Where the contents of that sphere went, no one knows -- except for the people inside it.
They found themselves flung around realities in a way that reminded them of the television show Quantum Leap. Forced to make do as best they could, they dubbed themselves "The J Team", after the Greek god Janus and, of course, the television show The A Team.
The members of the J Team come from various walks of life found at Hanscom: personnel of the 66th Air Base Wing, 551st Electronic Systems Wing, 66th Services Squadron (combat support and community service), civilian contractors, and other visitors.
You have the set {0,1,2,3} to assign as scores, and then you choose a polarity from each pair. So your stats may end up as:
To perform a skill check, the storyguide (SG) will tell you which stats are pertinent. Normally, this should be one or two stat pairs, although in rare circumstances more may be relevant. Stats of opposite polarity than what was called add negatively.
In the case that Broad/Focused was not explicitly called for, if you are Broad, for each anti-aligned stat, add your Broad score. Similarly, if you are Focused, for each aligned stat, add your Focus score. Note that Broad/Focused does not apply to stat scores of 0.
Now divide by N, where N is the number of stat pairs called for. So knife-fighting calls for Physical and In Close, so N = 2, even if Broad or Focused are being added.
After dividing by N, round down, and this is your modifier to 2d6.
For skill checks that don't involve head-to-head rolling, Easy checks are 6+, Medium checks are 8+, and Hard checks are 10+.
Boxcars can be resolved at SG discretion as an automatic success, unusual success, or by simply adding an additional 1d6 to a skill check. Also, rolling boxcars is Just Cool: generally speaking, rolling a natural 12, and then an additional 1, and adding a skill of (say) -2 is cooler than rolling an 8 and adding a skill of 3.
Once you have 3 xp in a skill, you gain +1 to rolls in that skill; 6 xp = +2; 10 xp = +3. You cannot go above +3.
Hero: 0 point Virtue. You know that you're important, and you know that other people think you're important. In other words, you have PC glow and you know it. Don't count on it, though.
| Fatigue |
|---|
| [X] Rested |
| [ ] -0 |
| [ ] -1 |
| [ ] -2 |
| [ ] -3 |
| [ ] -4 |
| [ ] Unconc |
For every fatigue "box" you take, you incur the penalty listed on the right.
For fatigue, there is Short Term and Long Term fatigue. Both get marked on the same chart, but you recover differently from ST or LT fatigue:
| Rest 2 minutes | Recover 1 ST level |
| 10 minutes | 2nd ST |
| 30 minutes | 3rd ST |
| 60 minutes | 4th ST |
| 2 hours | 5th ST |
You need 6 + N hours of sleep, where N is the number of Long Term fatigue levels you have in order to recover. Sleeping less than 6+N hours (round up) gives you 1 LT fatigue level per hour missed.
| Wounds |
|---|
| [X] Normal |
| [ ] -1 |
| [ ] [ ] -2 |
| [ ] [ ] [ ] -3 |
| [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] -4 |
| [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Incap |
| [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] Dead |
If your attack exceeds your opponent's defense, you do damage equal to the inverse arithmetic pyramid of the difference. Pyramid(2)=1+2=3, Pyr(3)=6, Pyr(4)=10. So if the difference between your final scores is 5, your opponent takes 2 boxes of damage. If the difference is 6, your opponent takes 3 boxes.
To resolve combat, roll off against your opponent. So Pee-Wee (2 Social, 0 In Close/Ranged, 3 Mental, 1 Broad) vs Thrudd (0 Social/Technical, 2 In Close, 3 Physical, 1 Focused) get into a fight (Physical, In Close):
Pee-wee: ( 0 (In Close) - 3 (Mental) + 1 (Broad: Mental) ) / 2 = -1 to roll.
Thrudd: ( 2 (In Close) + 1 (Focused: In Close) + 3 (Physical) + 1 (Focused: Physical) ) / 2 = +2 to roll.
First, initiative. Initiative changes if the person without initiative takes no damage and does damage to the opponent. Otherwise, the person with initative keeps it.
Initiative: Pee-wee rolls a 7, adds -1, gets a 6. Thrudd rolls a 6, adds 2, gets an 8. Thrudd gains initative.
Thrudd attacks: Thrudd rolls a 9+2=11. Pee-wee also rolls a 9-1=8. Difference of 3, so Pee-wee takes 2 boxes of damage, and is at -1.
Pee-wee counterattacks: Pee-wee rolls 9-1(stats)-1(wounds)=7. Thrudd rolls a 5+2(stats)=7. Thrudd takes no damage. This ends the combat round.
Next round, initative stays with Thrudd, and he attacks first: he rolls an 8+2=10; Pee-Wee rolls 7-1-1=5, so he takes another 2 boxes, and is at -2. Pee-Wee counterattacks: 12+6(extra die)-1(stats)-2(wounds)=15; Thrudd: 3+2=5. Thrudd takes a whopping 4 boxes of damage in one shot, and is also at -2.