Other Dust
Publisher Description
The world is an open grave.
Green glass plains and trinitite pearls necklace the throats of torn cities. Prismatic jungles heave with nanite-infested life, thick with twisted bodies and fever-hot madness. The ancient towers of Old Terra are cast down into the mire and the stars above no longer send their ships of steel and burning light.
Humanity has been reduced to struggling enclaves and fugitive tribes. Left to scavenge the bones of their former glory, mankind yet fights the New Earth with steel, salvage, and a burning defiance. If the motherworld means to end her children, she’s going to need a bigger apocalypse.
Other Dust is a stand-alone, fully-compatible companion game to the free Stars Without Number sci-fi RPG. Within its pages savage mutants, crazed psychic overlords, runaway war machines and the relentless decay of a shattered world all conspire to snuff the last few embers of humanity. Yet heroes remain among the scattered survivors, and their courage and will to defy the coming night might yet save their people from a waiting doom. Use the tools this book provides to rebuild societies, reforge their ancient bonds, and bring a new dawn to a thousand points of night!
Other Dust, First Edition - Rules SummaryCollapse
Character Creation [ edit ]
Attributes
True to it's "old school" roots Other Dust uses the standard Dungeons and Dragons attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma). They are determined by rolling 3d6 and assigning the result (in the order rolled) to the appropriate attribute.
(NOTE: Unlike D&D, in Other Dust attribute bonuses at most go up to +2, and penalties only down to -2.)
Background Packages and Classes
Next, instead of a race the character gets a background package, such as Entertainer, Noble, or Tribal Hunter. Each package provides the character with several starting skills.
Next, the character chooses one of four classes: Scrounger, Slayer, Speaker, and Survivor. Classes determine the character's attack bonus and saving throw, and each class gains an ability they can use once per day. Scroungers can auto-succeed at a skill check, Slayers can automatically hit, Speakers can automatically succeed at a social manipulation, and Survivors can return from 0 HP to 1 HP.
Mutations
Next each player gets 3 points to spend on their character's mutations. They can either spend them to get +1 to an attribute bonus, or to get a new beneficial mutation. Such mutations cost 2 points, or only 1 if they come with a flaw.
To acquire a mutation a player first rolls on the "Stigmata" table to learn its visual effect. Next they roll on the "Mutation Flaw" table, and then finally "Mutation Benefit" table.
Flaws include things like missing limbs, saving throw penalties, or suffering more damage from certain sources (eg. crushing weapons). Benefits range from the more basic, like night vision or aquatic breathing, to the more fantastic, such as having a "biogun", or the ability to phase through walls.
If a player gets no mutations, and spends all three points on attribute bonuses, that character becomes immune to all mutations in the future.
Hit Points and Languages
Every character gets a d6 plus their Constitution bonus as their starting hit points (+2 for Survivors). However, low hit point rolls are (potentially) only a short-term problem: every time a character levels they get to reroll their hit points, and keep whichever total is higher.
Each character also gets one starting language, plus one per point of Intelligence bonus (or more if they take the Language skill).
Core Mechanics [ edit ]
Skill Checks
First the GM decides on a difficulty number (ranging from six at the easiest, to twelve or higher for truly challenging tasks). Then the player rolls 2d6 and adds their skill rank and relevant attribute bonus. If they beat the assigned number, they succeed.
Opposed Skill Checks
When competing against another character both simply make a skill check, and the higher roll wins. Ties are re-rolled.
Saving Throws
When a character faces any sort of non-combat threat, such as a disease, nanite infection, or psychic attack ... or if they simply need to be lucky to survive ... they make a saving throw. This is done by rolling a d20 and attempting to equal or beat the character's associated saving throw score for that threat.
There are five Saving Throw types: Physical Effect, Mental Effect, Evasion, Tech, and Luck.
Combat [ edit ]
Initiative
To determine who acts first in Other Dust every player (and the GM, for NPCs) rolls a d8 and adds their Dexterity bonus. Ties go to the PCs.
If a group is surprised they must make Wisdom/Perception checks and beat their ambushers' average Dexterity/Stealth skill, or else they can't act for the first round of combat.
Actions
Each round of combat a character can take one action (eg.attack), plus any reasonable number of "free actions" (eg. draw a weapon, drop prone). They can also move up to 20 meters, or 40 meters if they take no other action.
Similar to D&D, if a character moves away from a foe with a weapon, they must spend an action to do so, or else all adjacent enemies get a free attack on them.
Attacks
Attacks are made by rolling a d20 and adding their attack bonus plus their relevant attribute modifier and combat skill. If that result, minus the defender's armor class, is greater than or equal to 20, the attack hits.
If the d20 roll is a 1 the attack automatically misses, and if it rolls a 20 then the attack automatically hits.
Damage
Each weapon deals a specified amount of damage, such as d8 for a sword or d6 for a laser pistol. On a hit the attacker rolls that damage and subtracts it from the defender's hit points.
