
who observed how well we can all get along?
Oh, wait. Of course the Crux cant get along with the Hero and the Villain,
because theres a decent chance they work at cross purposes. If everyones getting
alonghey, bonus, nice, you dont need my advice. But when Player A knows his
character can only succeed by being a jerk and Player B knows his character can
only succeed by being a sweetheart, its more likely to provide struggle than niche
protection. As Crux, youre the tiebreaker. Take it seriously, take your lumps with
good cheer and remember that what goes around comes around.

Being An Enabler
Theres no I in Team and there isnt one in Roleplay either. Getting into
character is good. Binding your goals as a player so tightly to your characters
goals that you spoil your own fun, or someone elses, is bad. Your character
Stands For Christomunism (or whatever) but as the player you Stand For a fun
game. Keep that separation in mind. Playing hard is cool. Playing dirty isnt.
What constitutes playing dirty in a roleplaying game? Well, cheating, obviously,
but youre too cool to pocket cards or do other stupid crap like that. So instead

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of dirty, Ill say you shouldnt play rude. Share. Give way. In a game like this,
the most precious commodity is the attention of the plot, the GM and your
fellow players. Dont get greedy with it or people wont help you get it. Its like
basketball. Once people know youre a ball-hog, they wont pass to you.
Instead of trying to make the game about your character and casting the other
PCs as sidekicks, pass the ball. Consider the other characters factors, goals and
roles, and look for ways to put them in position to be awesome. If youre an
enabler of greatness, the other players are much more likely to help you get a
groovy spotlight moment of your own.
Start this at character generation, if at all possible. Work with the other
characters. Im halfway tempted to go stick another step in character generation
called Im loyal to the other PCs because ________ but I think its smoother if I
just ask you to do it here. If your character doesnt fit with the group, give way.
Itll be better in the long run, I promise.
Pay particular attention to the Weaknesses of the other characters. When your
guy helps that character cope with his flaws, its very coolnot only because
it pushes the plot forward through a barrier, but because it also ties those
characters together and explains why they help one another. Just dont exploit
their problems, and that includes making their character look like a dweeb so
that yours looks better by comparison. There can be a fine line between lending a
helping hand and tossing your head, rolling your eyes and saying, Looks like Ive
got to get my sidekick out of trouble again. Stay on the good side of the line.
The mechanics of the game are very open to making other characters look good
(by narrating them doing something grand) or bad. If you dont want your
character narrated into something ugly, respect the characters of others, who are
going to get narration power sooner or later. By the same token, make sure your
character sets a strong pattern of behavior, so that they know what is appropriate.

For the GM
As the GM you run the game, but the use of the word run implies a degree of
control that is not, perhaps, entirely desirable. Youre not a playwright putting
lines in the main characters mouths (though you do so for the supporting cast)
and youre not a director explaining motivation to actors (though you need to
understand those motivations to make a good go). Think of yourself more like
a stage manager and lighting director. Your job is to shine a spotlight on the
characters, illuminating their brilliance or maybe the shames theyd rather keep
hidden. Theyre the most important characters in the story, but that doesnt
mean theyre always the nicest ones.
The GM position is a curious balance of both ally and antagonist to the players.
You make their triumphs possible, but at the same time have to challenge and
impede them to make those triumphs meaningful. There has to be a real chance
to succeed or else its pointless. But its also pointless if they think (or know!)
they cant really fail.

Setting Up the Pins

eCollapse is a game that rewards GMs who pay attention to the characters from
the very beginning. With a lot of games, including many Ive written, it works
fine for the GM to write a scenario and either assign characters to players, or
have them generate characters and then find a way to introduce them to the
unstable situation so they can poke it until it explodes.

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This games different. The characters are like single-issue voters, only instead
of hitting the polls they beat people up. You can develop a great plot centered
around free markets, and if your PCs all have bees in their bonnets about AI
rights, its not going to click. Theyre going to leave your market plot lonesome
as a homely kid at a junior high dance.
Fortunately, you dont have to guess whats going to engage and challenge the
characters, because theres a handy piece of paper that tells you exactly what
theyre standing for and standing against. Moreover, that same piece of paper
tells you what kinds of challenges the players would enjoy for their character.
(Well, perhaps enjoy is a strong word. Desire or accept with a minimum of
disgruntlement might be more accurate.)
Setting up an eCollapse game is a little like making soup. You dont get to choose
all the ingredients, but at least you have a good idea what the other cooks are going
to throw in the potand what will get them coming back for a second helping.
Grab the character sheets, were going to make a little graph. Put the PCs
names across the columns on the top. Now for every issue they mention, make
an entry and put a plus or minus sign in the box, showing whos for and against
what. If you look at the play examples in the Appendix, they center around four
characters with various hot buttons. Im going to knock together their chart.

Jade P ython

Rump-Shaker

Collateral Dammit

Maiden of Bleeding Eyes

Multi - culturalism

Imperialism

US Army

Anarchy

Patriotism

Gov. Corruption

The USA

+/-

Thats a lot going on, but thats good. It gives you lots of issues to explore, with
hope that at least one character is going to bite on it. Now lets take those
issues and extrapolate. Guess, based on the character and the player, how the
PC is likely to respond to other characters hot buttons. Put those guesses in
parentheses, as Ive done below. If you dont think the issue generates heat for a
particular character, leave it blank.

Jade P ython

Rump-Shaker

Collateral Dammit

Maiden of Bleeding Eyes

Multi - culturalism

(+)

( - )

(+)

Imperialism

( - )

US Army

( - )

(+)

Anarchy

( - )

Patriotism

( - )

Gov. Corruption

( - )

( - )

( - )

The USA

(+)

( - )

(+)

+/-

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If youve got a full line where theres agreement, thats your golden motivation.
In the above case, its government corruption. It has the best shot of motivating
all the characters, and why not? The anarchist is against it because he thinks
its symptomatic of everything bad with politics. The authoritarian (and jeez,
whats Collateral Dammit doing with these flower children anyhow?) is against it
because it besmirches the beauty of civil legislation. The other two are against it
because its like puppy-kicking: Almost nobody is loudly in favor of it.
Start your game with the golden motivation. If there isnt one, see if you can
get players to change their characters a little for more concord, or look for
something closethree plusses and a blank, or at worst two agreements and
two abstentions. Try not to get anything where one character is for and another
against right at the start. Save that for later.
Giving them an agreeable common enemy opens the group to situations
where they help one another, work together and, in a word, bond. Encourage
friendships among the characters. If theyre chomping at the bit to get into
bitter rivalries, maybe find a quiet moment to suggest how much more intense
those rivalries can be if theres an element of betrayed friendship. Besides, its
the roles, drawn from the deck, that should provide a good seasoning of friction
in early sessions, when people are still getting into character.
When the unambiguous plot is up and running, or is nearing a conclusion, you
might want to start setting up something thats geared around ++- or --+ or
something like that. After working together (one hopes) and getting used to the
idea of being together, an issue that strains the relationship a little can play well.
With the four example characters, something with a clash of cultures might do.
Three out of four PCs can be expected to take a conciliatory tone, with the fourth
getting to act as the devils advocate and play I told you so! if it goes rotten.
Any time it looks like the group is in danger of breaking entirely, steer back
towards the issue of agreement (or a common threat, that works too). If a
character doesnt seem to be fitting in, try to find an issue that pulls him without
alienating the others. If, for example, CD is feeling more and more like the
fourth wheel on a trike, Id try a threat to the USA from foreign agents. Python
isnt going to like that idea, the Maiden may be ambiguous but at least she isnt
instantly averse. Rumpshaker might balk, but if the foreigners are fascist or
something, he might consider fighting them the lesser evil.
(This is all without bringing in Weaknesses or other factors. Rumpshaker might
just shrug about the spies until a girl with doe-brown eyes and a trembling lower
lip asks for his help.)
Watch out for issues that turn up just +-, especially if those are stated and not
just your parenthetical guesses. Issues like that can be third rails, and if you jump
on them, your game might die. But dont fence them off from the players! PCs
are, after all, the engines motivating the game and they have that stuff on their
character sheets for a reason. Those reasons ensure theyll bring them in. Trust
me: The lure of improving their results spurs loads of creativity.
If you let the players bring in those elements, the two characters can argue
and debate on the side, while you keep the primary issue looming to hit them
with when it things are getting too tense or the other players are getting too
bored. When the players touch the hot button, its far more acceptable for
the GM to try to steer them away. If the GM starts it, it looks wishy-washy or
manipulative to then try and yank it back. This is especially true if you made it
a central motivation. Then you might have really screwed yourself by putting
two characters in a situation where they cant agree, with two others not really

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caring, and nowhere to escape from it. You dont want that. Let them bring
those troubled ideologies in themselvesespecially when they have Villain or
Crux fates to make their points particularly sharp.

Knocking Them Down

Once youve got a sense of the hooks that lure PCs to bite, its time to sink it into
their tender flesh, haul them gasping from the stream, and cook up some fun.
There are a couple ways that resolution is going to arrive, and Ill spare a little
discussion for each.

All We Do Is Talk Talk

I wrote up the section on Acid Barf, so far be it from me to disdain the fightysmashy path to plotline resolution. But I also wrote up the Linguo-Jammer. While
the four-lane highway of violence is often the preferred route in a superhero
game, dont be surprised or offended or exasperated if your players explore the
overgrown footpath of talk. Or the shadowy secret hallways of spying.
If a character enters a scene planning to find out whos providing all the money
Crankshaft Industries is pouring into R&D for animal mind control, you want that
player to walk away from that scene with something. Otherwise, its just a dud
wastes your time, wastes her time. You dont have to give her the information
shes seeking but if you dont, try to provide another meaningful question.
Its perfectly possible, of course, that shes barking up the wrong tree. If she is, you
want her to know it in a reasonable amount of time. Red herrings are fine, they
keep interest up, as long as they dont take more than a scene or two. After three
days, both guests and fish start to smell. After a full episode, a red herring does too.
Its equally possible, if not moreso, that the character does something stupid or
foolish or obviously dangerous, and then his pull and draws ensure abject failure.
Thats no excuse for grinding the game to a halt, especially if youre using the
Smear and it hasnt yet Tipped. (See the next chapter for explanations of these
terms.) Basically, there are several ways a talking or sneaking scene can go,
depending on whether its a good lead or fake, and depending on whether the
PCs handle it well or poorly.
Good Lead, Smart PCs. Clap your hands and say yeah, theyre firing on all
cylinders. Give them their hint. Give them a little extra information to make
things easier later on. Give them the phone number of the cute receptionist they
talked tothis is their time to shine cause they did everything right.
A False Trail Competently Walked. Not quite like Mom catching the
championship-winning slam-dunk on video, but its not like the PCs totally
blew it. Let them find out that theyre on the wrong trail and let them get a
little extra something for their trouble. Maybe the guy they talked to becomes
interested in finding out whos responsibleif for no other reason, because
he doesnt want any more caped avengers of the night dripping flammable
discharge on his hardwood floors. Look at these scenes and see why your PCs
were so sure this was a good route to check: If you figure out what caught their
interest, you can catch it again at a later date.
Good Lead, Handled Badly. Keep in mind that theres a difference between
bungling and doing something the GM wouldnt have done. Be open
to alternative problem solving. That said, sometimes the cards and dice get
inexplicably cold and theres just a big, clear failure dropping on your lead. Give
them an indication that theyre on the right track, even as you keep the critical

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information just out of reach. This provides the good kind of frustrationthe
kind that promises eventual satisfaction and makes them feel they earned their
success. If they cant figure out whether they wasted their time or not, you get
the bad kind of frustration, where they dont know how close they are. Even
when they fail, they should know they were failing in the right direction.
Bungling a Bad Lead. This may seem like a fine occasion to fall on the PCs like
wolves on a crippled lamb, but thats probably not necessary. Theyre already
going to be disappointed that they didnt get closer to solving their mystery
and the odds are good that they looked like dunces without the GM sticking in
anything additional. They should figure out that the leads bad, take their lumps
and move on. Indeed, from a narrative standpoint it makes perfect sense for the
consequences to be less when they have the wrong end of the stick. Their real
enemies are more likely to be prepared, surely, while a false lead has less to hide
and less reason to be ready for an incursion of costumed adventurers.

Mmmmmortaaaal Commmmbaaat!
Like I said, Im going to assume youre an experienced GM and know better than
to make every fight a cakewalk or to punitively overwhelm your characters with
more opposition than they can handle. You know, generally, how to run a fight
in a game. Heres how to run a fight in this game.
If youre using Wild Talents, the fights in eCollapse have some elements looser
than you expectspecifically the capabilities of your PCs, depending on whether
they pulled Hero or Villain. A character with so-so combat potential can turn
into a raging monster with a King of Clubs in his hand, and thats exactly how
it should be. Eeeevil wouldnt be a temptation if it wasnt efficient, right?
Similarly, Heroes and Cruxes are going to be gobbling, perhaps, more stuff than
youre expecting to have gobbled. Roll with it.
In that spirit, its likely that your PCs are going to thwart one another, possibly
quite soon. This is a delicate thing to handle, particularly in the middle of a
life-or-death conflict. It calls, I think, for the soft power of a GMs influence,
rather than house rules that constrain people from screwing with the other guys
fist fight. I dont know your players. Maybe a game where they actively try to
screw one another over to death is good fun, they play hard but there are no
sore feelings afterwards. On the other hand, if one guy is being a jerkor is
simply expecting a screw-your-neighbor game when no one else isyou need to
gently step in and clarify the expectations. Suggesting that, for the first couple
sessions at least, you only interfere in combat in order to protect other characters
is probably reasonable. Once a rhythm of play has formed and people know
what to expect, those sorts of tensions can be introduced gradually instead of
ambushing the newbie in the first session.
The Smear of Destiny, on the other hand, is just vaguer in every direction than
the One Roll Engine that drives Wild Talents. It gives narrative power to the
players, for pitys sake! So already many elements of fight scenes are going to
be fluid and random and flying wildly in from left field. But theres random and
then theres chaotic random, so it may help before starting the game to set a few
parameters and get everyone in agreement.
The most constrained form of Smear-based combat is when the GM gives a very
specific number of enemies and the PCs cant narrate the defeat of more than one
or two nameless characters per action. Moreover, the PCs have limited authority
over what sorts of things the enemies choose to do, and while they can introduce
physical paraphernalia into a scene, they cant do anything too out of place.

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The more liberal form is where the PCs can wipe out lots of unnamed goons in an
action, but where the GM doesnt necessarily have to pin herself down on how
many remain. In this form, there is a polite fiction that these unnamed fighters
are anything other than a GM pacing tool. (If youre going to use GMCs this way,
make sure you dont crush the PCs by accident.) Getting totally gone with it allows
the PCs to spontaneously find handguns lying around church pews and narrate
GMCs dying by choosing to jump in a tree-chipper rather than face the wrath of
the characters. At this level, it doesnt just run a risk of becoming a mockery, it is
a mockery. But if thats your fun, go have it. I, after all, am the guy who wrote the
phrase the most constrained form of Smear-based combat and I can only hope
you enjoy playing the game as much as I enjoyed writing those words.

Seekas of th e world! Tonigh t! You have noth ing to lose bu t you r brains!

- Manborn, Ch ristomu nist ant i-CECA cru sader, wh ile engag ing a pack of
enhanced spider monkeys with a baseball bat.

Gaming the Smear

It is possible to run an entire session of eCollapse without once drawing from the Smear. If your characters are
following what theyre For and Against, if theyre in a situation where their mods and roles apply frequently, you
can cruise right along, reach a conclusion, and leave the whole card element unused. And that is, honestly, fine.
If your group is conservative and doesnt want to die, you can roll along just like that.
But players should be aware that there are drawbacks to being a no-Smear group. First off, youre cutting out a
resource. If you never try your luck youre never going to get lucky. Secondly, if your GM is worth a damn shes
going to move heaven and earth to throw situations at you that activate your Weakness, challenges where your
mods arent applicable, and scenarios where what youre For and Against are irrelevant, if not actually directly
opposed. If you dont take the risk and use the Smear, you may not get the job done.
Then theres the small matter of your other players. Remember them? The whole strategy of leaving the
Smear undisturbed only works as long as the whole gang is in on it, and there are incentivesoften powerful
incentivesfor your fellow players to throw a roadblock in your path. As long as your Suffering is zero, you can
leave the Smear in peace, but as soon as you get even a single point, your characters in jeopardy. Sure, you may
think that Tipping Point is far off and its all right to have no Valor and a point of Suffering, but all it takes is
for your buddy to draw one card and luck onto the King of Diamonds. What are the odds of that? Oh, not great.
Better than one in fifty-two, of course, and rising as the Smear gets explored, which is likely to happen quite
quickly if the other players also have a change of heart and decide to rack up some Valor to protect themselves.
Because Valor doesnt just protect you from the Tipping Point, remember. You start with a point of Valor, but if you dont
get more then your first point of Suffering can weaken you, and that second can hamstring you even without Tipping.
A final concern about leaving the Smear untouched, of course, is that it protects the big bads just as much as
it protects the PCs. Even snot-nosed punks cant die before the Tip, unless youre a Villain, and even the most
destructive Villain is going to face a powerful enemy again if the PCs lack the Valor to deal with foes permanently.
If you want it like that, its a valid way to play. Just be aware of problems youre imposing on yourself.
So how about the opposite tactic? What about grabbing cards all the time? That situations a lot more
straightforward, even though it depends on what your fellow players decide to do.
If youre the only one grabbing cards, odds are good you wind up damn near invincible. You have Valor, they
dont, and when the Tipping Point comes it may not even slow you down much. Of course, your friends who
didnt draw are very likely to pay the price, especially if your GM is enough of a sadist to prey on the weak.
(Hey, they knew how to defend themselves. If they wanted to gamble on keeping the Point distant, they should
have been aware what was coming. They did read this sidebar, right?)
But really, odds are good that once they see you drawing, their reluctance to touch the Smear evaporates. If one
player is eager to Tip, there isnt much the others can do to hold him back, so its in their interests to get draws
while they can, before the risk gets too high.
The middle route between racing for the Tip and never getting there consists of drawing moderately, only in
need, and counting on the rest of the group to be similarly circumspect. Its easier said than done, of course,
especially when a tempting Jack or Queen floats up and you remember where it is. But you can trust your fellow
PCs, right? Sure you can.
Even the Crux.

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87

The Smear of Destiny System

While eCollapse can be used as a setting for any game where you want to subtly
probe the Hero vs. Villain trope, it can also stand on its own with a set of rules
that really hit you over the head with it. These card-based rules are called the
Smear of Destiny.

Elements of the System

Here are the pieces, the tokens that get manipulated to produce results. Once
you know what they are, Ill explain how they interact.

The Smear
The central component of play in this system is the Smear, an array of playing
cards spread out (or, for the finicky, arranged in a pattern) on a common table.
You start with a normal 52 card deck, but the Smear should contain only the
following cards.
Four each of all the cards Ace-9
Three 10s
Three Jacks
Two Queens
The King of Diamonds
Put those cards in a deck, shuffle it thoroughly, then spread it across the table,
splayed out randomly, without any cards lying one atop another. If you prefer,
you can arrange them in a rows, but that tends to push the game to its Tipping
Point (see page 90) sooner.

Valor
On each character sheet, theres a place to track Valor. Every time a character
looks at a card from the Smear, he gains a point of Valor. The more Valor a
character has, the harder that individual is to destroy, but the more Valor the
group has, the closer it gets to the Tipping Point (see Tipping, below). Valor
starts at 1. At the end of every session, when the Smear gets put away, Valor
drops (or rises) to a value equal to current Suffering+1.

Suffering
The character sheet also holds a space for tracking Suffering. Whenever a
character is harmed, be it physically or emotionally or whatever, he gains a point
of Suffering. He also gains a point of Suffering if he uses any Ace result. The GM
decides when what is narrated warrants a Suffering increase, as long as shes not
nasty about it. (If shes nasty about it, players may stop attending games.)
When Suffering is equal to Valor, all the characters draws and factors get
dropped a level. That is, if he plays a Jack, it only counts as a 10. If he plays a
2, it counts as an Ace (and gets him more Suffering). As soon as the Suffering
comes on, the demotions begin, even in the middle of resolving an action.

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Before the Tipping Point (see page 90), results get dropped two levels if
Suffering exceeds Valor. After the Tipping Point, if a characters Suffering
exceeds his Valor, hes out of the game. Usually this means dead, but possibly
just institutionalized, arrested, or too despondent to continue.
After a character rests, he may lose a point of Suffering. Or he may not, if the
GM decides the Suffering is really severe (such as a broken arm, or having your
mom say I shoulda thrown you away and kept the afterbirth!). At the end of a
session, when the Smear gets put away, all non-physical Suffering is erased. The
characters Valor then rises (or drops) to Suffering+1.

Factors
A factor is what determines an outcomewhether a character hits that cop in
the junk or misses, whether he convinces his girlfriend to come back or whether
she leaves, whether he successfully resuscitates his recently-revealed illegitimate
child or not.
Factors are rated Ace through King. A card drawn from the Smear can be a
factor. An element on the character sheet (Weakness, Superpower, etc.) can be
a factor. Factors can be increased or decreased, usually by what a character is For
or Against (see page 33), or by having Suffering equal to or greater than Valor
(see above).
Aces are low. Kings are high. High factor wins. What wins means is explained a
little later, on page 91, but for now content yourself for knowing what a factor is.

Drawing
When a character is going to do something risky and uncertain, theres a choice.
The player can either default to factors on his character sheet, or he can draw
a card from the Smear, or he can use the factor from his role as Hero, Villain
or Crux. He can also combine any of the above, so if you really want to get it
done, draw and use your role and your superpower. So, if a character can use
his superpower as a factor and chooses not to draw, he gets a Queen result. If a
character has drawn the King of Spades as his destined role (see Chapter Four),
putting him in the Crux role for the episode, he can get a King result when
interfering with Heroes and Villains, without taking a draw. Or the player can
just fish a card out of the Smear, raising his Valor.
When a player draws, he turns the card over and shows it to everyone. When
every player who wants to has drawn and shown, they all put their cards back
in the same places. This means that if a character turns over a Queen, everyone
who draws first in later turns can get that Queen, if they remember exactly
where the card was. But nobody drawing at the same time can get that Queen,
because the first guy keeps it turned up.
These mechanics heavily reward those who pay attention and remember where
good and bad cards are at in the Smear. This is why the game lasts longer if the
Smear is truly random. When its in a grid, its much easier for a player to note
down Theres a 10 card third from the left in the bottom row on her character
sheet. Not that theres necessarily anything wrong with that. The more confident
the players are in their ability to manipulate the Smear, the sooner the Smear tips.

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Tipping
The Tipping Point represents a change of state in the games events. Before
the Tipping Point, things are uncertain and weird, but still possibly concealable.
Afterwards, the stakes go up. Things can really change. People can really die.
Thats the primary difference between the tipped and untipped phases of play.
Before the Smear tips, characters cant die, no matter how much Suffering they
rack up. Major antagonists cant die either. In fact, even minor GM characters
are protected, unless they have to die to push the plot. The only exception to
this is that PCs in the Villain role (see page 69) can kill unnamed antagonists
before the Tip. Even the Villain cant put down a major threat until after the
Tipping Point. They have the will, but lack the power.
After the tip, your character leaves play when Suffering exceeds Valor. Period.
There are two factors that cause the Smear to tip.
When the player group has drawn ten cards, the Smear tips. That is, if there are
five players, and two of them each rack up five new points of Valor, the Smear tips
and the other three are doomed if they have more Suffering than Valor. If each
of those same five players only took two draws apiece, the Smear would still tip.
This is because, after ten draws, the collective group of players have a pretty
good chance of turning up high cards , if they can just remember them, thereby
succeeding a lot.
This is also why the Smear automatically tips when the King of Diamonds gets turned
up. As soon as that bad boy shows his face, its on. The characters are quite likely
to kick righteous ass all over the board, but with very little tolerance for mistakes.
(I recommend putting a bowl with ten pennies or ten cherries or ten whatever
next to the Smear. Whenever a player checks a card, take out a token. Itd
probably be really fun to put M&Ms in there and see how the game dynamic
changes depending on whether the GM or the PC gets to eat the candy with each
draw. But anyhow, this provides a very visceral way to track how close the game
is to tipping. When the bowl is empty, flip it over. If youre a real drama queen,
smash it on the floor, just clean up afterwards.)

GM Characters and Situations

The GM does not touch the Smear. When GM characters have applicable boosts
and mods, they get Queen results. If theyre using high tech, they get Jack
results. So-so technology? Provides a ten. Other than that, they get one free
nine factor on every action.
Minor characterspeople so unimportant to the plot that the GM hasnt
bothered to name themgive up or faint the first time they take a point of
Suffering. However, they cant die until the Tipping Point has passed, unless the
Villain makes a specific point of killing them. Keep that in mind for narration,
players and GMs alike.
Important characters, the major players with names, stay in play no matter how
many Ace results they get driven down to or how many superficial attacks land
on them. But before the Tip, they do flee or faint or otherwise stop if hit by a
King. They can only be removed long term after the Tipping Point, and then only
when attacked by someone who uses a King factor. (Thus, they can be usually be

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killed by someone who draws a King, or by a Villain, or by someone promoting a

lower result by acting in accordance with what they stand For or Against.)
The most important characters, the tough major antagonists, only fold after two,
or even three Kings, at the GMs discretion.
The same kind of approach can work with inanimate opposition. Going against
normal crap (fighting the flu, finding a job, trying to get some hard math
right the first time) the opposition gets a nine and folds after its first point of
Suffering. Something thats a technological barrier (getting out of handcuffs,
escaping gridlock traffic, programming an outdated VCR) has a Jack for
opposition and is resolved after a Suffering point. If its really a toughie, or has
multiple factors to cope with, it might have a Jack, nine back. Major perils like
typhoons and crashing planes and bioengineered plagues have Queens and may,
at the GMs discretion, only be resolved by King factors.

Resolving
Before starting any resolution process, the player should spare a glance for the
GM, who may indicate that theres no need to fall back on the rules. If the GM
decides an action is impossible, theres no point in drawing cards. Similarly, the
GM may just float players the occasional gimme either to advance the plot,
because success is reasonable, or just to establish or reinforce that the character
is badass. D. Vincent Baker recommends that GMs Say yes or roll the dice,
which is shorthand for only engaging the rules when uncertainty is suspenseful
and entertaining.
But when something is uncertain and its dramatic to have success or failure on
the line, its time to resolve the action. Heres how you do that.

Step One: Declare

Everyone whos involved states what their character is trying to do. At this point,
the involved players should see if any factors on their character sheets apply.
They also say if they want to use the Smear or not. If they do, they immediately
raise Valor by 1 and the GM checks to see if the Tipping Point has arrived.

Step Two: Turnover

Heres where we get into timing, because people who are going to the Smears
card factors must take turns. If the player who drew the King of Spades at the
start of the episode hasnt revealed that hes the Crux yet, he must do so now.
Crux always draws first.
Before the Tipping Point, the King of Clubs (or Villain) gets the second draw, and
the King of Hearts (the Hero) gets third.
After the Tipping Point, the King of Hearts gets the second draw, and the King of
Clubs gets third.
After all the King cards have gone, other players draw in order from right to left,
starting with the Crux.

Step Three: Factors and Narration

Each player declares their factors. My attempt to punch out the truck driver is a
Queen, for example. Kings go first, then Queens, counting down to Aces. Each

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player, in turn, gets a chance to describe what happens to his character, within
four general parameters.
The narrator cannot contradict anything anyone else has said, or anything else
that has been established so far in the story.
The narrator cannot make a major change to what his character was
attempting. He can describe success or failure, as long as its in keeping with
the declared action and it doesnt contradict previous narration. He may also
describe success at a different but very closely related taskdiving for cover
instead of diving to tackle that escaped Reeb monkey, for example. The only
exception to this is an Ace result or lower. Thats always a failure, but the
player still gets to describe the exact nature of the failure.
The narrator can only describe one thing. Your group may have a loose
and easy time figuring what one element of narration is, or you may want a
concrete break point. There are some ways to do it objectively. One is to take
a deep breath before speaking, and forcibly stop narrating when that one
breath runs out. Alternately, everyone can narrate for 15 seconds. (I know,
its not very long.) If youre on the internet, run it through Twitter and abide
by its letter limits.

What If Theres a Tie?

As you can readily imagine, the person who narrates first is in the pole
position. But what if theres a tie? Darrens trying to hit the truck driver
and has a Queen result. However, the truck driver is also modded and gets a
Queen result. What happens?
Either player can choose to defer, which simply means, I let the other guy go
and then I go. If that happens, they keep their tied results and the one who
yielded goes second.
If neither one defers, their results cancel out. If they have a secondary factor,
they resolve on that factor. If they dont, it becomes an Ace.

Example: Lets look at Darren and the modded trucker. Darren drew from the
Smear in addition to using his boosted strength to slug the guy, and the card he
got was a 5. Moreover, before becoming a vigilante, Darren was a cop, so that
factor also plays in as a 10. If neither he nor the trucker defer, their Queens bump
and Darren has to wait until his 10 comes up. But the trucker also drew, he got a
10 and they bump again. Darren falls back to his 5, while the trucker is now stuck
with an Ace result. When the 5 comes into play, Darrens player takes a breath
and says, Darren jumps up, grabbing the door, then breaks the truckers jaw and
knocks him out in one shot. As the door rebounds from the force of the punch,
Darren swings inside the cab and gets behind the wheel.
When the truckers result comes up, he cant stay conscious or dodge the blow
theyve already happened. But he can describe how things turn to crap for him,
and he does. The punch jars him out of his seat and he collapses across the floormounted stickshift, pushing it into drive while his knees settle on the gas pedal.

Passive Defenses
A lot of good defensesboneshocks and secondary endoskeletons with Queens, rumpus suits and ceramic plate
armor as Jacksdont require you to do anything other than get shot. When protected by them, you use its factor
when someone attacks you butunless your action was something protectiveyou get no other factors if its
a tie. Thus, no matter what youre doing, you get a Queen if you have boneshocks and someones trying to clobber
you. Just remember that if you narrate success at your action and forget to narrate that the guy misses you, he
still might cream you. You also dont get that Queen if no one bothers to strike you.
This is a bit of a weird situation, in that it makes well defended characters more effective when theyre attacked.
On the other hand, in an uncertain, loud and violent conflict, youre far more likely to accomplish your goals if
you can wade through the gunfire without sweating about taking a hit.

Hurting
If narration indicates some kind of misfortune, which can be anything from a bad
bruise to intellectual bewilderment, the character takes one point of Suffering.
Characters also get a Suffering point every time they use an Ace outcome.
Any time Suffering is equal to Valor, all the factors the player uses get degraded
a levelQueens become Jacks and 3s become 2s.
Before the Tipping Point, factors get degraded two levels when Suffering
exceeds Valor.
After the Tipping Point, the character leaves play when Suffering exceeds Valor.
Leaving play can mean death, retirement, catatonia or anything else that fits
circumstances. (Including kamikaze attacks. Just sayin.)

An Example of Play.
The friendly neighborhood GM has started a new game of eCollapse. The four
PCs are as follows.
Jade Python, who has boosted coordination (Q), Valor 1, Suffering 0, used
to be a motivational speaker (10), Stands For Multiculturalism, Stands Against
Imperialism, and has a Weakness for her dysfunctional family.

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 Rumpshaker has boosted strength (Q), Valor 1, Suffering 0, used to be

a soldier (10), Stands For Anarchy, Stands Against the US Army, and has a
Weakness for good looking ladies.
Collateral Dammit extrudes flammable explosives (Q), has Valor 1 and
Suffering 0, used to be an architect (10), Stands For Patriotism, Stands Against
Governmental Corruption, and has a Weakness involving ruthlessness when
people beg.
The Maiden of Bleeding Eyes has an aero-ink ejector (Q), has Valor 1 and
Suffering 0, used to be a forest ranger (10), Stands both For and Against the
USA, and has a Weakness for environmental destruction.
The GM requested beforehand that the PCs be nominal allies, so the game opens
with them at the remains of a state park. Jades divorced sister, who lives in the
depths of denial, asked Jade to come out for a nice day at the park with her
two little nephewsthis, despite the desolation of the onetime forest, and the
obnoxiousness of the children. But she was right about it being day.
The Maiden of Bleeding Eyes (in her daytime persona of May Dennings) tagged
along, not only because Jade was desperate, but because shes heard some
rumors about weirdness in the forestsomething about moving vines and biting
flowers. Probably nothing to it, but she just lost another cashier job, so why not?
Rumpshakers secret identity (Rupert Shackley) came along because Jade said her
sister was cute (which was a lie) and CD Hastings (known on the terrorist watch
lists by his nom de guerre, Collateral Dammit) caved in when Jade begged.
They draw cards to assign roles for the episode, but keep them hidden for the
time being. Theres some casual in-character chatRupert disgruntled because
he was sold a false bill of goods (Damn Jade, you must really think Im hard up!
Hey, thats my sister! She has inner beauty!), CD enduring abuse and petty
humiliation at the hands of the children, and May getting an encyclopedic list of
the ex-husbands failings (He kept wanting to fool around in my bottom! You
know what Im talking about, right?).
They dont display their cards until a conflict arises: One of the kids wanders off
among the dead trees and doesnt respond to calls. Jade immediately wants to
go off after him. Rumpshaker throws his hands in the air. CD suggests going to
get help, as does May.

PYTHON: Cmon May, whore we going to get? Another forest ranger like you, right?
MAIDEN: Ex-forest ranger. Big emphasis on ex. These woods are devastated, Im not going to be at my best.
Neither are you, with your family pulling you this way and that.
GM: Speaking of which, Jades sister is starting to freak out. Shes going to start begging any second
DAMMIT: Fine, well go in the woods.
RUMPSHAKER: What? Are you just striding off into the forest?
DAMMIT: Pretty much, yeah. Yelling the little creeps name.
PYTHON: Cmon. Dont make me bust out my public speaking to guilt you into this.
MAIDEN: Fine. If it all turns to crap though, its on you. Ill try to track the kids through the woods.
GM: So, thats a ten for your profession, nothing really helps you

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MAIDEN: Other than being a hero.

She flips up the King of Hearts
GM: ...I was going to say, but theres no real point in having you unable to find the boy. But this works too.
Unless someone with the Crux card wants to interfere? Okay. You easily track him to a sort of ravine, and it looks
like he was running along the bottom of that. Theres some weird tracks, toolike something heavy was dragged
through the underbrush or was hauling itself along the incline. Its steep enough to be a hassle, but manageable.
MAIDEN: How big are we talking?
GM: Mmm hard to say, but at least the size of a bathtub. Massive enough to splinter saplings here and there.
In fact, right ahead of you, you can see a tall, thin tree swaying side to side
DAMMIT: That little wieners dead meat.
PYTHON: Hey! Thats my nephew!
DAMMIT: Sorry Jade. I meant to say, Your wiener nephews dead meat.
GM: The kids mom starts running and screaming his name, and you can hear truly panicked cries in response.
Its all happening not far ahead
MAIDEN: I run.
PYTHON: I yank a gausser out of my purse and run.
RUMPSHAKER: Sure, Ill run too.
DAMMIT: I get out a couple bombs. What? Just in case!
GM: All right Rumpshaker, youre going to get there first unless you hold back, youre taking ten-foot strides.
Jade Python is close behind because shes so coordinated she can sprint all-out without tripping on stuff. Unless
you hold back? No? Okay. You turn a little bend in the ravine and theres a squid in a tree. Its wrapping a
tentacle, one of the two big primary ones
RUMPSHAKER: Wait, did you say squid?
GM: Yep. Its big ol cephalapod head is encased in a round, clear helmet, kind of reminiscent of a goldfish bowl.
Its full of liquid. Inside, it looks like some kind of VR gadgets are strapped onto its eyes and its tentacles are
sticking out of these kind of rubberized short-sleeve gaskets. Theres a little grille set on the bottom of it and its
RUMPSHAKER: Aight, Im pegging that glass bowl with the biggest rock I can find.
GM: Not waiting to hear what it has to say?
RUMPSHAKER: Im afraid its going to be something about Rlyeh.
GM: Wrong game. Are you Crux or Villain?
RUMPSHAKER: Just my awesome self. And Ill take a draw, if you please.
GM: Good idea. Well just run a mano-a-squiddo round before Python shows up
MAIDEN: And me. Hero, remember?
GM: Sure, Ill let that go. Take your Valor, draw your card.
RUMPSHAKER: Crap. A three. So Ive got a Queen factor for boosted strength, a 10 for being a soldier, and a three.
GM: Um, soldiering will help you fire a gun or punch a dude or clean a latrine, but throwing rocks? For that
youd need caveman, cmon.
RUMPSHAKER: Gah. Queen and three then.
GM: Its got a Queen.

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RUMPSHAKER: Its boosted?!?

GM: Modded. As youre deciding which boulder to huck, you hear a loud tinny voice saying Merle. Must.
Feed. Merle. Is. Hungry. Gonna defer?
RUMPSHAKER: Not on your life. Ill fall back to my three.
GM: It falls back to its Jack. It crawls lower on the tree and starts reeling the kid in towards its underside while
his mom grabs the tentacle and pulls backwards. You throw your rock and it leaves a tiny hairline crack, but its
not going to collapse. The kid is passed out from terror and has sucker marks on his face.
RUMPSHAKER: The crack is leaking and growing, and the mom manages to pull her kid out of its grasp.
GM: Nice. At this point, Maiden and Python show up. Also, now that its closer you can see theres a dude
strapped on it.
MAIDEN: A dude?
GM: Yeah, it almost looks like its set up so that he wears the squid like a mech suit. Hes in a uniform.
RUMPSHAKER: Please be Army please be Army please be Army
GM: So whos Crux?
DAMMIT: Me, sir.
GM: Still offstage, then. I guess that means Jade Python, our Villainess, is next to declare.
PYTHON: Ill run over to my sister and help her with the kid.
MAIDEN: Gape, draw and shoot.
RUMPSHAKER: Im going to jump up and start rasslin it.
GM: It has realized you just put a ding in its thing, so its focussing a good six of its arms on strangling you.
RUMPSHAKER: Bring it, fool! Im drawing.
MAIDEN: Drawing.
PYTHON: Ill let the Smear sit for now.
GM: Very well. Take your Valor. Factors? Its got Queen Jack 9.
PYTHON: Crap. To help em Ive got well, a 10 for motivational speaking. And an Ace back because theyre my family.
GM: Not to mention defaulting to Ace because youre a villain trying to get people to see things your way.
PYTHON: What? Okay, nuts to words, Im just going to grab them with my boosted agility and pull them as far
out of its range as I can. Queen, Ace behind it then.
GM: Anyone got better than her Queen?
RUMPSHAKER: Im up to King to beat down this piece of crap.
MAIDEN: And Im up to King because Im going to try and draw its attention. Ill defer if you want.
GM: Um legit authority?
MAIDEN: Im guessing the soldier is either dead or the squid has overcome it. Either way, the squids against the army.
GM: I guess that makes sense.
MAIDEN: Ill defer if you like.
RUMPSHAKER: No, youre the Heroine, you go first.
MAIDEN: Shouting, You want a fight? Fight me! the Maiden of Bleeding Eyes puts three well-aimed shots
right into that hairline crack. The first one chips, the second spiderwebs and the third shatters it entirely.

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GM: Nice. Rumpshaker?

RUMPSHAKER: Struggling with its squirming tentacles, Rumpshaker looks like hes in trouble until the glass
breaks. Seizing a huge shard, he drives it through the things brain sac, killing it instantly.
GM: Its Queen ties with Jades. Defer?
JADE: Sure. Itll just fall back on a Jack and beat me anyhow.
GM: In its death-throes, it falls from the tree and the glass shards cut up Rumpshakers hands and arms
something fierce. Take a point of Suffering. Python? Youre up.
PYTHON: The kid cries Aunt Jade, youre hurting me! and I tell him to zip it as we rush down the path.
GM: That ends the conflict. As its dying, it babbles. Merle. Hurts. Merle. Must. Rise. Merle. Is. Afraid.
Merle. Wants. Corporal. Pilsen.
RUMPSHAKER. I kick in its grill and say, Shut up! Im going to check over the man attached to it. Dead like
she thought?
GM: Oh yeah. But there are definitely controls attached to his harness that connect to Merle.
RUMPSHAKER: Lets not be on a first-name basis with it, kay?
DAMMIT: Hey guys, Im ready to what the HELL is that thing?!?
PYTHON: Wassamatter, CD? Never seen a military land-squid before?
GM: Okay, hand in your role cards and get ready to re-draw as you hear choppers in the distance coming closer

Another Example of Play

A few sessions in, the PCs have tracked down Corporal Pilsen, the illegal squidmod program, and its mastermind, General Jiggets. He actually is a general in
the US Army, and theyve gotten past loads of soldiers to confront him. Theyve
run him to ground in the corridor of a four-star hotel along with two of his
boosted bodyguards.
The session is nearing a close with their Suffering and Valor at these levels: Jade
Python, Valor 2, Suffering 1; Rumpshaker Valor 3, Suffering 3; Maiden of the
Bleeding Eyes Valor 4, Suffering 2; Collateral Dammit Valor 4, Suffering 3. Since
they all started out the session with Valor 1, they are only a single point away
from tipping the Smear.
The four PCs have all picked up assault rifles from previously defeated soldiers,
allowing them Jack results if they opt to shoot.
The players have pulled cards for roles, with the following results: Jade Python
draws the King of Hearts, making her the Heroine. Collateral Dammit grins with
the King of Clubsthe Villain card. The Maiden of Bleeding Eyes draws the King
of Spades Crux card, leaving the Rumpshaker in an undefined role. They have
not yet revealed their cards.

GM: As you burst through the stairway door, you see the General poking the elevator button one more time
with anxious frustration. Hearing the commotion of your entry, he spins and draws his sidearm.
PYTHON: Surrender, General! Weve already given our proof to the Senate! Its all over! Im trying to
persuade him, or his goons, to give up and come peacefully.
DAMMIT: Im throwing a bomb at them.
PYTHON: Thanks CD. Thanks for the assist.
GM: Okay, what about the rest of you?
RUMPSHAKER: Leaping down the hall to grab the General.
DAMMIT: Hey, Im totally throwing explosives there.
RUMPSHAKER: I didnt know that when I leaped.
MAIDEN: Oh geez, Im trying to grab the bomb before he can blow up Rumpy.
GM: The two guards are opening fire while the General dives around the corner, taking cover and getting out of
sight. Whatre our factors?
MAIDEN: (revealing her card) Im the Crux, so I get a King to stop the bomb. Im also taking a draw, so my Valor
goes up to 2.
DAMMIT: Wait, thatll put us over the edge!
MAIDEN: Ill agree not to draw if you agree to defer to my action.
DAMMIT: Ugh Okay.
RUMPSHAKER: All right, Ive got a Queen for boosted strength, a 10 for my job and both of those are going to
promote because this is about as far against the Army as you can get. The second promotion from being proAnarchy cancels out the demotion from being hurt, and Im drawing a card.
DAMMIT: Dude! Tip!
RUMPSHAKER: Im hurting, I need more Valor. Youre the one who was taking crazy draws earlier, now its my turn.

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DAMMIT: please?
RUMPSHAKER: Fine. No draw. What have you got?
DAMMIT: Ive got a King for destructiveness, right? The General is the hinge of the conspiracys plans, and
killing him would be villainous, right? Especially if Im really sloppy about who else gets hurt?
GM: Youd need to Tip to kill him.
PYTHON: Ack. Ive got a 10 from my job and it promotes to Jack because Im against their imperialist schemes,
but without a draw, thats it.
GM: The General gets a 9 from his job, while his goons both get Jacks for their guns. One has a Queen boost
with the rifle too, and they have 9s to fall back on.
PYTHON: Good grief.
GM: Both the Maiden and CD got Kings, and CD is deferring, so go.
MAIDEN: All right, deep breath. I snatch the molotov out of CDs hand and yank out the fuse, yelling, Dont be
an idiot! As we struggle over it we move around the corner where the guards cant see us and, eventually, I get
the bomb in one hand and the fuse in the other.
GM: Next King?
DAMMIT: Thats me.
RUMPSHAKER: Ive got a King too. My Queen promotes, because me hate army so strong.
DAMMIT: Ill defer to my friend then.
RUMPSHAKER: Rumpshaker bounds down the hall, scraping the ceiling with his leap, and tackles the General
with rib-crushing force. Call off your guards! I yell in his ear.
DAMMIT: Letting her have the bomb, I switch to my rifle and run down the hall, planning to circle around and
get the bad guys from behind.
GM: Thats not very villainous. Do you really deserve that King?
DAMMIT: I plan to shoot them in the back.
GM: Fair enough. Next up, the guard with boosted coordination opens fire. Python, youre the only one in view. Suffer.
PYTHON: Crap. Im tied. So my Jack now becomes a 10?
GM: Uh huh. Putting you after the second guards Jack. Panicking, the second guard shoots at Rumpshaker,
peppering him with gunshots. Take a Suffering point.
RUMPSHAKER: Noooo! Im in the hole!
PYTHON: Do I get to go, or is the General first?
GM: The General is out cold, so hes not doing anything. Hes badly injured, easy pickings, except for one
thing no tipping point. If you want to finish him off, its going to cost you Rumpshaker.
PYTHON: Oh, son of a... Okay. As Jade Python crumples back into the stairwell, the second guard realizes that hes
missed his chance to give up, has failed his commander, and has become a tool of oppression. He kills himself.
GM: What?
PYTHON: Oh right, he cant die before the Tip! How about he surrenders and says, Dont kill the General?
GM: I guess so. Next round? Theres still one guard, and hes boosted
PYTHON: Nobody draw! We can keep this off the Tipping Point and save Rumpshaker!
CD: Howm I supposed to evil this guy up if wait, I have an idea.

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GM: Whos doing what? The guards going to shoot somebody.

MAIDEN: Not if I shoot him first.
CD: Or me.
RUMPSHAKER: These guys have good armor on them, right? Im grabbing surrender-belly to use as a shield.
PYTHON: Im going to race down the hall and try to disarm the living guard. Its not harming an authority to take
his gun away, right? Hell, Im trying to save his life.
GM: How heroic. Okay, who has what factors? The guard has Queen Jack 9. Maiden?
MAIDEN: Is it interfering with CD if I kill-steal him?
GM: You cant kill the guard.
MAIDEN: Okay, then Ive got Jack.
DAMMIT: Hail to the King, Jack. I promise I will destroy.
PYTHON: Everything gets demoted from injury, so Ive got Queen, Jack, 10.
RUMPSHAKER: Im demoted two levels, so that would be 10 from boosted strength, 9 from the high-tech
armor, 8 from my soldier job?
GM: Collaterals first, then.
DAMMIT: Die, bitch! The guard never knows what hits him as CD jams the barrel of the rifle right under the
edge of his helmet and unloads the whole clip, spraying the hallway with gore and bone fragments.
PYTHON: Seeing CD step behind the guard
GM: Hold on. The guards tied with you. In fact, you two are going to bump all the way to your 10 unless
someone defers.
PYTHON: Oh no. Im not letting you narrate in some last shot on a PC or a bunch of dead civilians. I bump his
Queen, at least.
GM: So were to Jacks. Someone going to defer?
MAIDEN: Ill bump the guards Jack. That leaves the Pythons Jack intact, right?
GM: And drops you to Ace.
MAIDEN: Ill take that hit.
DAMMIT: I guess we know who the REAL Heroine is.
PYTHON: Ahem. Seeing CD step behind the guard, Jade screams No, dont! but its too late. She gets
splashed with brains but is uninjured, the guard doesnt fire, and most of Dammits bullets wind up on the inside
of the helmet or going into the guards armor from the wrong side.
GM: And to ten. Rumpshaker?
RUMPSHAKER: (Deep breath.) As the guard slumps harmlessly to the floor, Dammit drops his spent rifle and
Jade starts helping the injured Rumpshaker to his feet.
MAIDEN: And on Ace, the Maiden pulls the trigger, only to realize she has the safety on. CD snickers at her and
she flushes with humiliation, suffering from acute embarrassment but taking no real harm.
GM: All right, that seems like a good place to end. Two bad guys are alive, but in your power, who knows what
could happen? So, looking at my notes Rumpshaker, you took two points of physical suffering, so those
remain and your Valor shifts to 3. Dammit, all your Suffering was emotional, but that thing with the pleading
parking valet really eats at you for some reason, so your Suffering drops to 1 and Valor to 2. Maiden, you got
off easy with one physical and one psychological injury, so your Suffering drops to one and Valor to 2 also. As for
Jade Python, all your hurts were physical, so you stay at Suffering 2 but rise to Valor 3.

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The Limits of Narration

When you get narration rights, be you GM or player, its a lot of power. Use it
wisely and dont get carried away. As a player, you probably want whats best
for your character (or, perhaps a bit more exactly, you want your character to
be central). If thats all you care about, narration gives you a blank check to
wreck the game in your selfish pursuit of individual awesomeness. That lets your
character be the protagonist of a short-lived game that gets cancelled and never
referred to again by anyone but you. Or if they do, they mention it with an eye
roll as an example of how not to play.
If wrecking other peoples fun sounds like your idea of a good time um, I dont
really know what to say to you. Perhaps you would benefit from some form of
professional intervention.
Most of us prefer to have our fun with other people who are having fun. Its
actually better that way. So in addition to your desire to put your character in
circumstances where she can shine, you needneedto have a stake in keeping
the game going. I mean, the game isnt very entertaining when its not being
played. So when you narrate, do it with one eye on keeping the story going,
keeping the setting coherent and keeping the tone on track. Instead of being
solely a player, narrate as if you are, for just one fifteen second breath, a co-GM.
You dont need to worry about pacing the action or providing the right balance
of conflict or bringing in high drama (though if you want to do all that, narrative
power certainly gives you the leverage). Mostly though, as a player you should
feel obligated not to actively screw everything up. Im sure you can handle it.
If youre GM, and youve run lots of games before, its a bit less of an attitude
adjustment. Youre used to monitoring the big picture and making decisions to
keep things moving forward. The adaptation for GMs to make is accepting the
players narratives. In most games, only the GM controls GMCs and describes
the settings. Not so with the Smear. The players get a taste of the dizzying
power to pull elements out of thin air and cram them into the imagined scene.
The difference is, theyre probably going to do it to try and survive (or get an
advantage). Try to negate this as little as possible. Between conflicts you still
have the same godlike authorial prerogatives. But when they start touching
those cards, the power is a bit more balanced.

Ten Things PCs Cannot Narrate

1. Random Disaster
Just when all seems lost and at its bleakest, when your doom seems certain, you
may be tempted to narrate something like Suddenly, an earthquake collapses
the building in around us! or Without warning, a meteorite plows through the
sky and hits the tank! or A blinding flash on the horizon is the first sign, and
witnessing the mushroom cloud gives us only time to realize were dead before
the concussive blast atomizes us! You cant shoehorn in random environmental
chaos just because youre frustrated.

2. A Massive Change of Heart

If the Contessa has consistently forgotten your characters name, mocked him,
belittled him and dismissed him as a threat, you cant suddenly have her declare
that shes madly in love with him. Okay, some GMs may allow it, but be ready to
withdraw the suggestion if challenged. The inner lives of GMCs are somewhere
you can rearrange the furniture a bit, you but you cant start tearing down load-

101

bearing walls and ripping out the wiring. If the GM has introduced a character,
especially in an antagonistic role, theres probably a plot arc planned there.
Suddenly editing the characters motivations in a jarring and fundamental way
screws the GM.

3. New Unsuspected Abilities

Lets suppose youve located the King of Diamonds in the Smear. Your declared
action is try and get the helicopter flying. When your King lets you narrate,
can you then start flying that whirlybird? Well, it depends.
If you were a pilot in your old life, or have dropped heavy hints about taking
flying lessons, or you have a Spatial Orientation Boost, or youve otherwise
established that your character can approach this by doing something more
productive than randomly pressing buttons then yes: You can fly the helicopter.
But even a King of Diamonds amped up by pursuing both what youre For
and Against is not sufficient to let unearned specialty knowledge bloom in
your characters mind. High cards dont mean success at everything. They
mean success at reasonable things. Thats why theres the prohibition against
contradicting whats established. It applies to implied ignorance as well as
established knowledge.

4. Success at an Entirely Different Character Action

On one hand, conflicts are dynamic and constantly evolving. On the other hand,
you have to declare an action or theres no way to know which Factors engage.
So, to high-five the first hand, you can change your actions a little. But to firmly
shake the other hand, you cant change them a lot.
So, for example, what if you declared youre going to shoot Kenny, and before
you get a chance Kenny runs behind a truck? You might be able to reorient
towards Filbert, if its established that Filbert was standing pretty close. On the
other hand, if you declared you were shooting, you may not be able to abort that
to perform first aid on a buddy or jump in the truck and run Kenny over. It may
help to think of it this way: Your declared action commits your body to a certain
set of movements. You can do other things that use the same movements (like
aiming and pulling a trigger) but not radically different movements (stopping
and hiding instead of running full tilt). However, see Panicked Self Defense on
page 105.

5. Another PCs Feelings

All the reasons you cant narrate what a GMC feels apply sevenfold to doing it
to a fellow player character. You can narrate something that should provoke
a certain feeling (...spraying you with your only sons brains), if it fits the
narrative flow and doesnt contradict anything else. But its up to the player to
decide between appalled shock, icy vengeful wrath, or depraved indifference.

6. Goofy Stuff
This is a catchall category to recommend against puerile humor where the
antagonist slips on a banana peel at his moment of greatest drama, or decides to
settle matters with a cream pie duel. Its easy to put down hard rules to protect
the character integrity (you cant give people radical personality rewrites on a
whim) or the flow of events (you cant contradict whats already established) but
tone is a lot harder to protect. So Im going to fall back on your good nature and
suggest that you pick up the vibe your GM and other players lay down, and not
deviate too far from it.

102

7. Unearned GMC Death

Lets suppose your stated action was I dodge behind the waste bin as a pair of
drug-addled gangsters open fire. You get a high card and you want to narrate
something like I duck to safety behind the heavy steel dumpster just as one of
the gunmen misjudges his step, slips off the loading dock and catches his temple
on a loose brick, instantly dying!
While narrating a few bad judgments on behalf of the bad guys is kosher, you
cant just write them into their coffins when your character did nothing to make
them suffer. If youd flung down a bag of marbles before you dodged, you could
certainly wipe that dope fiend out. But since all you did was duck and cover, you
cant be rid of that pesky assailant.

8. Bill & Teds Preparations

If youve established that you carry a bag of marbles with you everywhere,
its fine to attack by flinging them, shooting them from a slingshot or coshing
someone with the sack. But if you arent carrying marbles, you cant use marbles.
Thats reasonable, right?
Narrating that you have the exact perfect object for the crisis of the moment
can break plausibility. Now, if the exact perfect object is a credit card or ring
of car keys or the spring from a clicker pen, then thats plausible for just about
anyone. But something like I just happen to have an iPhone with a high speed
connection to cloudsourced decryption software and the attachment for feeding
it to keycard readers is probably beyond the pale.
Note that probably. Im going to suggest mild exceptions for some mods.
GMs ought to loosen the straps a little for characters with coprocessor mods:
Making unlikely predictions is their whole shtick. Id suggest that a coprocessing
character can pull out a useful object once per scene as long as its (1) cheap, (2)
available and (3) something he could easily carry without it being visible. So a
3/16 hex wrench is clearly fine, but a giant ten-pound plumbers wrench? Thats
going to leave a bulge in the pocket. Similarly, unless hes recently gone on an
extremely vague spending spree hes not going to have a diamond ring or a
thermal-imaging rig. But stuff like magnets, penlights, spraypaint, superglue,
aspirin, vaseline or a coil of light-weight rope? Why not?
For the Pattern Matching boost, Id let the mad creator type pull out a new
device about once per episode. (That is, his right to introduce a new gadget
is refreshed every time roles are drawn.) This aint Batmans cellular radar
panopticon, either. Think something that an electrical engineer today could
bang together with Radio Shack parts for under $200. Also, even if he has the
okay to bring up a surprise, that permission doesnt negate continuity. If he has
climbed up the building with no problem and snuck through a two-foot square
water drain, it can be presumed that hes not carrying a home made harpoon
gun that he just forgot to mention.
Spatial Orientation is just the same, except its only good for strictly mechanical,
non-electronic devices and tools. Needle-nose pliers, vise-grip, teeny-tiny
screwdriver? No problem. Jackhammer, circular saw, conduit bender? Problem.

9. Backstory
You cant change the past, and you cant create new pasts for GMCs or your
fellow PCs on the fly. Because he was tormented by rats as a child, the villainous
Baron Von Bildungsroman squeals and cowers at the sight of the rodents. Its
very similar to producing unexpected changes of heart, only instead youre

103

producing unexpected reasons for previously hidden emotional responses. Its

a bad idea for the same reason as #2. The other way this gets used is to provide
some kind of skeevy unearned advantage to the PCs. Jonah the Reeb sneers
and says, Ha ha funny human Jonah owner promised many dollars for Jonah
capture and none hunters catch yet! just as the net trap falls on him. Nice try,
but leave the rewards up to the GM, please. Shes got a game to pace.

10. Premature GMCs Death

Before the Tipping Point, GMCs are as protected from death as PCs are. So if you
keep warding off the Point, youre going to see your nemesis Baron Badnews
again and again.

Five Things GMs Cannot Narrate

1. A PCs Exact Feelings
You dont get to decide what PCs believe or feel. As GM, you have a lot of power
over the game, but saying Your PC feels a surge of respect and adoration for
Mary Sue is a bridge too far.

2. What a PC Says
Similarly, player character dialogue is scripted exclusively by the player who runs
the character. Thats a no-brainer, right? Really, Im just padding out the list.

3. Permanent Removal of a PCs Powers, Except When You Can

Its assumed that the characters went through hell to get their mods, even
though that hell occurred before the game began. You cant permanently take
them away, even if the plot would seem to dictate just that.
The sole exception to this is if its after the Tipping Point and their Suffering is
greater than their Valor. Thats right. If theyve gotten in deep enough to die or
be forced out of play, you can opt to just disempower them instead. My guess is,
most players retire characters who get their special purpose glands yanked, but a
long-running and well beloved character might keep right on going. Understand
that if you take away the power away, you then do not get to kill or eject the
character. Unless the character takes more Suffering, in which case death is
probably a kindness.

4. Humiliating Backstory
Even outside of conflict resolution, you dont get to retroactively make PCs
look like chumps. Springing an unsuspected dirty secret on a PC when the
player has no buy-in is a bad way to treat people, so its disallowed. (Maybe in
Unknown Armies or Call of Cthulhu, but characters in eCollapse have enough
grief without being subject to the tropes of what are, explicitly, horror games.)
So. Having the main bad guy reveal himself as a long-lost son when the player
has given no indication that the character is anything other than a virgin isnt
cool. In fact, its not cool even if the character is a well-established manslut.
Making it all right could be as simple as asking the player, Is it possible that
Captain No-Pants there has an illegitimate kid out there somewhere? and
getting a yes. Many players would deeply dig that sort of development, but you
have to get them on board beforehand. Its a moral imperative.
By the same token, having a GMC ally refer to that time back in college when

104

you got drunk and wet your pants in front of all the Sigma Pi sisters, even the
dolphin is jerky. Maybe if the character is a jerk you can have him say that, but
if the PCs corrects him with, No, that was Lenny, you really ought to go along.
You can throw all kinds of miserable and difficult challenges at characters as the
game moves forward. Let them have their histories unsullied.

5. Dead GMCs Before the Tipping Point, Except When You Can
Just as the PCs are protected from death or removal before the Tipping Point, so
are your GMCs. Now, if someones got to die to advance the plot, thats finea
story where they investigate someones murder makes little sense if the GM cant
set up the murder. But try to keep GMCs from dying before the Point. Especially
allies or characters the PCs care about.

It s like f igh t ing f ire with f ire.

Only, you know, for crime!

Eight Things PCs Can Narrate

1. Minor Misfortunes
You cant have that enemy APC get smooshed by a random meteorite. Thats
the bad news. But you can have it throw a track or get condensation on its
camera lens or fire a dud cartridge out of its tear gas launcher. Things fall apart,
especially in eCollapses future of shoddy manufacturing and questionable, graymarket replacement parts. So if you need a reason for your character to not get
shot, you can narrate an equipment failure on the part of the shooter. Its not
terribly heroic, but neither is squealing as the hot lead sears your gall bladder.

2. Emo Hesitations
You cant suddenly have KillCrush the GMC hired gun have a Come to Jesus
Moment in the middle of a contracted fire fight, deciding to leave his violent
life and become a fisherman on the Red Sea. You cant inflict huge, inexplicable
changes of character on GMCs.
But even icy assassins have moments of doubt. If a character is pleading, or
helpless, or has made some absurd claim to be KillCrushs lost half-sister, the
assassin might pause. Even highly competent murderers can be momentarily
conflicted. Or just plain ol confused. So a momentary lapse of character is a
lot more reasonable to narrate in than an unexpected or permanent change of
character.

3. Panicked Self Defense

Lets suppose your character Fifis in the middle of a heist and shes trying to
crack a safe even while the bullets crash around her. Hey, no problem, youve got
the Factors on your side. But lets furthermore suppose that one GMCs declared
action was set Fifi on fire and the GM narrates just that. Is Fifi now stuck
trying to crack that safe, or can she stop, drop and roll?
Up on page 102, it says you cant succeed at an entirely different action. But by
the time youre on fire, its not an outcome you can call a true success. So if
your Fifi gets set on fire or shot or thrown in a pool of sharks, you can change
your actions to some sort of instinctive resistance. She can smother the flames,
stuff something in the bullet hole, or swim for her life.

105

4. Appropriate Humor
It should be clear that eCollapse is a game with a sense of humor, but in actual
play, its best if the humor comes in one of two flavors. One is the wry side
comment, player to player, outside the fiction being created and commenting
upon it. Thats okay. Using narration to turn characters and situations into jokes
is not okaysee Goofy Stuff on page 102. But that said, funny things happen
every day. The guideline is to try and have humor arise from character, not to
bend character for crude humor. Its a fine line to walk and different groups
have different standards. But introducing humorous elements that benefit
your character or impair your antagonists works just fine as long as the humor
is secondary to keeping the narrative moving. Crashing the plot to make a
sophomoric ha-ha is shortsighted, but having something thats funny both to the
players and their characters happen as a natural-feeling outgrowth of the events
establishedwell, thats about as good as it gets. Still, handle with caution.

5. Foreshadowing
Remember back on page 103 where I said you couldnt suddenly shoehorn in a
piece of backstory that justifies a sudden and unexpected emotional outburst?
What you can do is lay some pipe that prefigures that emotional outburst (or
whatever) andassuming your GM or fellow PCs dont rip it up and destroy
itreap the benefits of your planning later on. For example, suppose youre
facing a named GMC, well call him Mr. Little. You narrated an attempted
shooting, but the GMs cards got the drop on you and she described a miss, with
Little fleeing down the subway steps. You cant change that miss into a hit
thats something thats already been resolved, no backsies. But you can stick in
something like, As he rushes down the steps, Little stumbles, wincing, and hisses
in pain as he clutches his knee before pressing on.
Does this derail the narrative? Hell no. Before, he was getting away. After? Still
getting away. But the next time you see Little, if you want to narrate his bum
knee going out, its no longer such an unexpected development.
The weirder or rarer the element you want to introduce, the more times you
should foreshadow it, just in case the GM wants to gently parry it aside. (If she
does, take the hint and let it go.) Giving a bad guy a crippling and incongruous
phobia requires more establishment than something thats common and easily
overcomelike the aforementioned bad patella.

6. Backshadowing GMCs
Just as you can set up future events, you can lay the outlines of a revealed former
event. This is a little trickier and more involved, so you may need to hang more details
beforehand. But lets say you want to build it up that you and Crimson Vixen, a
primary villainess, are actually dating in your unmasked personae and dont know it.
Now, the easy way to do this is to pass a note to the GM, or even suggest it openly.
But if you want to spring it on everyone, Im going to lay out guildelines for that.
Id say that about three hints is enough for something as shocking as unexamined
personal connection. By three hints, I mean hints in three separate scenes,
or spread across a couple episodes. So during the first fight with Crimson Vixen,
you make a smart remark about her perfume as you land a savage round kick to
her ribs. On a later scene where youre dating innocent Emmanuelle Naf, you
mention that she winces when you slip your hand around her side and, when you
ask about it, she says she pulled a muscle at yoga class. Then, next Episode, you
find a way to narrate in a perfumed love note from Emmanuelle a curiously
familiar scent. With that stuff in place, you can narrate an unmasking during a
climactic fight and point out all the clues (which you yourself inserted).

106

By the same token, if the GM has other plans for Crimson Vixen, she has
opportunities to wave off your cluesdescribing how much shorter Vixen is
than Emmanuelle, or establishing that Emmanuelles voice is an octave lower, or
simply by having them show up at the same time.
This only applies to GMCs, though. You want to have an unexpected backstory
reveal with a fellow player character, you talk to the player or you dont do it.

7. Foiling Other PCs

You bet your sweet bippy you can hose your fellow players like this. Suppose,
for example, that your declared action is shooting the bad guy, the bad guys
declared action is shooting your fellow PC, and that PCs declared action is to
dodge out of the way. If you narrate before the GM or that other player, you can
describe the GMCs bullet tearing through flesh and lycra as it slams home with
surprising accuracy.
Why would you want to do this? Well, there are several reasons.
First off, you may be in one of those groups where inter-group antagonism is
encouraged and its just understood that people are playing rough. If thats part
of the fun and no ones going to get their buzz harshed by this sort of thing,
know that this is one more poison arrow for your quiver.
Secondly, sometimes characters work at cross purposes. If you want to use your
player privileges to wreack havoc on anothers character plans, go ahead, though
realize that this may escalate.
Thirdly, sometimes a player has their character do something that is, in the
overall scheme of things, a bad idea. Possibly an intoxicatingly bad idea. But
(the player helplessly says) I have to obey my character concept! While this
Gamers Nuremburg Defense is used to justify all kinds of mad selfish juju, Im
going to assume that your fellow PCs are genuine deep-immersion players who
are willing to let a character die rather than betray his ideals. You, on the other
hand, may not want to see that character snuff it, however heroically.
Lets suppose, then, that the GM has made it crystal clear that the flaming
orphanage is a death trap, ready to collapse any second. The guy with the Hero
card already has his Suffering and Valor in perfect balance and the Tipping Point
is receding in the rearview mirror. You get to draw before he does and your
character is in no position or condition to stop the Hero. So you declare that
youre rolling away into the relative safety of the gutter, hes trying to run in just in
case someone survived, and you pull the King of Diamonds. You are permitted to
describe the fiery implosion of the building, a cataclysm which no one could survive,
nobody, no way, the mourning starts now, before he takes more than a few steps.
Really, youre doing him a favor. Dont expect a thank-you card though.

8. Appropriate Stuff Outside of Conflict

It seems a little weird that when everything goes pear-shaped and crazy, thats
when you get to have input into events. So feel free to narrate in little bits
of apt embroidery even when the scene doesnt feature screaming and chaos.
However, in this instance, you really have no recourse if the GM says no. It may,
therefore, be more polite and easily digested if you phrase your narration as
a request or suggestion. If the GM seems too uptight, you can show her this
paragraph, but outside of conflicts shes got a lot of chainsaws to juggle, so
accept that if she dings your request, its either because it contradicts greater
coolness that you havent seen yet, or because shes just really busy.

107

eCollape Quick Reference,

Smear of Destiny edition

VALOR :
SUFFERING:

ROLES :
KING OF HEARTS = HERO
KING OF CLUBS = VILLAIN
KING OF SPADES = CRUX

TIPPING:

RESOLVING:

GMCS:

Starts at 1. Goes up 1 every time the player draws. At sessions end, it changes to equal
Suffering +1.
Starts at 0. Goes up 1 when bad things happen or when forced to use an Ace. When
Suffering = Valor, all Factors are at -1. Before the Tipping Point, all Factors are at -2
when Suffering > Valor. After Tip, character leaves play when Suffering > Valor. Rest
may or may not remove Suffering.

Roles get drawn at the start of play and after climax.

gets a King factor when sacrificing for others, drops straight to Ace if he tries to harm an
authority.
gets a King for destroying valued things and people, drops straight to Ace when trying
to convince people of what he really believes.
gets a King factor to interfere with Hero or Villain, drops straight to Ace if trying to
prevent harm to himself form Hero or Villain.

Before the tipping point, only minor GMCs can die, only if the Villain kills them. After
the Tipping Point, anyone can die. The Tip occurs after ten draws from the Smear, or
when the King of Diamonds turns up. Smear Contains: Four each Ace-9, three 10s, three
Jacks, two Queens, and the King of Diamonds.

First, everyone declares what their character is doing and whether theyre using the
Smear. The GM checks for the Tipping Point. Second, people draw. The Crux draws
first. Before the Tip, the Villain draws second, and the Hero draws third. After the Tip,
the Hero draws second and the Villain draws third. Bystanders go in order from right
to left, starting with the Crux. Finally, factors are counted down from King. On each
players turn, they narrate a short element of the event. If theres a tie, either of the
tying parties can defer and let the other go first. Otherwise, their factors cancel out.

All GMCs get a free 9 factor for every action. If they have relevant powers, they get a Q.
They get a J if using high tech, and a 10 if using mediocre tech. Nameless GMCs are out
of the action after taking a point of Suffering. Named GMCs can only be stopped by a
King factor and can only be killed after the Tipping Point. Major antagonists may require
2-3 King factors to put down, and also cannot die before the Tipping Point.

permission granted to copy this page for personal use only

eCollapse
{ Smear of Destiny character narrative }

I used to be normal.

I made my living
( 10 ) .
( SKILL )

But then

I couldnt let that go, so I went on the black market and got myself

( Q ).

VALOR :

( SUPERPOWER )

I believe in

( +/ 1 Factor ) , just as much as

( STAND FOR )

Im against

( +/ 1 Factor ).

( STAND AGAINST )
SUFFERING :
But I have to watch out because

( A ).

( WEAKNESS )

The name on my birth certificate is

but the world is going to know me as

permission granted to copy this page for personal use only

eCollapse Quick Reference,

Wild Talents edition

WEAKNESS :

When exposed to his Weakness, a character takes a -2d penalty.

STAND FOR :

When supporting what he Stands For, a character gets +1d or can negate a -1d penalty. If he
fails to support this cause, he gets a -1d penalty.

STAND AGAINST :

When opposing what he Stands Against, a character gets +1d or can negate a -1d penalty. If he
fails to oppose it, he gets a -1d penalty.

Roles
When acting in accordance with role, either add +WD to pool, or add +2H, +2W or +1H, +1W if
you get a set. When acting in opposition, -3 Width penalty to set
HERO (KING OF HEARTS) :

Cannot harm people in legitimate authority. Always succeeds at risking or sacrificing for others.

VILLAIN (KING OF CLUBS) :

Cannot persuade people to believe as he does. Always succeeds at destroying valuable people,
objects or concepts.

CRUX (KING OF SPADES) :

Cannot prevent damage to self from Hero or Villain. Always succeeds at interfering with Hero or
Villain.

BYSTANDER (OTHER CARD) :

No bonus, no penalty

Gadgets
CERAMIC IMPACT PLATE :

HAR1 for 2-4 impacts, then useless

LAR4 for location 10 plus various electronic goodies

CIVILIAN HUDSET :

CLING LADDER :

EMP CANNON :

FRESH KNIFE :

GAUSS PISTOL :

GAUSS RIFLE :

IMPACT HAIRBAG :

MICROWAVE WAND :

RMPA SUIT :

HAR2, LAR2, but can be locationally disabled

RIPPERGUN :

At < 10 W+3SK, Spray 2, Pen 2; at 10-20 W+2SK, Spray 1, Pen 1; at 20-30W+1SK, Spray 1,
Pen 1; at 30-40, WSK

SPOILER GAS :

WIGGLES :

+3d bonus for climbing

Diff. 4 Stability check and Area 4 temporary Shock, fries electronics.
1 round to generate blade. W+1K, Pen 2, but Pen rating drops by 1 every ten minutes.
Disintegrates when Pen < 0
WSK, Spray 3
W+1SK, Spray 3, Pen 1
If you land on one, normal damage or 2S to each location, whichever is less
Area 1S, ignores non-metal armor

Makes gunpowder inert

-2d penalty to motion recognition software
permission granted to copy this page for personal use only

eCollapse
{ Wild Talents edition }

Player :
Character :
Alias(es):

CHARM :

(POOL)

MODS & BOOSTS :

SENSE

(POOL)

Lie

Empathy

Perform

Perception

Scrutinize

Persuade

COMMAND :
(POOL)
Interrogate

Intimidate

Leadership

Stability

MIND :

MY WEAKNESS (-2D) :

I STAND FOR (+1D) :

BODY

(POOL)

Athletics

Block

Brawl

Weapon

(POOL)

COORD.

(POOL)

Dodge

Drive

Drive

Weapon

Weapon

Stealth

I STAND AGAINST (+1D) :

EQUIPMENT AND OTHER PERKS

10
3- 4

5- 6

7- 9

1
permission granted to copy this page for personal use only

Wild Talents 2nd Edition: Everything you need to run a suspenseful, action-packed campaign with eCollapse or in
any superheroic setting you can imagine. Hardcover, 384 pages, with full-color illustrations by Todd Shearer. Now
available from Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Arc Dream Publishing.