Introduction
There are literally thousands of role-playing games on the market today, and almost everyone has a combat system. The complexity of these systems range up and down on every scale imaginable. From the simple and vague, "He's hurt bad ... very bad", to the precise but extremely complex, "the target has sustained forty-one points of damage to his left lower leg, has severe muscle and tendon damage, a transverse fracture of the tibia and will be going into shock in three rounds if he or she is not treated." When designing this system, we understood that some people would play this game for the combat so the concise but complex combat would have to be included. Others would rather play for the story and could not be bothered by the long drawn- out precision of a complex system. After three years of thought, we have found a median between these two extremes and decided to allow the Game Master and his players to select how accurate they want combat. This system offers everyone - regardless of their interests - a good gaming experience. Anyone can design their system as complex as they want or as simple as they need by using or not using the extensive rules. For example the most advanced combat includes many modifiers for weather, target and marksman movement, alertness condition, ground cover, fatigue and injuries that are all taken into account and influence the outcome. While the simplest form of combat would deal with almost exclusively with marksmanship. The system may sound complicated but really it isn't. Five steps are involved in combat and are listed along with several ways to perform each of them. The easy procedures for each step are listed first, with subsequent progress to the more complex. For each of the five steps you may choose to incorporate anyone of its procedure into your style of gaming. The combinations are varied enough to satisfy almost every need, and while the resulting combat system may be different from another Game Masters', we think that is the way it should be. Everyone getting the best role playing experience without having to conform to anyone else's concept of fun or enjoyment.
Here are the sections of this book: