DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Hall of Fame - Latest Top 10 completed games CFH: A Call For Heroes FFG The End of the World Rules Clarifications

FFG released four game books in The End of the World line, each detailing a different genre using the same system. The system is a direct descendant of FFG's Star Wars RPG but lighter, encouraging more freeform play over shorter mini-campaigns.

The End of the World: Wrath of the Gods
The End of the World: Alien Invasion
The End of the World: Revolt of the Machines
The End of the World: Zombie Apocalypse

For CFH we've adapted the rules and reskinned them "The End of the Galaxy", a suitable name for a game that takes place during the events of The Rise of Skywalker.

We made the switch to allow players more freedom when describing cinematic actions, and reduce the real time it takes the GM to resolve a round.

Like all of FFG's RPGs, The End of the World game line is discontinued but players can contact the GM if they want to read the PDFs.

Here we'll quickly lay out the core rules.

The Test

Tests allow you to roll the dice, integrate the results into the story, and continue on with your narrative. Once you have deter­mined what task you are trying to accomplish, the test takes three steps:

• The GM determines the characteristic appropriate for the test
• You assemble a pool of positive and negative dice.
• You roll the dice, and after all factors have been accounted for, if at least one positive die has a result equal to or lower than the target characteristic, the task succeeds.

The Characteristics
There are three categories of characteristic, physical, mental and social. Each category has a default offensive and defensive characteristic that can be used "if in doubt". In the original games, the characteristics were Dexterity, Vitality, Logic, Willpower, Charisma and Empathy. We'll convert them to the same characteristics used in FFG's Star Wars RPGs: Agility, Brawn, Intellect, Willpower, Presence and Cunning respectively.

The Dice
This game uses standard d6 dice in two different colours to represent positive and negative dice pools. We will use the same colour coding from FFG's Star Wars RPG. Positive dice will be green, negative dice will be purple. Ten dice of each colour should suffice.

Determine the Task
Once you have specified your activity, the GM decides which of your six characteristics most appropriately applies to the task.

Assemble the Dice Pool
For every task you attempt, you always start with a dice pool comprising a single positive die. You and the GM then add a number of positive and negative dice to the pool, based on several factors. A single positive dice can be added to the pool for:

• Positive Features: Each positive feature on your character sheet that could help you perform the task adds a single positive die to the pool. Usually, this feature shares a category with the character­istic being used for the test.
• Equipment: Each piece of readily available equipment that can help you with the task. (Superior equipment might add two positive dice.)
• Assistance: Each additional character who assists you with the task.
• Situational Benefits: Each environmental effect present that could make the task easier.

Negative dice have a chance of cancelling positive dice results after rolling, and they can cause a character to suffer stress from attempting the task. A single negative dice can be added to the pool for:

• Task Danger and Difficulty: The more challenging or stressful the task, the more negative dice are added.
• Negative Features: Each negative feature on your character sheet that could hinder you in performing the task adds a single negative die to the pool. As with positive features, a negative feature likely shares a category with the characteristic being used for the test.
• Traumas: Each trauma that currently affects your character and shares a category with the characteristic used for the test.
• Situational Hindrances: Each environmental effect present that could make the task more difficult.

You are encouraged to come up with creative reasons to add additional dice.

Roll and Resolve
Roll the entire pool. lf any negative die result matches the number on a positive die, remove both dice from the pool. A negative die can remove only a single matching positive die.

If any of the remaining positive dice have a result that is equal to or lower than your characteristic chosen for the test, the task succeeds. Otherwise, the task fails.

Each positive die left at the end of the test with a result equal to or lower than the chosen characteristic counts as one success. The number of successes is primarily used to resolve attacks and opposed tests.

Upon concluding a test, the character suffers a number of stress points equal to the number of negative dice remaining in the pool. Fill in an equal number of boxes on the stress track in the appropriate category, starting with the boxes in the first tier, pro­ceeding up to the second once all three boxes in the first are full, and so on.

If all nine boxes in a category are full you immediately die or experience a serious trauma.

More about Tests

The basic test covers most situations. Some situations, especially combat, can get more involved if the GM thinks it is appropriate to the story and pace of the game.

Opposed Tests
To perform an opposed test, both you and the adversary make the appropriate test, and whoever scores the greater number of suc­cesses wins the challenge. If the result is a tie, whoever has the higher value in the characteristic used for the test wins. If it is still a tie, or if you both fail the test, the contest is a draw. (If there abso­lutely must be a winner, the GM can have you both reroll the test until there is a victor, ignoring any stress indicated by the rerolled tests.)

Multiple Opponents
Opposed tests may be made between three or even more charac­ters. All participants make the appropriate test, and the character with the highest result is the winner.

Some adversaries are actually groups of two or more characters, like a mob or a swarm.

Pushing Yourself
When attempting a task, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits, increasing your chance of success but also exposing yourself to increased risk. If you choose to push yourself when performing a test, add one positive die and one negative die to the pool before rolling. You may do this only once per test

Conflict

As soon as a conflict (or any time-sensitive action scene) breaks out, the normal flow of the narrative stops, and the game enters “structured time.” In structured time, the game unfolds in a series of rounds. During each round, each character involved in the scene gets to take one turn. Once all characters have taken their turns, the next round starts. This continues until the action has concluded. Each round represents about ten seconds of in-game time, with all of the characters acting simultaneously during those ten seconds.

Determining Initiative
This initiative order is determined based on the circumstances that started the conflict. Whichever group “got the jump” on the other---or has a general advantage---acts first. If you and the other PCs end negotiations with a group of Stormtroopers by attacking them, you will have the initiative and will get to act first. However, if you are ambushed by a particularly quiet group of Ewoks, they will have initiative over you.

Standoff
While who has the initiative in most situations is usually fairly obvious, there are some instances in which everything explodes into chaos at once, and it isn’t apparent which group should go before the other. In these cases, the GM can call for an opposed Agility test. One member of each group is nominated to take the test. This represents that character taking the lead in the situation, guiding fellow group members in the group’s response to the ensuing combat.

Taking Turns
During your turn, you have approximately ten seconds (in game) to attempt whatever you want to do. This is usually enough time to move around a bit and then attempt a single task. In general, you have enough time in a turn to attempt no more than a single task that requires some form of test. If you describe to the GM what you want to do with your turn, and it seems like it would require more than a single test, it is likely something that needs to be broken into multiple turns.

Attacking
When you make a physical attack against another character, you roll an Agility test by default. You add positive and negative dice to this test just as with any other test; these can be due to features, environmental effects, cover, or any other effects. However, instead of adding the usual single positive die for having a piece of equipment, weapons add different types and numbers of dice based on how easy they are to wield.

Non-Physical Attacks
The GM may have you make similar rolls when you are mentally or socially “attacking” your target, such as when you are interrogating a prisoner or using the Force. In these cases, follow the same rules outlined here for making an attack, but by default use the offensive characteristic from the appropriate category (Intellect for mental or Presence for social), and deal the resulting stress to the target’s matching category.

If your actions are intended to be more evasive or peacible or an attempt to avoid conflict, the GM might decide it is more appropriate to use a category's defensive characteristic.

Taking Damage

You take damage in the form of stress. Because there is less rolling in this system in general you can expect to gain stress even on successful tests.

Resistance
Whenever you are dealt stress from any source, you reduce the amount of stress you receive by your resistance in the matching category. Your resistance is equal to the number of tiers in the matching stress track that have all three boxes filled in.

Thus, if you have three or more points of stress in a category, you have one point of resistance; if you have six or more points of stress in a category, you have two points of resistance.

Other things, such as armor, can provide additional resistance in specific categories.

Recovering Stress
In general, stress cannot be readily healed. To reduce accumu­lated stress, you first need to diagnose the problem and realize how it is affecting you. By spending at least five minutes of downtime analyzing how it has affected you,you can convert your stress into a trauma. This removes your stress from that track, but gives you a trauma in the same category with a severity equal to the number of tiers in that stress track that had any boxes filled in.

You can never have more than three traumas (of any severity level) in a category at once. If you ever suffer a fourth trauma in a category you immediately die without any chance to cling to life.

Stimpacks and Emergency Repair Patches can give you a temporary positive feature, such as "Stimmed" or "Patched" that will reduce the stress you take from further tests.

Recovering from Traumas
Most traumas can be healed over time if treated. The amount of time the treatment takes depends on the severity of the trauma, and whether or not it succeeds is determined by a test.

When you decide to begin treating one of your traumas, specify to the GM what measures you are taking to do so. You would normally then undergo the treatment for the amount of time specified for a trauma of that severity, as listed below (required treatment time is also marked in the severity boxes on the character sheet):

• Severity 1: One day
• Severity 2: One week
• Severity 3: One month

Once the entire treatment time has elapsed, you must make a test to see if the treatment succeeded. This test uses the defensive characteristic from the same category as the trauma (Brawn for physical, Willpower for mental, or Cunning for social). As with any test, this test gains positive and negative dice from any circumstances affecting the treatment.

In the Star Wars universe, others characters might have features and equipment that specifically allow them to heal traumas of a certain type, often in next to no time. A character with a Bacta Specialist feature and a Military Trauma Kit, for example, might be able to heal blaster wounds, burns and internal bleeding from explosions. This cannot usually be done in structured time, like in the middle of combat, and would certainly take multiple turns if done so.

If the test succeeds, reduce the severity of the trauma by one. If this reduces the severity of a trauma to zero, the trauma is healed and can be removed from your character sheet. If the test fails, or if the trauma still has a severity, you can continue treatment until the trauma is fully removed. At the GM’s discretion, when the severity of a trauma is reduced due to treatment, you can alter the nature of the trauma based on the in-progress healing.

Death
Whenever you completely fill a stress track, you don't necessarily have to die but can try to cling to life by making a test using the defensive characteristic from the category in which you suffered the stress.

If you succeed at the test, you are still removed from play in the way appropriate to the category in which you acquired the stress, but you are removed only for the rest of the encounter. You immedi­ately take a severity 3 trauma in the matching category and remove all stress from the top two tiers of the maxed-out stress track, leaving the three boxes in tier, filled in.

If you already have three traumas (of any severity level) in the category and cannot take on additional traumas you cannot cling to life, and you have no choice but to die.

Range Bands

FFG's The End of the World doesn't use ranges per se. It does give some average ranges for personal weapons but we'll reuse the range bands from FFG's Star Wars RPGs.

Engaged
If two or more targets are close enough to touch or within reach of a lunge or roundhouse kick--about 2 metres--they are considered to be engaged. Engaged also indicates that a person is close enough to an item to use it. Moving to engage with or disengage from an enemy within short range can be done in one turn.

Short Range
Short range indicates a distance of up to about 18 metres. Moving to another spot within short range is usually easy to do and can generally be done in one turn. Many thrown weapons, holdout blasters and scatter blasters are most accurate at this range.

Medium Range
Medium range is about 18 to 36 metres away. More reliable blaster pistols can reach to medium range, but few thrown weapons can reach this far. Moving from short to medium range can generally be done in one turn.

Long Range
Long range is about 36 to 108 metres. Blaster rifles can reliably reach this far without too much trouble. However, moving from medium range to long range requires two turns.

Extreme Range
Extreme range is the farthest range at which two targets can interact, cinematically about 180 metres*. High-tech sniper weaponry and some crew-served weapons may cover this range. Moving between long and extreme range requires two turns.

If you attempt to make a shot far beyond the average range of your blaster pistol, for example, the GM may add a negative die to your pool to reflect the increased difficulty. On the other hand, if you are making an incredibly short-range shot with a heavy blaster rifle, the GM may add a negative die to reflect the cumbersome weapon.

Example

Imagine your character seen from a bird's-eye view, sitting in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Imagine concentric auras radiate outwards from them, seen as circles from above. These are your range bands.



You shoot first--- a bounty hunter sitting opposite you in the booth at engaged range.

Then you shoot his partner who's standing guard by the exit, at short range.



You go to leave. A third bounty hunter is sitting in a speeder across the street at medium range. You see each other at the same time. He goes for his blaster.

Unexpectedly, an assassin droid has been following the bounty hunters and is waiting in ambush for you under an archway, further down the street at long range.



After taking them both out, you want to know who's sent an assassin droid to kill you, so you go to investigate and are suddenly shot by a sniper on the tower at the far end of the street, at extreme range.

You duck into the cover of a nearby alley with a black scorch mark on your armour. But your X-30 Precision Blaster Pistol only has a range of 'Long'. You'll have to close in before you can return fire.

Remember that your range bands move with you.

*180 metres might not sound extreme based on modern, mountain warfare in Afghanistan, for example.

But check out this video for an idea on distance:

150 yard archery shots

Cinematically, at 137 metres (150 yards) you are already at the limit of most cinematic combat. Even in sniper movies, despite what the script says, the film-makers will often show the target within a couple of hundred metres because it's very difficult to tie a sequence together otherwise.

Force Powers

"There has been an Awakening in the Force."

In the new trilogy era, the Force is more potent and Force users much stronger. People across the Galaxy, who were perhaps sensitive to the Force before, now find they possess surprising new powers that once only trained Jedi and Sith were capable of. Rey can intuitively mind trick a guard, a stable boy in Canto Bight can Force lift his boom. A company of Stormtroopers can suddenly break free of their First Order brain-washing.

Now that we've converted to a new, lite system, some player characters have the feature Force Awakened. But what can they do with it?

Force power | Wookiepedia

The player characters have powers roughly equivalent to a Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon in The Phantom Menace can be used as an easy visual reference. Screenrant lists the Force powers used in the films and new canon.

All 30 Lights & Dark Side Force Powers in Canon

And of course, there have been several Star Wars RPGs over the years, starting with West End Games' d6 version. The Rancor Pit has a list of Force powers from that version. Although it's outdated by the new canon, it still might be useful as inspiration.

West End Games' Star Wars RPG: Force Powers

Ultimately, FFG's The End of the World system gives you the freedom and flexibility to improvise with your Force powers and make them serve the story.

Below I'll explain what each player characters Force powers were under FFG's Star Wars system and how that translates to their new "Knight-level" ability in The End of the World system.

J.B.
Bonded most closely with Maz Kanata as a teacher. J.B. has shown herself to be talented with fine manipulation and mechanical insights gained through use of her more typical, if unorthodox Force powers. She learnt more from Professor Huyang about lightsabers than perhaps the droid even realised. Her Force powers are best used physically.

Preach
As a Guardian of the Whills as a youth and later a predicant in the Church of the Force, Preach was already knowledgeable about the Force before his Awakening. He is particularly skilled at sensing his environment around him, sight beyond sight. These skills are evident in his Soresu lightsaber technique that is strongly defensive. His Force powers are best used socially.

Sirra
Her strongest abilities are also most subtle, focusing on stealth and misdirection, using physical illusion rather than mind control. This preference for physicality shows in Sirra's skill with Force jump, Force speed, et cetera, and so far she's veered away from the more internal aspects of the Force. Could it be she fears her Dark Side? Her Force powers are best used physically.

Winta
Winta is a staff officer in the Resistance so she's more used to defensive operations. Her Jedi training with General Leia Organa would have also frowned on aggression and always tried non-violent solutions first. As such Winta's Jedi Mind Trick has become formidable, as has her ability to influence the emotions of others through the Force. Unsurprisingly given her traditional training, Winta's also shown she can easily lift small objects with her mind. Her Force powers are best used mentally.