Penal Force is a game based partially on Rimworld’s setting where two factions, the freedom loving and resource hungry Coalition and the Authoritarian and resource hungry Empire, are vying for the control of a resource rich planet. You’re a force under the control of the Coalition being made to help with that by expanding the penal colony for the Coalition to gain a foothold on the planet..
The two factions each control expansive areas of space and are currently locked in a cold war. Under the control of both factions are worlds in various areas of technological development though most don’t know it. This means that within reason players could, for example, easily play a knight from a feudal world next to a cyborg gunslinger from a Rimworld. There is also magic, though none of you can use it except through enchanted items as it requires many mages to attain any appreciable effect. As a side note, you tend to not see enchanted items that are more complicated than a few hunks of metal attached using cloth due to each individual part needing to be enchanted with the same enchantment. Quicker and easier to just make a really nice sword and then slap a sharpness enchantment on it.
The system will be using fudge dice, to resolve conflicts. Everybody gets four dice to use. After rolling and seeing how many successes a character has they add their skill bonus to the roll. Then, their equipment bonuses will be added. Then the winner is decided. For attack rolls, if the winner is the attacker the loser will lose a dice. When out of dice, the character is incapacitated and should their allies not rescue them they will die at the mission’s end. Rescuing characters means you lose one die on all checks until you leave them or otherwise aren’t restricted by them. This lost die isn’t counted towards incapacitation. As a side note some enemies may try to take incapacitated allies. They will receive the same penalties as rescuing an ally.
If one is so inclined, they can heal a wounded ally and allow them to fight as if they were good as new. To succeed on a heal check you must roll your dice plus your relevant stats against the number of wounds the character has taken times 3. If you succeed you heal a wound.
Despite what some people say, Space isn’t the final frontier. For many men and women and others that honor belongs to the penal planet of Verminus. By all accounts anyone of importance would avoid it like the plague as the name implies. Sadly, while you all are prominent, you aren’t important. That would be why the Coalition has sent you as an expeditionary force (nominally) and when needed (most of the time) a special operations group. Because you’re the cheapest professionals money can buy. Literally, considering for one reason or another you were sent to prison before you were here. It’s a PENAL colony after all. You will be based in the colony of Luieding (Loo-ding), a fairly modern if sparse town. Your commanding officer and will meet you at your quarters to further to elaborate on what your job entails.
Officer Brutus is a large man, standing nearly seven feet tall with muscles that would make even a cyborg wrestler hesitate in offending him. And that’s even if you didn’t take into account that he shows signs of winning many hard fought battles. The room he briefs you in contains TVs (Not even modern ones, they’re only 4K), several couches (actually fairly comfortable ones), and some refreshment vendors (boasting foods to please whatever style you wish as long as it’s from the former nations of earth.). Overall, it’s got a fairly bare bones feel to it. Brutus gives you all a hard look before frowning.
”Wow, the really didn’t dig deep to acquire you guys, did they? Eh, you’re still miles above the militia this town has. And they outnumber you five to one! Sorry, just wanted to inject some humor into this... Anyways, you’ll be acting as a special operations force for the most part. That’ll entail clearing out the type of fauna that a few shots from a rifle can’t take down, looking into areas for expansion of resource extraction and the town itself, and sabotaging the Empire’s colony. I’m sure some of you are unhappy with that last one… Well truth be told I don’t really care since if you try anything I’ll activate the explosive chip they implanted while you were in hypersleep. Or it’ll activate if I die… on that cheery note, I’m going to need you all to fill out this form.”
The hulking man hands out a stack of papers asking general questions about your specialties and other basic details. The Coalition loves their forms.
Name:
Age:
Race: The coalition does claim pretty much any planet with intelligent life in their sphere of influence, but they tend to not bother with non-humanoids as supplying them would be difficult. They never bother with races that can’t live on earthlike planets.
Appearance:
Gender (if applicable):
Backstory:
Level: 1
HP dice: 4 (You gain an HP die every third level and for certain pieces of equipment.)
Skills: You have four points to make skills. Skill levels max out at your dice level and give you successes equal to your skill level on related rolls. You gain 1 skill points ever level.
Equipment: You can have equipment that provides up to three dice, spread out among any number of pieces of equipment. This is the only way to have an extra die for the purposes of health.
Link to the Discord for any questions, Comments, or concerns:
https://discord.gg/7AbZqk8
