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Here's the rules chapter from the book.

What Do I Need to Play?
Not a whole lot, actually. A copy of these rules for a start, of course (or more than one if you don't like to share); a few character sheets (conveniently available for download from our website, badly photocopied from the back of the book, or just hastily scribbled down on the back of a napkin); some pens or pencils; some dice (or coins - anything with an even number of sides/faces); and a couple of friends.

A Game Glossary
Adversity: A number of dice rolled by the GM during a Conflict, opposing the dice rolled by a Player. By default, equal to the number of people at the table (the Players and the GM).

Bones: When using dice, the even-numbered results. When using coins, tails. They are the dice that are exchanged by each side after a Conflict (meaning that the winning side gains the difference between the loser’s Bones and their own).

Character: A fictional persona. Characters are generally divided into two categories: Player Characters (controlled, appropriately enough, by the Players) and Non-Player Characters (controlled by the GM).

Concept: This is what your character is all about in a nutshell. It is also your first Thingy, and thus can be used to gain a die from the GM during a Conflict, if it is relevant.

Conflict: A contested roll to determine who has the right to narrate the outcome of an exchange between two characters whose agendas run at cross-purposes. Usually involves a Player rolling against the GM, but can also be Player vs. Player.
GM: Game Moderator. The participant of the game that does not direct a main character, but acts as a referee and arbitrator, guiding the general flow of the story, and directing the actions of the NPCs in response to the actions of the PCs.

Oooh: Each participant has a pool of dice from which they can draw in order to donate to other players (or bribe them for taking Ouchies) during Conflicts. Players start the game with three dice each, and the GM starts with a number of dice equal to the number of Players times three.

Ouchies: When a player is involved in a Conflict, the other players may offer dice to them in exchange for the potential for something inconvenient, embarrassing, or harmful to happen to their character. An Ouchie is banked when it one of the boxes is checked off, and it is cashed in (and the corresponding check removed) when someone incorporates it into their narration for a Conflict.

NPC: Non-Player Character. The supporting characters of the story, directed by the GM.

PC: Player Character. One of the main characters of the story, directed by one of the Players, and as such, their primary means of exerting their influence upon the game environment and the story.

Player: Can be used to refer to any participant in the game (as in, the GM is also a player), but is usually used to refer to any of the participants of the game that directs a main character (PC).

Session: One continuous block of play time. Sessions typically last between 2 and 4 hours, although this can vary according to the group's preference.

Skulls: When using dice, the odd-numbered results. When using coins, the heads. During Conflicts, the number of Skulls rolled by each side are totaled up and compared to determine the winner of a roll.

Story: A sequence of events that has a definitive beginning, middle, and end. Most story arcs take place over several sessions.

Thingies: These are the prominent features of your character (abilities, backgrounds, personality traits, connections to other characters). When relevant, Thingies can be used to gain dice from the GM during Conflicts.

Woe: A bad ending for your character. Written by another player for you. Add 1 to your Woe score whenever another Player or the GM cashes in one of your banked Ouchies against you.

Yo: A good ending for your character. Add 1 to your Yo score whenever you cash in one of your own character's banked Ouchies, and use it against them.

Character Creation
Like most other roleplaying games out there, in order to get in on the action, the players will need to create characters. This is easier than it might seem. First, some ground rules:

• No two characters can share the same traits. This means that names, character concepts, abilities, descriptions, whatever items they're carrying, background, etc, should all be distinctive.
• Each character should be worthy of a story. Why are they here? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Make sure they have something to do when it's their turn in the spotlight.

The Setup
The best way to start is to have the group as a whole discuss what sort of characters everyone wants to play. Players ideally should come to the table with nothing but a vague idea or two about what kind of character they might want to play. These ideas should be malleable enough to allow for adjustments to accommodate the other characters. The goal is to come up with characters that are going to be interesting and entertaining when they interact with one another. Once you've got the basics, the rest is easy.

Character Sheet
Let's take a look at the character sheet. What does this stuff mean? Here's a sample character to take a look at:



As you can see, Pauline's Concept of Living Dead Girl is fairly solidly focused. If Pauline were in a group that had any other character concepts with an undead vibe, there might have to be some negotiation and revision of concepts.

Under Thingies, we can see that Pauline's most relevant abilities at the moment are that she has unnaturally acute senses, razor-sharp teeth (all the better to rend human flesh), and that she's fairly outgoing for a zombie. These are by no means the sum total of her talents, but whatever other skills Pauline might possess have not been revealed as of yet. She also has 1 Thingy banked, which can be defined at any time during the game.

On the other side of the sheet, we have Yo and Woe, Pauline's good ending and bad ending. If everything goes the way she wants, she will eventually be able to open her own beatnik coffee shop. If not, she will end up working the front door at a local mega-mart chain. Eeek. Fortunately, she’s got a head start on her Yo.

Under Ouchies, we see she currently has 1 Ouchie banked. It is likely to be incorporated into the narration of a Conflict fairly soon.

So now we've seen the sheet, let's take a look at what all of this stuff means.

Name
Duh.

Concept
Besides your character's name, one of the first things you'll need to come up with is your Concept, which is basically your character boiled down to one short, simple phrase, like 'Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist', or 'Exiled Alien Invader', or 'Spoiled Goth Princess'. This gives everyone a general idea of what you're character is all about, but more importantly, it can be used as a Thingy (see Thingies below).

Example:
Ralph's character Burnout has 'Big Fat Biker Dude' as his Concept. This gets him all kinds of advantages, like when riding a motorcycle, or intimidating someone smaller than him into giving him their Jello pudding cup, or (with a little creative persuasion on the part of the player) drinking someone under the table.

Thingies
Thingies are everything that help to define your character. This would be everything that in other RPGs would normally be covered by attributes, skills, backgrounds, advantages, merits, flaws, edges, drawbacks, etc. The primary purpose of Thingies is to enable you to gain an advantage during Conflicts. Any time you do something that is relevant to one or more of your Thingies, your chances of success are greatly increased.

Every character starts with their Concept as their first Thingy, and you get to define up to three more. Thingies should be inspiring and exciting (or at least amusing). For example, 'Strong' is, quite frankly, pretty boring. 'Strong as an Ox' is a little better, but something like 'Benchpresses Cars for Fun and Profit' is evocative of all sorts of images. Thingies can also provide background for a character. 'Short Temper' is somewhat bland, but 'Once Killed a Guy With a Spork' could be the basis for a story in and of itself. It's alright if your Thingies are a little vague, as this makes them more versatile. Here's some examples to get you started, but you should feel free to make up your own:

• What you're good at: Computer Whiz, Dead Shot, Killer Fashion Sense, I Know Kung Fu
• People you know: Army of Adoring Fans, Friends In High Places, My First Four Speed Dial Numbers are Lawyers
• Stuff you carry around: Big Knife, Coat of Many Pockets, Lucky Zippo
• Where you've been or what you've done: Ex-Con, Former Marine, Remember That One Time in Zanzibar?
• How you get what you want: Intimidate People By Yelling Really Loud, Whine Incessantly, Mind-Bending Circular Logic
• How you protect yourself: Flail Arms Wildly, Take It Like A Man, Run Away
• Personality Traits: Shiny Happy People Holding Hands, Sarcasm Personified, Hates Everyone and Everything
• What you look like: Skinny Kid, Tall Drink of Water, Linebacker

Now, you don't have to come up with all of your Thingies right away; in fact, it's probably better if you don't, as it allows for some flexibility down the road (see the Development section on more about this). Just note down however many you haven't used yet in the Thingies Banked box on your sheet.

One other note about Thingies, they don't necessarily have to be positive. You can take flaws and drawbacks as Thingies as well. This is because when you're engaging in Conflicts, you're rolling to determine who gets to narrate the results, not whether you succeeded or failed (see Conflicts for more on this). As long as the Thingy is relevant to the Conflict, whether positively or negatively, it gains you an advantage in determining narration rights (of course, the nature of the Thingy should be taken into account when narrating the results).

Yo and Woe
Each character comes with a pair of possible endings for their own personal story. Your character's Yo is their Good Ending. It's what You The Player want to eventually see happen to your character. Perhaps your character starts a band and goes on to fame and fortune, and eventually plays a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden. Maybe they make a ton of cash by creating an innovative new social networking website and selling the rights to Google.

The flip side of your character's Yo is their Woe: the Bad Ending. It can be a cruelly ironic mirror image of your Yo, but it doesn't have to be. Maybe your character winds up at a dead-end job, or their band breaks up, or they lose their favorite leather jacket, or whatever.

The catch here is that you don't get to decide your Woe, one of your fellow players does (your consolation prize is that you'll be determining someone else's Woe as well).

Over the course of the game, you'll be accumulating points towards one or the other based on how your Ouchies get triggered in various conflicts (see Ouchies below). At the end of the adventure module, you tally up how many orcs you killed, and based on this number, the GM consults table 34 and tells you where your spleen is now...

...Actually, what happens is that if you consistently hose your own character, you earn momentum towards your Yo ending. If the GM or the other players hose you, you earn Woe points. At the end of the story, whichever is higher determines what ultimately happens to your character (and sets up some interesting things for the next story).

Ouchies
Sometimes, bad things happen to good characters. Players can take Ouchies during Conflicts in order to gain more dice from the other players for their roll (see Oooh below). Ouchies can happen to your character at your own hands or those of another player. We'll get more into how Ouchies are actually used in the Conflicts section, but for now, just think of Ouchies as Bad Stuff in potentia. They're karma. You buy the chance of succeeding at something now in exchange for getting hosed later.

Oooh
There's one last thing to address before your character is complete, but it's not listed on the sheet. Each player has a pool of dice, collectively called Oooh. Players start with three dice each, and the GM starts with a number of dice equal to the number of Players times three.

Here's the thing about Oooh dice: they don't belong to you. Well, okay, they do, but you can't use them. Not for yourself. It's like... remember that aunt who had all the glass miniatures of poodles and giraffes and ex-husbands? And you couldn't play with them at all, no matter how much more interesting they seemed after three hours doing NOTHING in her living room? And when you bitched and whined enough she tied you to the clothes line in the backyard? No? Just me? Okay. The important thing is that Oooh is what you spend on other peoples' rolls. We'll get more into that in the Conflict section.

Character Creation Overview

• Name: Make it a good one.
• Concept: One short phrase; your character in a nutshell.
• Thingies: What stands out about your character. Your Concept is your first Thingy, and you can define up to 3 more. You don't have to come up with them right away; if you want, you can save some or all of them for later, to be defined at any time during the game. You will also have the opportunity to add more later.
• Yo: Come up with a good ending for your character.
• Woe: Everyone pass your sheet to the player on your left (skipping the GM, of course). On the sheet you just received, come up with a bad ending for your friend's character (and pass it back).
• Oooh: Grab 3 dice.
• Draw a nifty picture of your character, or steal something from the Internet. We won't tell.

Conflicts
Most of the time, when a player states that their character is doing something, it just happens, as in: “Cameron ties his shoes”; “Nikki walks into Zippy Mart.” However, there will often be times when a player's description of events will be challenged by someone else in the group. This is where the Conflict system comes in to play. Conflicts happen whenever characters are locked in an epic struggle for the fate of the universe. Or for when people are simply trying to fling lunchboxes at each others' heads. Or for when people are trying to humiliate each other with snide comments and catty remarks. You get the idea.

The purposes of the Conflict system is to determine who gets the right to narrate the results of a particular exchange.

Player vs. GM
Anyone can call for a Conflict against someone else, but the majority of Conflicts are likely to be between a PC and an NPC, or between a PC and the game environment itself (and by extension, between a player and the GM, in both cases).

Adversity
If the Conflict is between a player and the GM, the first step is for the GM to determine the Adversity of the roll, which is the number of dice the GM will be rolling for the Conflict. This is similar to Difficulty ratings in other RPGs, but instead of measuring how challenging a particular task is, Adversity is more directly a measure of how much the GM wants the PC to fail (this is the reason, incidentally, why the GM only has a limited number of dice as well). By default, Adversity is equal to the number of players at the table (including the GM), but can be adjusted upwards or downwards to taste.

Example:
Bob's character Cameron wants to bust open a vending machine to get at its sweet sweet candy guts. The GM doesn't care too much about this course of action but he doesn't want to just give it to him, so he leaves the Adversity at the default, which in this case would be 4 (Bob, Alice, Joe, and Sam the GM himself).

Example:
Joe's character Blergh the Thawed-out Caveman is trying to start a car with a shoe. The GM thinks this is a patently ridiculous idea, and sets the Adversity at 7.

Thingies
If any of the character's Thingies (including Concept) are relevant to the Conflict at hand, they each grant 1 die to the player during the Conflict. These dice are given to the player by the GM. Players should be prepared to give a justification for activating a Thingy if questioned, otherwise the GM may deem it inappropriate for the Conflict at hand.

Example:
Alice's character Nikki is looking to tag up the mayor's new reelection campaign signs. One of her Thingies, "Zen Vandalism", is tailor-made for this sort of reprehensible behavior, and Alice makes a case for Nikki's Concept of "Wylde Chylde" being relevant as well, so Alice gets 2 dice going into the Conflict, a nice head start.

This is How We Roll
Dice are used to determine the outcome of a Conflict. When you roll the dice, all you're looking for are odd numbers (1, 3, 5, 7, etc), which we call Skulls, and even numbers (0, 2, 4, 6, etc), which we call Bones. This flexibility extends to other randomizers as well. If you don't have any dice handy, you can flip coins, in which case heads are Skulls (duh), and tails are Bones.

Example:

• You roll 3 six-sided dice and get a 3, 6, and 1: two Skulls and one Bone.
• You flip 6 coins and get heads, heads, tails, tails, heads, tails: Three Skulls and three Bones.
• You roll a six-sided die, a four-sided die, and a twenty-sided die, and get 1, 4, and 17, respectively: Two Skulls and one Bone.
• You roll 2 ten-sided dice and flip 3 coins, and get 4, 3, heads, tails, heads: Three Skulls and two Bones.
• You flip two coins, roll percentile dice, draw two cards from a poker deck, drink all the beer out of the fridge, pee on the rug, and go home. You win.

By the way, Skulls are good, Bones are bad (well, they're not horrible, they're just bad inasmuch as they don't do any good).

Now remember, the Player can't roll any of their own dice, so aside from any dice they may have gotten from their Thingies or Concept, they're going to need some help. Based on how amusing, plot-advancing, or mutually beneficial their intended action is, the other players decide how many of their Oooh dice they're prepared to commit to the effort. When a player enters into a Conflict, each of the other players may choose to contribute up to one die to that player for free. If the player agrees to take an Ouchie, the other players may choose to donate up to two dice.

[i]Example:
Nikki wants very much to steal a local rich kid's bicycle, which happens to be protected by the well-nigh impenetrable might of the HomeyPleeze security system (GM sets the Adversity at 6). This really sucks, so Alice petitions the other players for assistance. Bob tells Alice to blow chunks, which isn't very nice at all, but Ralph remembers that time Alice helped Burnout shoplift disposable razors from the Zippy Mart, and so he gives her one of his Oooh dice for nuthin'. Aren't friends great?

Example:
Cameron's trying for that vending machine, and doesn't have any relevant Thingies, so Bob needs dice badly. Joe takes pity and tosses him a die. Alice, however, holds out, and asks if he'll take an Ouchie for two dice. Bob agrees, checks off one of the boxes on his sheet, and Alice tosses him 2 dice. At this point, Joe is free to give Bob an additional die, or stick with what he's given him already.

Example:
Blergh is still trying to start that car with his shoe. The GM still thinks this is a patently ridiculous idea, and has set the Adversity at 7. Alice isn't morally opposed to Blergh succeeding, but isn't very invested, and decides she would rather get some amusement out of this, and offers Joe a single Oooh die in exchange for an Ouchie. Joe doesn't like that offer, and says that while he's willing to do a deal, it had better be two dice plus one of Alice's cloves. Alice tells Joe to buy his own damn cigarettes, but agrees to give two dice for the Ouchie. Joe agrees, and checks off one of the boxes.

When each side has as many dice as they're going to get, it's time to roll. Both sides roll their dice, and count up how many came up Skulls (odd numbers). If the Player's Skulls equals or exceeds the Adversity, they win the Conflict. If not, then the Player has failed.

Narration
Whoever wins the roll gets to narrate the results of the Conflict, incorporating any Thingies used. The narration should be constrained to the events of the Conflict, but new elements can also be brought in to take the story in a new direction. This is of course, always subject to public opinion, and ultimately, the GM has final say as to whether or not something is outside the bounds of Conflict narration.

Example:
Alice wins the roll against the GM for the graffitti. The result: "Nikki spends all afternoon and goes through 4 cans of spraypaint, but when she's done, all of the mayor's campaign posters are covered with humorous epithets regarding the mayor's parentage and possible mental & sexual deficiencies."

Ouchies, Yo and Woe
Whenever a player has Ouchies banked, anyone narrating the results of a Conflict with them has the potential to cash in one of those Ouchies to use in their narration. When this happens, that Ouchie is used up, and the player removes one check mark from the sheet.

Note that WHOEVER is narrating the scene involving an Ouchie-laden character can cash in the Ouchie, including the player themselves. This is key. Narration rights can be used to mitigate the consequences of an Ouchie on one's own character, even while succeeding at their intended action - if the player had lost the roll, their opponent would have been free to completely hose the character in the worst way possible.

More importantly, the way Ouchies are used has an effect on your Yo and Woe. Here's how it breaks down:

• When you win a Conflict, you can cash in one of your own Ouchies and use it in the narration to gain 1 Yo.
• When the GM wins a Conflict and uses one of your Ouchies against you, you earn 1 Woe.

Example:
Bob banked an Ouchie during Cameron's battle with the vending machine, and upon winning the roll, he decides to cash it in before someone else can. While Cameron has managed to liberate a dozen or so Fun-Size Crunchy bars from the vending machine, the sound of someone beating on a large metal box with a broom handle has attracted the attention of a local campus security guard, and he calls out in a loud, official voice, "What's all this, then?" as he's striding across the quad. Cameron quickly gathers up the candy and makes a break for it. However, in his haste, he drops his backpack, which has all his physics notes in it. Bob gains 1 Yo.

Example:
Weird Ernie has been looking for evidence of alien interference at the local dairy farm. After banking an Ouchie in order to gather an fairly impressive amount of dice, Jeff still manages to fail the roll. The GM decides that not only did Ernie not find any proof of a plot to spike the town's milk supply with a drug that would make people more susceptible to alien mind control devices, he also trips while making his way across the pasture, and lands face down in a cowpat. Jeff gains 1 Woe.

Aftermath
Finally, the winner of the roll gains a number of dice from the loser equal to the difference between the number of Bones they rolled and the number of Bones the loser rolled (if that seems complicated, then the winner and loser simply exchange the dice that came up Bones. It’s the same thing). Then all those dice go into your Oooh pool, ready to be given to someone else when they need to roll for something. This keeps the dice flowing around the table like ichor in some horrible ancient tentacled nightmare of a beast, slumbering in a sunken city beneath the ocean.

PC vs. NPC Conflict Overview

1. The GM sets the Adversity (default == number of people at the table, including GM).
2. Each relevant Thingy (including Concept) forces the GM to donate 1 die to the Player for the purposes of this Conflict. The Player should be prepared to justify the relevance of each Thingy used if questioned.
3. Other players can choose to donate up to one die each from their Oooh pools to help their buddy out (Alternately, they may opt not to donate dice).
4. If the Player decides to take an Ouchie, they check it off on their sheet, and the other players may donate an additional die each, if they choose.
5. Roll the dice. Huzzah!
6. If the Player's Skulls equals or exceeds the GM's Skulls, the Player wins the roll.
7. However, if the GM's Skulls exceeds the Player's Skulls, the Player fails the roll.
8. The winner of the Conflict narrates the outcomes, incorporating any Thingies used. If they want, they can also choose to incorporate one of the Player's Ouchies if they have any banked. If the Player uses an Ouchie, they earn one Yo. If the GM uses an Ouchie, the Player earns one Woe. If no one used the Ouchie, then it remains on the sheet, to be used in a later Conflict.
9. Each side exchanges the dice that came up Bones.

Example:
Cameron really needs to hack the school's computer to fix his grades. The GM sets the Adversity at 4. Cameron's “My Kung Foo Is The Best” Thingy gets him a die from the GM, as does his “Hacker Supreme” Concept, so Bob's up 2 dice already. Bob's friends donate a total of 3 dice. Bob and the GM roll. Bob rolls his 5 dice, and gets 3 Skulls. The GM rolls 4 dice, and gets 2 Skulls. Bob's 3 Skulls beats the GM's 2. Result: Bob narrates how the conflict goes down, no dice are exchanged (2 dice came up Bones on each side), and Cameron comes home with a A- in Chemistry.

Example:
Bob wants Cameron to make a jump shot from the 3-point line. The GM sets the Adversity at 4. Cameron is not all that athletic, and thus has no relevant Thingies, so no free dice. Bob banks an Ouchie, and the other players donate a total of 5 dice. Everyone rolls. Bob gets 1 lousy Skull, and the GM gets 2. Result: The GM decides that the ball bounces off the rim and flies back across the gym, smacking the gym teacher on the side of his head. Now Cameron's got some splainin' to do. The GM also gains 1 die to his pool from Bob (Bob's 2 Bones – the GM's 1), and Cameron gains 1 Woe. He should have changed his Phys Ed grade instead.

Player vs. Player
Things work pretty much the same for when one Player calls for a roll against another, with some slight alterations. First of all, there's no Adversity. Each Player gains dice from the GM for whatever Thingies are relevant, and then both Players rely on the rest of the group for additional dice. Dice are donated in the same manner as in Player vs. GM Conflicts, and Ouchies also work the same way. The winner of the roll gets to narrate the outcome of the Conflict. If a player hoses their own character with an Ouchie during narration, they earn one Yo. If a player uses one of their opponent's Ouchies against them, the loser gains one Woe. Finally, any dice that came up Bones are exchanged, and then all the dice are added to the players' respective Oooh pools.

PC vs. PC Conflict Overview

1. Both Players can use any relevant Thingies that are available to gain dice from the GM.
2. The other players (and the GM) can give additional dice to either side, depending on how they want to see the Conflict go. One can even give dice to both sides, just to inject a little chaos into the proceedings. The number of dice that can be donated is one per Player per side.
3. If a Player takes an Ouchie, players may then donate up to two dice each to that Player.
4. Roll the dice. Huzzah!
5. Whoever gets the most Skulls wins the roll and narrates the results of the Conflict (incorporating any Thingies used). Ties favor the side that didn't call for the Conflict.
6. If the winner of the roll uses one of their own Ouchies against themselves, they earn 1 Yo.
7. If the winner of the roll uses one of the other Player's Ouchies against them, the loser of the roll earns 1 Woe.
8. Each side exchanges the dice that came up Bones.

Example:
The zombies are invading, and the PCs have barricaded themselves in a liquor store. Unfortunately, they've neglected to bring any supplies or food. It's been a day and a half, and people are starting to get antsy. Wes wants to pry open the window and go get some tacos. Burnout thinks that this is a Bad Idea(tm), since the zombies are right outside and will take the first available opportunity to gain entry, and decides he's going to try and stop Wes. As far as Thingies, Burnout's got 'Big Fat Biker Dude' going for him (gaining him 1 die), while Wes doesn't really have anything relevant. Now Wes and Burnout's players, Phil and Ralph, look to the rest of the group. Alice gives Phil 1 die, reasoning that Nikki's hungry, too. Jeff convinces Ralph to take an Ouchie for 2 dice, since he doesn't want to give the zombies a chance to get inside. The GM decides to make things interesting, and gives Phil and Ralph 1 additional die each. Phil rolls 2 dice, and gets 2 Skulls. Ralph rolls 4 dice, also getting 3 Skulls. Result: Ralph narrates Burnout grabbing Wes by the scruff of the neck and hauling him back to the stockroom and locking him in for a bit to cool off, reasoning that Wes is mainly just panicking and should be fine in a few minutes or so. Upon walking back to the front counter, he trips and knocks over a display stand carrying bottles of cheap gin, breaking several of the bottles. Ralph earns 1 Yo for using the Ouchie, and also gains 1 die from Phil.

Character Development
Most RPGs attempt to simulate characters slowly getting better at various skills over time. In Spookybeans, characters develop a bit differently. As the story progresses, more information about the characters is revealed as various traits or skills are displayed.

Thingies
First of all, if you didn't specify all of your Thingies at character creation, you have the opportunity to do so at any time during the game. Defining new Thingies during the course of play represents the revelation of already existing, but previously unspecified abilities. In other words, your character is not necessarily learning new skills, they are simply choosing to reveal them at that particular moment. This can be useful in situations where suddenly there is a need for someone with a specific talent or ability, and you can step up and say, "Why yes, I can do that", and the day is saved.

Example:
Our intrepid gang is trapped on the third floor of a burning building, and needs to find a way to get out safely. Alice decides that this is a good time to let everyone know that Nikki is a whiz with tying knots. Nikki happens to have at least 1 Thingy left undefined at the moment, so Alice decides to add "Gets Kinky With Ropes" to Nikki's sheet. Alice now has a relevant Thingy which she can use to see if she can tie enough bed sheets together in time for everyone to climb out the window before the floor gives out.

In the example above, Nikki didn't just suddenly learn how to tie knots; the fact that she was always good at it simply hadn't come up before. The rules from character creation still apply: you can't add a Thingy that steps on someone else's character, and the new Thingy had better be interesting and entertaining. Additionally, be prepared to give a plausible explanation of why the ability hadn't come up before, if there had previously been situations in which it would have been useful.

Yes, you can get more than three Thingies, you munchkin. When you achieve your character's Good Ending by having more Yo than Woe at the end of a story, you earn yourself a shiny new Thingy. Just like that, anything you want. Just write it in with the others. And just like the Thingies you started with, you don't even have to come up with one right away, you can bank it for later. Aren't you special?

Yo and Woe
At the end of every scenario, each compares their Yo and Woe scores. Whichever ending has a higher score comes to fruition and is erased from the sheet, to be replaced by a new one at the beginning of the next story. If a Player achieves their Yo, they get to write a new one. If a Player suffers their Woe, the new one is written by one of the other Players. Whichever ending didn't happen is left alone. The scores are both reset to zero. If for some reason a Player's Yo and Woe are tied, them GM determines the best option:

• Allow the Player to choose which ending they want.
• Choose the ending themselves.
• Rule that both Yo and Woe happen simultaneously (assuming that Yo and Woe were not written to be mutually exclusive). Player earns an additional Thingy.
• Neither one happen at this time. Player does not earn an additional Thingy.

Example:
Alistair the Armchair Occultist has a Yo ending of "Summon a Girlfriend", and a Woe ending of "Polymorph into Limbless Slug". He does well enough to end the scenario with a positive balance of Yo, and as such manages to transcend the mortal limitations of having social skills to conjure his very own Level 0 Human Female. At the beginning of the next scenario, he'll have a girlfriend that he won't have to inflate for once. His Woe remains the same since it didn't come to pass, but he must select a new Yo, since he achieved the original one. Something like "Get Girlfriend to Actually Like Me" might be a good start.

Example:
Nikki has the Yo ending of "Total Rockstar Babe" and the Woe ending of "Ends up Working at the Perfume Counter of Jacy's". She bolloxes a number of Conflicts during the scenario, and ends up with a higher Woe than Yo. At the beginning of the next game, Nikki will be mired in the depths of minimum wage drudgery, and a new Woe will have to be devised (by the player to her left) to reflect the chances of sinking even deeper, like "Promoted to Assistant Manager". Her Yo remains the same.

As you've probably noticed, the resolution of Yo and Woe endings provide great hooks for where characters start out in the beginning of the next story. Players and GMs can make the most of these outcomes, besides the simple mechanic of gained or lost Thingies, by integrating the content of these outcomes into their characters' further adventures.

That's it?
'Fraid so. No initiative rolls, no damage rolls, no weapon statistic charts, no wound effects tables, no average healing times, no chance of death rolls, no blood loss effects rules, no permanent wound effects rules, no area-effect weapon rules, no mass combat system, no scale miniatures rules, no tactical positioning rules, no troop morale rules, no hex grid facing rules, no movement rate comparison charts, no... well, you get the idea.

-- Ben