Dice Pools

The system is D10 based where Results of 6-10 are successes and results of 1-5 are failures. 1's represent critical failures and 10's represent criticals. Criticals have some special effects:

Criticals are counted in pairs, pairs of 10's are doubled (ex. A 10, 10, 6 is 5 successes instead of 3). If 3 criticals occur, the pair is counted as 4 and the remaining critical is another 1 success.

Drone dice replace dice in the dice pool you will roll for every Drone damage you have received (up to the total number of dice in the pool).

Drone dice behave exactly as normal dice would with two exceptions.

  1. If the dice results in a failure and a drone dice is showing a 1 then this is a Critical Drone Failure. When a Critical Drone Failure occurs the action fails and the character succumbs to their Drone instincts performing an action of the Game Mxtresses choice.
  2. If the dice results in a success and a drone dice is showing a 10 then this is Critical Drone Success. When a Critical Drone Success occurs the action is accomplished successfully but is done in a way that serves the hivemind. What this actually means is up to the Game Mxtress.

Characters join the hivemind and act on its behalf if their willpower is less than or equal to their Drone Damage. Players are not eliminated from the game, their mission objectives just become serving the hivemind and converting their remaining teammates. While a player is serving as a Drone, they do not experience Critical Drone Failures or Critical Drone Success - all their actions are in service to the Hivemind. This means that players acting as drones do not need to take their drone damage into account when building their dice pools. Drones may consult the Game Mxtress privately to coordinate with the rest of the Hivemind.

Should a characters willpower exceed their Drone Damage for any reason they will be restored to autonomy and able to fight the hivemind once more. Usually this requires another player to intervene in some way. Players may not be saved if their willpower falls to 0. If that happens they are permanently a drone and may never recover willpower damage. Players who are restored from their drone state retain all information from that state and may use it during further infiltrations.

Note: Willpower should be private to that player. Other players should not necessarily know that they are trying to save a permanently converted Drone for example. Indeed, Drones may mock recovery in order to further infiltrate the squad and assist in converting more members. This isn't possible if willpower is shared publicly.

Dice Pools are constructed when a skill check is needed. To construct a dice pool the Game Mxtress will declare an Attributes and Skills combination that fits how you will be performing the skill. For each point in both of those skills add 1 dice to the dice pool. If a character has Specializations related to the skill check they may add a dice to their dice pool to represent proficiency in that specific type of action.

Team Pools

A team pool is constructed when 2 or more characters attempt to perform an action together. Rather than all characters individually attempting a role, the characters pool their skills to construct an elevated pool.

All characters contribute their Drone Dice to this pool.

Additional Dice

You may add additional Drone Dice to a check at will by leaning into the draw of the Hive. This adds dice you roll, but at the risk of increased chances of Drone Failures.