by The Fuzion Labs Group
(as written by Gary Townsend)
Instant Fuzion is a simple role-playing/combat system. Characters can be made in less than five minutes, can fit on the backs of index or trading cards, and combat resolution is fast and easy. This system is featured in the brand new product, Wildstrike! from Hero Games, in the Usagi Yojimbo RPG from Gold Rush Games, and in the upcoming Dragonball Z RPG from R. Talsorian Games.
Instant Fuzion characters start with four Primary Characteristics, and two Derived Characteristics to define their basic abilities. These numbers range from 0 to 10, 0 being handicapped and 10 being nearly super-heroic. Normal people typically have Characteristics of 3-4. To find the total number of points available for defining Primary Characteristics, multiply the average Characteristic number you want by 4.
Example: I want my characters to have average Characteristics of 5, so I give them 20 points to distribute. Derived Characteristics are figured from the Primary Characteristics, and all are listed below:
Mental:
A measure of your learning and memory, willpower, and force of personality.
Combat:
Your reaction time, fine technical skills, and overall athletic ability.
Physical:
This measures physical strength, toughness, and general health.
Movement:
How fast you can move about.
Hits: (Physical x5)
The amount of damage you can take before falling unconscious.
Defense: (Physical x2)
Your defense against incoming damage.
The next thing that an Instant Fuzion character needs is Skills, which define what you know how to do and how well you do it. Skills are rated on the same scale as Characteristics: 0 means you don�t know how to do it, and 10 means you are the best in the world at it. The Skills are listed below:
Awareness:
Your Skill at perceiving and interpreting the world around you.
Body:
Your athletic Skill; how well you can use your body to perform Physical feats.
Control:
Your Skill at controlling machines, animals and vehicles.
Education:
The knowledge that you learned in school: history, current events, etc.
Fighting Hand-to-Hand:
How well you can hit someone or avoid being hit by a melee attack.
Fighting at Range:
How well you use firearms, bows and arrows, thrown rocks, or any other ranged attack.
Performance:
How well you can get and keep the attention of a crowd.
Social:
Your Skill at interacting with other people.
Technique:
Your skills at using machinery or performing feats with your hands.
Now that you have made an Instant Fuzion character, what can you do with it?
The mechanic for resolving actions is very easy, and can be summarized with one formula:
Characteristic + Skill + Dice Roll = Action Total.
For the Die Roll, all you need are three six sided dice (commonly found in most board games), abbreviated as 3d6. The higher the Action Total, the more likely you will succeed. If you are competing against someone else, compare the two Action Totals; the highest total wins the contest. What Skill and Characteristic you use depends on the task. To drive a car, you add together your Control Skill and your Combat Stat, for example.
I want to hit my opponent in combat. I have a Combat Characteristic of 5, and Fighting Skill of 5, so I roll my 3d6 and come up with a total of 10 on the dice. I then add this number to my Skill and Characteristic, and come up with an Action Total of 20. To dodge my attack, my opponent rolls 3d6 and comes up with a 12 on the dice. He then adds this to his Combat Stat of 6, plus his Fighting Stat of 6, for an Action Total of 24. Therefore, since his total is greater than mine, I missed.
If you do hit, you would roll damage for your attack: A character hitting another with his fists or feet does as many d6�s as his Physical Characteristic. So if my Physical Characteristic is 5, then I do 5d6 of damage. The target�s Defense is then subtracted from the damage; if I rolled a total of 20 points of damage on the dice, and my opponent�s Defense is 10, then I only do 10 points of damage to my opponent. Damage is subtracted from a character�s Hits; once Hits are reduced to 0, the character falls down and is unconscious.
Many attacks are more lethal than a simple punch or kick. A bullet or knife (for example) applies its damage directly to the character�s Physical Stat if it hits, and the character does not get to subtract his or her Defense from the damage done.
Armour, however, both adds to a character's Defense and acts against the damage from a lethal attack, as above. However, any lethal damage that penetrates the armour's Defense is still subtracted directly from the character's Physical stat.