Rules Changelog
This is where all rules edits are tracked
20/07/2023 - Changes to: Psykers, Supplies, Ranged Traits and PvP guidelines
The "Mission Supplies" entry has been updated to divide supplies into: Ammunition/Explosives/Chems/Esoterica following feedback that many enjoyed the flow of these being separated from each other - with the return of Ammunition the "abundant ammo" rule has been removed entirely as all characters with a ranged weapon now start with Ammunition for their ranged weapon.
Traits that previously gave you “access to the mission supplies pool” will now give access to 5 of the appropriate supplies. Multiple choices of the same type of supply do not stack. I recommend checking out Tech Powers and Weapon of Old Night especially as these now represent their unique ammo by relying on Esoterica (of the Machine Cult) to fire.
Trader now gives you access to 5 ADDITIONAL supplies, of any type you like. This does not need to be a type you normally have access to.
RESPECTING THE HUMBLE FLASHLIGHT AND BOOMSTICK
The "Starting Stats and Abilites" page has been updated with a few more "selections" of "basic ranged weapon" - this is because the humble lasgun is at risk of becoming extinct in the player party and, as a result has had a bit of a tune up, as have Autoguns, and Stub Guns, Shotguns have returned to the basic ranged weapons but you will notice they have lost being able to fire in melee or do rend in this configuration - this is because if you selected Special Weapon Training you now have access to the superior Combat Shotgun instead.
As well as loosing its expanded ammunition pool. This trait has had a few entries updated:
The Hellgun has been brought in line with the new Lasgun as a straight upgrade granting use of Rend forever as a high-powered las-weapon but also letting you call Bolt for Ammunition as it did before.
The Combat Shotgun replaces the regular shotgun
The Crossbow, gains a bit more sanctic, but also a familiar friend returns...
GUESS WHOSE BACK? BACK AGAIN? NULL IS BACK, TELL A (PSYCHIC) FRIEND.
Yeah the NULL call is back, the crows actually told me to do it. This time it is also not a friend to people using Warp nonsense who aren't psykers - great for disrupting those Sorcerors you keep handwringing about.
VIGILATOR:
Sharpshooters RifleSniper: Following feedback about how restrictive this was to use, this has had a few changes.- Upgrading to Rend from your standard call now triggers on 3s standing still and lasts until you move - this removes "Cover" as a requirement for this which did not feel right.
- The sniper shot has been re-written to be more forgiving, taking 10s to wind up and not being spent if the call is missed, and not requiring a second windup if it is - like above it also now only requires you to be static, not need cover.
- Master Scout has been added, making explicit something I should have made clear that "Vigilator" is a thing we expect to use on relevant Clue Cards for spotting traps, but also that, if in doubt (because we didn't have enough time to prepare clue cards for it for example) you can always ask a ref.
VERISPEX:
This has had Master Detective added just to clarify this for Verispex's as well
The number of powers this can freely select has been reduced from Four to Three - this skill was woefully undercosted in its current state offering an immense amount of freedom and options with minimal risk - this, plus additional changes, are intended to provide some ways to make it feel a bit more focused and costed fairly.
Psychic Perils
The old guides for testing have been replaced, many powers now have had "push" removed and now mention either spending Will to do higher level abilities, or "opening your mind to the warp" to unlock them.
Psychic Powers
Many powers have been updated in line with the change above to help them flow better.
We've been back and forth with these, in the end I have opted for the more traditional hands off approach to PvP violence by taking away mechanical restraints around it - now this page simply outlines that there are IC risks for doing so due to you having superiors you answer to.
For players sensitive to this, the page highlights the fact that being murdered by a "friend" who has gone insane is a risk you have to accept as part of DuD gameplay even if you avoid conflict with other players to the greatest of your abilities.
I've added a welfare note, and an additional note (thanks to Jay) asking people to avoid using violent aggression to win debates and minimise others because this IS something that some of us have to deal with on a daily basis and not something we want to deal with at LRP.
29/02/2023 - Exorcism clarifications
We've done a series of clarifications that we hope will make Exorcism flow a little easier and be a little less confusing as well as trying to cut down on the wording on the page, there are ostensibly few actual changes to these rules just hopefully they are now better worded.
The primary change has been to remove the unnecessary ritual circle rules in the section which were frankly a bit too confusing for their own right and to improve the workflow of the exorcism rituals themselves - combat exorcism has also had the ability to SANCTIC KNOCKBACK added.
Mention of Banishing daemons has been removed as this is more appropriate as a set piece for an event narrative rather than a thing people can do freely.
We also removed the rule temporarily in place to limit these to once-per-day.
28/02/2023 - Scan simplified and CLEAVE added
After some Post-E8 analysis the Scanning rules have been reworked again - ultimately after E8 we didn't feel that SCAN was how we wanted it to be offering fine-tuned detection and identification of foes - as such we have removed the section on scanning and reworked the call entirely to function with no further keyword interactions as a 'sonar ping' ability - which achieves our goal in retaining it of giving players a way to notice threats non-visually with auspexes - the new version is designed to represent a more Aliens-like motion-tracker rather than a reliable tricorder-like device. The new call is as follows:
SCAN This call represents someone using an auspex or (if accompanied by WARP) a Psyker using their extrasensory perception to see the unseen.
If you hear this call and you have either no ability to resist it, or are not behind cover and unmoving when it is called (this cannot be avoided by diving into cover) - you must respond by loudly shouting PING.
If you hear this call as WARP SCAN then you must call PING unless you explicitly have an ability that lets you resist this combination or calls with WARP attached. If you are a Psyker you must respond with PSYKER instead of Ping.''
Due to the nature of how calls were reorganised following E7 "BOLT" represented the highest damage in the system other than SUNDER, this worked well for ranged weaponry as a call but did not represent very well the presence of powerful melee weapons and attacks, as such the call CLEAVE (which is identical to bolt mechanically) has been added for melee. While I appreciate that many people will find it unusual to have two calls for the same thing the impact of appropriate-sounding calls to designate appropriately terrifying different foes audibly has its advantages in combat.
There are no plans to insert any melee weapons capable of calling CLEAVE outside of Unique Traits at this time.
With these edits completed we will be producing a rules feedback form that will go to all E8 players and crew in order to capture areas in which people are not confident they understand the rules and areas where players are finding it confusing.
10/02/2023 - Rules Clarifications
- It has been clarified in Corruption and Faith that you can -always- skip to Tempted and that it ends all ongoing negative effects including some Call Effects, Madness, lower levels of Corruption and other dramatic effects - but not Bloodied or Near Death or lost Endurance.
- All traits that grant Sunder have had it added to their write-ups that regardless of how many SOURCES of Sunder someone has they can only use it once per recuperation not multiple times from multiple sources - this was already in the rules but was missed due to being only in one section so this is just for clear communication
- The order of testing for rituals have changed, now they draw BEFORE the ritual RP rather than midway.
- Moritat has added a clarification added that it only effects pistols with its subtraits.
- Your Soul/Sanity is tested has been added to the calls, it was found at e8 it was just easier to have a universal cue rather than trying to speak it as refs/crew.
- Your Decline has been revised with new questions based on our experiences in planning these tracks at E8
16/01/2023 - Rules Clarifications
All pages are finished
We have clarified because we put it in announcements but not the text that the starting bonus trait "Tough Enough" was intended to represent people recruited for brawn not brains - this was added because players wanted the option to opt out of the lore game and not for people buying lore skills to add an extra endurance to their build. So it has been clarified that for new characters this means it locks you out of gaining lore until you gain lore in game.
We removed Would You Kindly from Interrogation effects because it was confusing players as to if it indicated unnatural compulsion to obey or was just a mundane social soft skill call. These skills interact with willpower skills exactly the same just with the confusing use of the cue/call removed. DuD has no social soft skills for uptime play.
24/10/2022 - Rules Locked In
Apart from Minor Typos we will not be making changes to the rules, the following pages:
Are not finished yet - I am working hard on them but have been down with Covid-19
24/10/2022 - Cards Updated
We've updated the cards in line with the update Rules Downloads
Medicae has also had Stimms added.
15/10/2022 - Scum
We've updated Scum as it was seeing some clearly wrong attention for what we wanted it to represent in-game in terms of the social class of characters choosing to take it, I've updated it with a design note as follows:
Design Note: If your social status in background is anything other than absolutely lowest of the low scrabbling for survival and despised by all, this trait is not suitable for your social background; people should expect having this trait and being seen to use it to result in significant class prejudice.
In addition it has had vulture modified to include the fact that you must now do a Power Test (with a 75% chance of failure.
It has also gained an optional feature;
Mutie (Optional): This trait is highly appropriate for characters who are looking to play the lowest of the low in the Imperium - Mutants - you may choose to add cosmetic mutations to your costume - this has no mechanical aspects unless interacting with certain environmental effects.
And a new drawback:
Born at the Bottom: Due to the environments they grew up in Scum characters are more vulnerable to developing minor mutations at the discretion of the Game Team.
15/10/2022 - A Note on Medical Treatment - Triage
We noted in some feedback it was reported that characters were not attempting the full 30s of medical roleplay during combats at E7 - the Game Team would like to stress that this is incredibly disappointing to read - the danger of performing medical aid while under fire is a feature rather than a bug of the system.
It is not an optional component of the DuD game to simply ignore it in order to save your own skin and is there to be followed as a rule - we do not like to get in the business of monitoring player adherence of rules but given this was highlighted in a complaint about the length we feel it is important to inform players that we will be monitoring this in future.
Failing to follow treatment times is cheating.
15/10/2022 - Rules Mk.3
With the feedback from E7 we have finalised the Mk.3 (return to Grimdark) rules - these will not be touched after a period of feedback from players ending 25/10/2022 - we strongly recommend re-reading the rules in full during this period as there are many small changes that would be impossible to track here.
The goal has been to iron out some of the overly complicated parts of the game that needed tidying up to make the rules get out of the way of roleplay - especially combat rules.
All Traits have been reworked for balance and consideration
All Calls have been reworked for balance and clearer simplified rules.
Outsider Traits have been removed, playing an abhuman is better done via a unique trait with Game Team approval in order to achieve a high visual standard for these.
The Alchemy and Interrogations sections have been removed as they are now nested under relevant traits.
Scan There is now a formal Scanning page covering keywords for this ability as well as constraints on its use this is to;
- Reduce the amount of repeated area-effect SCAN calls and pings in the callspace.
- Spread the jam by making it advantageous for different people to be looking for different things and multiple people to be scanning at once.
- Allow people to still use lots of scans for small, conversation-volume normal roleplay
Design Note - Things you cannot do with this, on purpose.
- Scanning for the Noosphere: This didn’t work well in practice. If a techpriest wishes to connect to something through the Noosphere to interact with it, they are better off asking the NPC, examining any clue card attached to it, or asking a ref directly. In general, characters can assume there is background noospheric activity - ie, wi-fi, a mobile phone signal, etc - in highly technological places, and less or no activity in remote or low-tech places.
- Scanning for the Undead: There are a vast array of things that might cause what is essentially a corpse to be moving around: Servitorisation, possession, telekinesis, and all manner of alien or warp phenomena. There is no unifying feature to categorise them as “undead”.
- Scan everything, all the time, as a single character.
Corruption has been altered, it now progresses through successive roleplaying effects up to a level of Tempted, where the boons of Chaos are offered, instead of offering benefits at every level.