TEXT: 1
  the super-powered role playing game
  
  2
  Daring Comics Role-Playing Game
  Design: Lee F. Szczepanik, III, Lee F. Szczepanik, Jr.
  Writing: Tommy Brownell, Lee F. Szczepanik, Jr., Lee F. Szczepanik, III
  Editing: Tommy Brownell, Anna Lunsford
  Interior Art: Paul Ridgon, Dave Anderson, Nichx
  Graphic Design: Dave Anderson
  Cover Art: Butch Mapa
  Fate™ is a trademark of Evil Hat Productions, LLC. The Powered by Fate logo is © Evil Hat Productions, LLC 
  and is used with permission. The Fate Core font is © Evil Hat Productions, LLC and is used with permission. 
  The Four Actions icons were designed by Jeremy Keller.
  Any reference to characters or events published by Marvel Comics and DC Comics in this book is not intended 
  as a challenge to any associated trademark or copyright, and is used for references purposes only.
  The following is designated as Product Identity, in accordance with Section 1(e) of the Open Gaming License, 
  Version 1.0a: all character, organization, place names and descriptions, all artwork and images, all rules and 
  powers text in Chapter 9: Powers except for text previously published under the Fate Core and Fate Toolkit 
  SRD.  
  The following text is Open Gaming Content: all material not designated Product Identity.
  Daring Comics Role-Playing Game is © 2016 Daring Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved. Daring Comics, 
  Daring Comics Role-Playing Game, Daring Entertainment, and associated logos are trademarks of Daring 
  Entertainment, LLC
  Daring Entertainment can be found on the Internet at: www.daringentertain.com
  Join the discussion at: forums.daringentertain.com
  
  3
  
  4
  Table of Contents
  Table of Contents 
  4
  Chapter 1: The Basics  
  13
  Welcome to Daring Comics! 
  13
  A Roleplaying Game 
  13
  What You Need to Play 
  13
  Players and Gamemaster 
  13
  The Character Sheet 
  14
  Aspects 
  14
  Skills 
  14
  Stunts 
  15
  Stress 
  15
  Consequences 
  15
  Refresh 
  15
  Rolling the Dice 
  15
  The Ladder 
  16
  Interpreting Results 
  16
  Fate Points 
  16
  Invoking an Aspect 
  17
  Declaring a Story Detail 
  17
  Compels 
  17
  Start Playing! 
  18
  Chapter 2:
    Aspects And Fate Points 
  19
  Defining Aspects 
  19
  Defining Fate Points 
  19
  Types Of Aspects 
  19
  Series Aspects 
  19
  Character Aspects 
  19
  Power Set Aspect 
  19
  Situation Aspects 
  20
  Consequences 
  20
  Boosts 
  21
  What Aspects Do 
  21
  Importance 
  21
  Deciding When to Use Mechanics 
  21
  Making A Good Aspect 
  21
  Double-Edged 
  21
  Say More Than One Thing 
  22
  Clear Phrasing 
  22
  If You Get Stuck 
  23
  Sometimes, It’s Better Not to Choose 
  23
  Let Your Friends Decide 
  23
  Invoking Aspects 
  23
  Free Invocations 
  24
  Compelling Aspects 
  24
  Types of Compels 
  25
  Retroactive Compels 
  26
  Compelling with Situation Aspects 
  26
  Using Aspects For Roleplaying 
  26
  Invoking for Effect 
  27
  Removing Or Changing An Aspect 
  28
  Creating And Discovering
    New Aspects In Play 
  28
  Secret or Hidden Aspects 
  29
  Invoking or Compelling
    Another Character’s Aspect 
  29
  The Fate Point Economy 
  29
  Refresh 
  29
  Spending Fate Points 
  30
  Earning Fate Points 
  30
  The GM and Fate Points 
  30
  Chapter 3: Series Creation 
  31
  Creating the Series 
  31
  Series Level 
  31
  Gritty Realism 
  31
  Urban Protectors 
  31
  Super-Heroic 
  31
  Earth’s Mightiest 
  31
  Off The Charts 
  31
  Series Tone 
  32
  Near Realistic 
  32
  Dark & Grim 
  32
  Four Color 
  32
  Experience Level 
  32
  Normal Guy in a Super World 
  32
  New/Young Heroes 
  33
  Know the Ropes 
  33
  Been Around the Block 
  33
  Highly Experienced 
  33
  Series Framework 
  34
  The Series Scope 
  34
  Series Problems and Aspects 
  34
  The Setting 
  35
  Phase One: The Broad View 
  36
  Phase Two: The Focused View 
  37
  Phase Three: The People 
  38
  Putting it all Together 
  38
  Chapter 4: Character Creation 
  39
  
  5
  Step One: Character Name 
  39
  Step Two: Character Aspects 
  39
  Required Character Aspects 
  39
  Contingent Character Aspects 
  40
  Step Three: Supporting Cast
    and Rogues Gallery 
  42
  Step Four: Skills 
  42
  Step Five: Spend Hero Points 
  42
  Step Six: Finishing Up 
  42
  Stress and Consequences 
  43
  You’re All Set! 
  43
  Quick Character Creation 
  43
  Chapter 5: Complications 
  44
  Complications vs Aspects 
  44
  Character Complications 
  44
  Power Complications 
  45
  Bringing a Complication into Play 
  46
  Rejecting a Complication 
  47
  Example Complications 
  47
  Vulnerability (Element-X Sickness) 
  47
  Vulnerability (Element-X Weapon) 
  47
  Power Loss (Element-X) 
  47
  Recharge (Solar Absorption) 
  47
  Device (Out of Ammo) 
  47
  Weakness (Dehydration) 
  47
  Final Advice: Building Your Complication 
  47
  Chapter 6: Super Teams  
  48
  Step One: Super Team Name 
  48
  Step Two: Super Team Aspects 
  48
  Charter 
  48
  Friction 
  48
  Step Three: Rogues Gallery 
  49
  Step Four: Team Stunts 
  49
  Heroes Assemble 
  49
  United We Stand 
  49
  Brotherhood 
  49
  Iconic 
  49
  Media Liaison 
  49
  Public Relations Specialist 
  49
  Reserve Member 
  50
  Signature Fast Ball 
  50
  Team Base 
  50
  Vengeance 
  50
  Ultimate Vengeance 
  50
  Step Five: Complications 
  50
  Corporate Investor 
  50
  Dark Secret 
  51
  Media Animosity 
  51
  Unwanted Attention 
  51
  Improving Your Super Team 
  51
  Turning the Dials 
  51
  Chapter 7: Skills 
  52
  Skill Benchmarks 
  52
  Sample Skill Columns 
  53
  45 skills points 
  53
  40 skills points 
  53
  35 skills points 
  53
  30 skills points 
  54
  25 skills points 
  54
  The Basic Game Actions 
  54
  Accuracy 
  55
  Arcanum 
  55
  Artificing 
  55
  Athletics 
  55
  Contacts 
  56
  Controlling Skill (Magic/Mental/Power) 
  57
  Deceive 
  57
  Empathy 
  57
  Fight 
  58
  Investigate 
  58
  Knowledge 
  58
  Leadership 
  59
  Notice 
  59
  Physique 
  60
  Provoke 
  60
  Rapport 
  61
  Resources 
  61
  Available Funds 
  61
  Stealth 
  62
  Technology 
  62
  Thief 
  63
  Treatment 
  63
  Vehicles 
  63
  Weapons 
  63
  Will 
  64
  Chapter 8: Stunts 
  65
  Basic Stunt Creation 
  65
  Add a New Action to a Skill 
  65
  Create a Rules Exception 
  65
  Add a Bonus to an Action
    under Specific Circumstances 
  66
  Advanced Stunt Creation 
  67
  Triggered Effects 
  67
  Fate Point-Powered Stunts 
  67
  Stunt Families 
  67
  Branching Effects 
  68
  Broad Stunts 
  68
  Combined Stunts 
  69
  Stunts as Special Effects 
  69
  Sample Stunts 
  69
  
  6
  Accuracy Stunts 
  69
  Any Object is a Bullet 
  69
  Lead Rain 
  69
  Quick Draw 
  69
  Ricochet Expert 
  69
  Superior Marksman 
  69
  Trick Shot 
  69
  Arcanum Stunts 
  69
  Fortune Telling 
  69
  Hypnotic Voice 
  70
  Sixth Sense 
  70
  Powerful Sixth Sense 
  70
  Artificing Stunts 
  70
  A Kind of Magic 
  70
  Master Artificer 
  70
  Warded Workshop 
  70
  Athletics Stunts 
  70
  Dazing Counter  
  70
  Fluid Technique 
  70
  Uncanny Agility 
  70
  Superhuman Agility 
  70
  Contacts Stunts 
  70
  Big Man 
  70
  Talk the Talk 
  71
  Big Name  
  71
  Big Reputation 
  71
  In the Know 
  71
  Tapping the Network 
  71
  Word on the Street 
  71
  Controlling Skill Stunts 
  71
  Power stunt Expert 
  71
  Power stunt Mastery 
  71
  Deceive Stunts 
  71
  Actor 
  71
  Impersonator 
  71
  Master of Disguise 
  72
  Empathy Stunts 
  72
  Counselor 
  72
  Emotional Trigger 
  72
  Empathic Read 
  72
  Lie Detector 
  72
  Fight Stunts 
  72
  Into the Fray 
  72
  Everywhere at Once 
  72
  One-Man Army 
  72
  Investigate Stunts 
  72
  Attention to Detail 
  72
  Eavesdropper 
  72
  Focused Senses 
  72
  Knowledge Stunts 
  73
  Specialist 
  73
  Dizzying Intellect 
  73
  Know It All 
  73
  Mad Scientist 
  73
  Leadership Stunts 
  73
  Center of the Web 
  73
  Lead By Example 
  73
  Organizational Funding 
  73
  Black Book Funding 
  73
  Tactician 
  73
  Master Tactician 
  73
  Notice Stunts 
  74
  Body Language Reader 
  74
  Situational Reflexes 
  74
  Thought Equals Action 
  74
  Physique Stunts 
  74
  Extraordinary Determination 
  74
  Face the Pain  
  75
  Now You’ve Made Me Mad 
  75
  Take the Blow 
  75
  Tough as Nails 
  75
  Provoke Stunts 
  75
  Armor of Fear  
  75
  Doesn’t Shut-Up 
  75
  Know the Mental Tricks 
  75
  Intimidating Presence 
  75
  Brow Beat! 
  75
  Provoke Violence  
  75
  Strange Charm 
  75
  Unapproachable 
  75
  Unnatural Aura 
  75
  Rapport Stunts 
  75
  Best Foot Forward  
  75
  Demagogue  
  76
  Man of Industry 
  76
  Popular 
  76
  Seducer 
  76
  Smooth Over 
  76
  Resources Stunts 
  76
  Grease the Wheels 
  76
  Long Term Investment  
  76
  Money Is No Object  
  76
  Money Talks  
  76
  Savvy Investor 
  76
  Stealth Stunts 
  76
  Face in the Crowd  
  76
  Master of Shadows 
  76
  Move as One 
  77
  Ninja Vanish 
  77
  Slippery Target 
  77
  
  7
  Strike from the Shadows 
  77
  Technology Stunts 
  77
  Master Inventor 
  77
  Power Tech 
  77
  Thief Stunts 
  77
  No Locks are Safe 
  77
  Professional Thief 
  77
  Master Thief 
  77
  Security Expert 
  77
  Treatment Stunts 
  77
  Doctor 
  77
  Field Medic 
  77
  Vehicles Stunts 
  78
  Hard to Shake 
  78
  Pedal to the Metal 
  78
  Weapons Stunts 
  78
  Riposte 
  78
  Turnabout 
  78
  Weapon Blur 
  78
  Will Stunts 
  78
  Indomitable 
  78
  Iron Will 
  78
  Strength From Determination 
  78
  Special Stunts 
  78
  Arsenal 
  78
  Backup Weapon 
  78
  Crimefighting Vehicle 
  79
  Defensive Fighter 
  79
  Defensive Penetration 
  79
  Killing Stroke 
  79
  Personal Headquarters 
  79
  Work Area 
  79
  Aspect Stunts 
  79
  Chapter 9:Powers 
  80
  Understanding Powers 
  80
  Power Levels 
  80
  Skills and Powers 
  80
  Power Rolls and Shifts 
  80
  Special Effects and Limits 
  80
  The Power Set 
  80
  The Power Set Aspect 
  81
  Power Stunts 
  81
  Stacking Damage and Damage Mitigation 
  83
  Physical and Mental Damage 
  84
  Purchasing Powers 
  84
  Powers List 
  84
  Absorption (2,4,6) 
  85
  Adaptation (2) 
  86
  Adoptive Muscle Memory (2) 
  86
  Special Effects 
  86
  Adrenaline Surge (1) 
  86
  Affliction (7) 
  87
  Air Control (2) 
  87
  Animal Control (4) 
  87
  Animal Mimicry (2) 
  88
  Animate (5) 
  88
  Armory Summoning (4) 
  89
  Astral Projection (1) 
  90
  Aura (3) 
  91
  Blast (1-6) 
  91
  Boost (2) 
  92
  Burrowing (2) 
  92
  Chameleon (2) 
  92
  Cold Control (2) 
  93
  Darkness Control (2) 
  93
  Death Speak (1) 
  93
  Deflection (2) 
  94
  Density (2,4,6) 
  94
  Dimensional Pocket (1) 
  94
  Dimensional Travel (1) 
  94
  Drain (2) 
  94
  Dream Control (1) 
  95
  Duplication (5) 
  95
  Earth Control (2) 
  96
  Electrical Control (1) 
  96
  Emotion Control (2) 
  97
  Empower (4) 
  97
  ESP (1) 
  97
  Extra Limbs (2) 
  97
  Extraordinary Intellect (1) 
  98
  Fire Control (2) 
  98
  Flight (1-4) 
  98
  Force Control (3) 
  98
  Forcefield (1-6) 
  99
  Friction Control (2) 
  99
  Gravity Control (2) 
  99
  Growth (2,4,6,8,10,12) 
  100
  Hardiness (1-6) 
  100
  Healing (2) 
  100
  Hyper-Action (1) 
  101
  Hyper-Movement (1) 
  101
  Hyper-Sense (1) 
  101
  Illusion (3) 
  103
  Immoveable (2) 
  103
  Immunity (1,3,5) 
  103
  Intangible (1) 
  104
  Interface (1) 
  104
  Invisibility (2,4,6) 
  104
  Invulnerability (1-6) 
  105
  Leaping (1-4) 
  105
  
  8
  Life Support (1) 
  106
  Light Control (1) 
  106
  Living Séance (2) 
  106
  Luck (2) 
  106
  Magnetic Control (2) 
  107
  Matter Control (3) 
  107
  Melee Attack (1-6) 
  107
  Memory Augmentation (2) 
  108
  Mental Blast (1-6) 
  108
  Mental Invulnerability (1-6) 
  108
  Mind Control (3) 
  108
  Mind Probe (1) 
  109
  Mind Switch (5) 
  109
  Molecular Chameleon (4) 
  109
  Paralyze (3) 
  109
  Plant Control (2) 
  110
  Postcognition (1) 
  110
  Power Mimicry (5) 
  110
  Power Nullify (1,3,5) 
  111
  Single Power Nullification (1) 
  111
  Type Nullification (3) 
  111
  Source Nullification (5) 
  112
  Precognition (1) 
  112
  Psychic Blades (1-6) 
  112
  Psychic Forcefield (1-6) 
  112
  Radiation Control (1) 
  112
  Regeneration (4) 
  113
  Self-Destruct (2,4,6) 
  113
  Sensory Shield (1) 
  113
  Serial Reincarnation (2) 
  113
  Shapeshift (5) 
  114
  Shrinking (2) 
  114
  Sicken (2) 
  114
  Sleep (1) 
  115
  Sorcery (3) 
  115
  Sound Wave Control (1) 
  115
  Spatial Control (1) 
  115
  Spinning (1) 
  115
  Stretching (3) 
  116
  Summon (5) 
  116
  Summon Swarm (4) 
  116
  Super-Speed (1-4) 
  117
  Super-Strength (1-6) 
  117
  Swinging (2) 
  118
  Telekinesis (1) 
  118
  Telepathy (1) 
  118
  Teleportation (1) 
  118
  Time Control (2) 
  119
  Time Travel (1) 
  119
  Two-Dimensional (2) 
  120
  Vampirism (2) 
  120
  Water Control (4) 
  120
  Weather Control (5) 
  120
  Special Effects 
  121
  Advantageous (1) 
  121
  Area Effect (1) 
  121
  Charge Object (1) 
  121
  Concussive (1) 
  121
  Countering/Nullify Resistance (1) 
  121
  Dangerous (2) 
  121
  Deadly (1) 
  121
  Demolishing (1) 
  121
  Durable (1) 
  121
  Encasing (1) 
  121
  Entangling (1) 
  122
  Extended Range (1) 
  122
  Follow-Up (1) 
  122
  Gaseous (1) 
  122
  Ghostly (1) 
  122
  Hard Hitting (1) 
  122
  Homing (2) 
  122
  Impervious (1/2) 
  122
  Indirect (1) 
  122
  Lethal (3) 
  123
  Mega-Attack (1/2) 
  123
  Multi-Targeting (2) 
  123
  Penetrating (2) 
  123
  Persistent (3) 
  123
  Potent (1) 
  124
  Power Stress (1) 
  124
  Reinforced (3) 
  124
  Reroute Power (1) 
  124
  Set-Up (1) 
  124
  Tough (2) 
  124
  Trans-Dimensional (1) 
  124
  Unnoticeable (1) 
  124
  Useable on Others (1) 
  124
  Volley (1) 
  124
  Limits 
  124
  Always On (–1) 
  125
  Cannot Use Power Stunts (–1)  
  125
  Damaging (–1)  
  125
  Distracting (–1)  
  125
  Fatiguing (–1)  
  125
  Grappling Attack (–1) 
  125
  Longer Activation (–1) 
  125
  Reduced Range (–1) 
  125
  Restricted (–1)  
  125
  Sense Reliant (–1) 
  125
  Unstable (–3) 
  125
  
  9
  Building Your Own Powers  
  125
  Determining Effect Costs 
  126
  1-Point Effects 
  126
  2-Point Effect 
  126
  3-Point Effect 
  127
  4-Point & 5-Point Effects 
  127
  Inherent Limitations 
  127
  Determining the Opposition’s Roll to
    Break the Power 
  127
  Write It Up 
  128
  Building Your Own Special Effects 
  129
  Add a New Effect to a Power 
  129
  Increase the Primary Effect in Some Way 
  129
  Create a secondary effect at
    the cost of the primary effect 
  129
  Create a Rules Exception 
  129
  Add a Bonus to an Action
    under Specific Circumstances 
  129
  Triggered Special Effects 
  129
  Limited Use Special Effects 
  130
  Special Effect Families 
  130
  Building Limits 
  130
  Chapter 10: Devices and Gear 
  131
  Gear, Devices, and Stress 
  131
  Gear vs. Devices 
  131
  Everyday Stuff & Armaments:
    The Crunch Option 
  131
  Gear Complication 
  131
  Everyday Items 
  132
  Weapons 
  132
  Common Weapon Special Effects 
  132
  Armor 
  133
  Common Armor Special Effects 
  134
  Vehicles 
  135
  What is a Device? 
  136
  Devices and Character Creation 
  136
  Building A Device During Play 
  136
  Design the Device 
  136
  Jury Rigging 
  137
  Buying a Device During Play 
  138
  Common Device Special Effects 
  139
  Artificial Intelligence 
  139
  Aspect 
  139
  Auto-Pilot 
  139
  Concealable 
  139
  Database 
  139
  Expert Wiring 
  139
  Independent Attack 
  139
  Power Ability 
  139
  Restricted 
  139
  Remote 
  140
  Targeting 
  140
  Unbreakable 
  140
  Device Limits 
  140
  Sample Devices 
  140
  Armor 
  140
  Street Vigilante Body Armor 
  140
  Electrical Armor 
  141
  Fire Generating Armor 
  141
  Robots 
  141
  Family Assistant 
  141
  Cape-Killer Robot 
  141
  Power Duplicating Android 
  141
  Vehicles 
  141
  Vigilante’s Car 
  141
  Disappearing Jet 
  141
  Team Aircraft 
  141
  Weapons 
  142
  Fear Gas 
  142
  Mind Control Ray 
  142
  Ice Gun 
  142
  Arcane Artifacts 
  142
  Sample Artifacts 
  142
  Ring of Eldritch Shielding 
  142
  Orb of All-Seeing 
  142
  Cloak of Demonic Hide 
  142
  Arcane Rituals 
  142
  Sample Rituals 
  143
  Tentacles of the Darkened Mind 
  143
  Breath of the Rotting Lord 
  143
  Servant of the Rending Master 
  143
  Headquarters 
  143
  Headquarters Aspect 
  144
  Headquarters Quality 
  144
  Headquarters Features 
  144
  Special Storage: Story Factor Devices 
  145
  Sample Headquarters 
  145
  Vigilante Base 
  145
  Mystic Brownstone 
  146
  Mansion 
  146
  Orbital Station 
  146
  Trans-Dimensional Ship 
  146
  Object Material Strength 
  146
  Special Considerations 
  146
  The Gear Heavy Street Vigilante 
  147
  Creating the Gear 
  147
  Gear Complications 
  148
  Disarming the Gear 
  148
  Trick Arrows 
  148
  Constructing the Quiver 
  148
  
  10
  Using Device Special Effects 
  149
  Required Complication 
  149
  Disarming the Archer 
  149
  Utility Belt 
  149
  Power-Armor 
  150
  Power-Armor Hardiness 
  150
  Power Armor and Healing Damage 
  151
  Power Armor and Super-Tough Characters 
  151
  Power-Armor Complications 
  151
  Chapter 11:
    Actions And Outcomes 
  152
  It’s Time For Action! 
  152
  Opposition 
  152
  The Four Outcomes 
  153
  Fail 
  153
  Tie 
  153
  Succeed 
  153
  Succeed with Style 
  153
  The Four Actions 
  155
  Overcome 
  155
  Create an Advantage 
  156
  Attack 
  157
  Defend 
  157
  Chapter 12: Comic Book Action 
  159
  Zooming In On The Action 
  159
  Conflicts 
  159
  Setting the Scene 
  159
  Tight Zones  
  162
  Dangerous Zone Aspects 
  162
  Mental or Social Zones 
  162
  Establishing Sides 
  162
  Turn Order 
  162
  The Exchange 
  163
  Full Defense 
  163
  Weapon and Armor Ratings 
  163
  Resolving Attacks 
  163
  Stress 
  164
  Consequences 
  164
  Naming a Consequence 
  165
  What Skill Do I Use For Recovery? 
  165
  Recovering from a Consequence 
  165
  Extreme Consequences 
  166
  Conceding the Conflict 
  166
  Getting Taken Out 
  167
  Character Death 
  167
  Movement 
  167
  Advantages in a Conflict 
  168
  Other Actions in a Conflict 
  168
  Free Actions 
  168
  Ending a Conflict 
  169
  Transitioning to a Contest or Challenge 
  169
  Teamwork 
  169
  Collateral Damage 
  170
  Collateral Consequences 
  170
  Clearing Collateral Consequences 
  171
  Combat Tactics 
  171
  Aiming 
  171
  All-Out 
  172
  Charge 
  172
  Combat Tricks 
  172
  Fast Ball 
  173
  Grapples and Entangles 
  173
  Lifting 
  174
  Knockback and Throwing 
  174
  Scenery as Weapons 
  175
  Special Situations 
  175
  Blind/Deaf 
  175
  Breaking Things 
  176
  Cold and Heat 
  176
  Cover 
  176
  Crushing Damage 
  176
  Darkness 
  176
  Detonating Situation Aspects 
  177
  Disease and Poison 
  177
  Drowning/Suffocation 
  178
  Explosions 
  178
  Falling 
  178
  Fire 
  178
  General Environmental Hazards 
  178
  Gravity 
  178
  Starvation, Thirst, and Lack of Sleep 
  179
  Underwater Movement 
  179
  Challenges 
  179
  Advantages in a Challenge 
  180
  Attacks in a Challenge 
  180
  Contests 
  180
  Creating Advantages in a Contest 
  181
  Attacks in a Contest 
  182
  Chases 
  182
  Speed Rating 
  182
  Standard Chases 
  182
  In-Depth Cases 
  182
  Chapter 13:
    Running Daring Comics 
  184
  What You Do 
  184
  Start and End Scenes 
  184
  Play the World and the NPCs 
  185
  Judge the Use of the Rules 
  185
  
  11
  Create Story Arcs (and Nearly Everything Else) 
  186
  What To Do During Series Creation 
  186
  What To Do During Play 
  186
  The Golden Rule 
  186
  When to Roll Dice 
  187
  Making Failure Awesome 
  187
  Setting Difficulties 
  189
  Justify Your Choices 
  189
  Dealing with Extraordinary Success 
  190
  Dealing with Time 
  190
  Zoom In, Zoom Out 
  192
  Time Increments 
  192
  Judging the Use of Skills and Stunts 
  193
  Aspects and Details: Discovery vs. Creation 
  193
  Dealing with Aspects 
  195
  Invocations 
  195
  Compels 
  195
  Creating The Opposition 
  196
  Take Only What You Need to Survive 
  196
  The NPC Types 
  196
  Nameless NPCs 
  196
  Mobs 
  197
  Hits and Overflow 
  197
  Nameless NPCs as Obstacles 
  198
  NPC First, Name Later 
  198
  Supporting NPCs 
  198
  Main NPCs 
  199
  Playing The Opposition 
  199
  Right-sizing 
  200
  Creating Advantages for NPCs 
  200
  Change Venues of Conflict 
  200
  The Fate Fractal 
  200
  Chapter 14: Telling Stories
    the Comic Book Way  
  202
  Know Your Heroes 
  202
  Defining Story Arcs 
  203
  Problems and Character Aspects 
  204
  Problems and Game Aspects 
  204
  Problems and Aspect Pairs 
  205
  Ask Story Questions 
  205
  Choosing the Opposition 
  206
  We Meet Again 
  206
  New Faces 
  206
  Forces of Nature 
  207
  Good Friends, Better Enemies 
  207
  Organizational Issues 
  208
  Plotting the Course 
  209
  A Sense of Scale 
  210
  Baiting the Hook 
  211
  Location, Location, Location 
  213
  Meanwhile, Back At The… 
  215
  What A Twist! 
  216
  Set Up The First Scene 
  217
  Defining Scenes 
  217
  Starting Scenes 
  217
  Ending Scenes 
  218
  Hit Their Aspects 
  218
  The Story Arc In Play 
  218
  Resolving The Story arc 
  219
  Using the Rogues Gallery
    and Supporting Cast 
  219
  Putting It All Together 
  219
  Chapter 15:
    Advancing the series 
  222
  Defining Volumes 
  222
  Defining Series 
  222
  Building A Volume 
  223
  Building A Series 
  223
  Advancement And Change 
  223
  Defining Milestones 
  223
  Minor Milestones 
  224
  Significant Milestones 
  224
  Major Milestones 
  224
  World Advancement 
  225
  For Minor Milestones 
  226
  For Significant Milestones 
  226
  For Major Milestones 
  226
  Advancing Collateral Damage Consequences 
  226
  Dealing with NPCs 
  226
  Recurring NPCs 
  227
  Appendix: Turning the Dials 
  228
  Chapter 3: Series Creation 
  229
  Different Series Levels 
  229
  Different Experience Levels 
  229
  Chapter 4: Character Creation 
  230
  Origin Story 
  230
  The Pick-Up Game 
  231
  Step Three: Supporting Cast
    and Rogues Gallery 
  232
  Chapter 6: Super-Teams 
  232
  The Expanded Super Team 
  232
  Required Stunt 
  233
  Stress and Consequences 
  233
  Expanded Team Aspects 
  233
  The Skills 
  233
  Skill Points and Hero Points 
  233
  Refresh 
  233
  Advancing the Expanded Team 
  233
  
  12
  Super Team Adventures 
  234
  Defining the Adventure 
  234
  Beginning the Adventure 
  234
  The Adventure: An Important Point 
  234
  Running the Adventure 
  234
  The Conflict Adventure 
  234
  The Contest Adventure 
  234
  Chapter 7: Skills 
  235
  Chapter 9: Powers 
  235
  Adoptive Muscle Memory (4) 
  235
  Animal Mimicry (3) 
  236
  Blast (1-6), Variant #1 
  236
  Blast (2), Variant #2 
  236
  Duplication (3) 
  237
  Invulnerability (1-6), Variant #1 
  238
  Invulnerability (2), Variant #2 
  238
  Melee Attack (1-6), Variant #1 
  238
  Melee Attack (2), Variant #2 
  239
  Shapeshift (2) 
  239
  Super-Strength (1-6), Variant #1 
  239
  Super-Strength (2, 3, 4), Variant #2 
  240
  Special Effect Variants 
  241
  Concussive (1) 
  241
  Extended Range (1) 
  241
  Impervious (1/2) 
  241
  Mega-Attack (1/2) 
  241
  Penetrating (2) 
  242
  Limits Variants  
  242
  Damaging (–1)  
  242
  Chapter 10: Devices and Gear 
  242
  No Crunch Gear Method 
  242
  Adjusted Stunts 
  243
  Chapter 12: Comic Book Action 
  243
  Check Two Stress 
  243
  Chapter 13: Running Daring Comics 
  244
  Sidekicks  
  244
  OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a 
  245
  Worksheets 
  247
  Character Sheet 
  247
  Series Worksheet 
  249
  Super Team Sheet 
  250
  Supporting Cast & Rogues Sheet 
  251
  
  13
  Chapter 1: The Basics 
  What You Need to Play
  Getting into a game of Daring Comics is very simple. 
  You need:
  •  A character sheet, one per player, and 
  some extra paper for note-taking. We’ll 
  talk about what’s on the character sheet 
  below. (GMs, any important characters you 
  play might have a character sheet also.)
  •  Fate dice, at least four, preferably four per 
  person. Fate dice are a special kind of six-
  sided dice that are marked on two sides 
  with a plus symbol (+), two with a minus 
  symbol (-), and two sides are blank (0). 
  •  Fate dice, at least four, preferably four per 
  person. Fate dice are a special kind of six-
  sided dice that are marked on two sides 
  with a plus symbol (+), two with a minus 
  symbol (-), and two sides are blank (0). 
  • If you don’t want to use fate dice, you don’t 
  have to—any set of regular six-sided dice will 
  work. If you’re using regular dice, you read 5 
  or 6 as +, 1 or 2 as -, and 3 or 4 as 0.
  • Tokens to represent fate points. Poker chips, 
  glass beads, or anything similar will work. You’ll 
  want to have at least thirty or more of these 
  on hand, just to make sure you have enough 
  for any given game. You can use pencil marks 
  on your character sheet in lieu of tokens, 
  but physical tokens add a little more fun.
  • Index cards. These are optional, 
  but we find they’re very handy for 
  recording aspects during play.
  Players and Gamemaster
  In any game of Daring Comics, you’re either a player 
  or a gamemaster.
  If you’re a player, your primary job is to take 
  responsibility for portraying one of the protagonists 
  of the game, which we call a playe r-character 
  (and sometimes a character, hero, or PC). You 
  Welcome to Daring Comics!
  Heroes battle villains through the streets and skies. 
  Debris from stray energy beams and super-tough 
  bodies covers city blocks. From megalomaniacs who 
  dream of ruling the world, to dictators who wish to 
  shape the future course of humanity, only the heroes 
  stand in their way.
  With the Daring Comics Role-Playing Game, you 
  bring your own comic book stories to life. Inside these 
  pages, you’ll find complete rules for constructing 
  your own, ongoing comic book series, creating your 
  heroes, and how to resolve all types of actions.
  Daring Comics also gives you the rules for creating 
  your own stunts and powers. To help you get 
  started easily, however, we’ve also provided dozens 
  of example stunts, and over 100 powers, special 
  effects, and limits.
  A Roleplaying Game
  If you’ve never played a roleplaying game before, 
  here’s the basic idea for Daring Comics: you and a 
  bunch of friends get together to tell an interactive 
  story about a group of super-heroes you make up. 
  You get to say what challenges and obstacles those 
  heroes face, how they respond, what they say and 
  do, and what happens to them.
  It’s not all just conversation, though— sometimes you’ll 
  use dice and the rules in this book to bring uncertainty 
  into the story and make things more exciting.
  Daring Comics doesn’t come with a default setting, 
  it’s meant to take place in a setting that your group 
  creates. As a matter of fact, in the Series Creation 
  chapter, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step 
  process of how your entire group will cooperate to 
  not only create parts of the setting, but how to make 
  specific choices that will determine your series scope, 
  power level, and even tone.
  
  14
  make decisions for your character and describe to 
  everyone else what your character says and does. 
  You’ll also take care of the mechanical side of 
  your character— rolling dice when it’s appropriate, 
  choosing what abilities to use in a certain situation, 
  and keeping track of fate points.
  If you’re a gamemaster, your primary job is to take 
  responsibility for the world the PCs inhabit. You make 
  decisions and roll dice for every character in the game 
  world who isn’t portrayed by a player— we call those 
  non-player-characters (or “NPCs”). You describe the 
  environments and places the PCs go to during the 
  game, and you create the scenarios and situations 
  they interact with. You also act as a final arbiter of the 
  rules, determining the outcome of the PCs’ decisions 
  and how that impacts the unfolding story.
  Daring Comics RPG is a collaborative endeavor, with 
  everyone sharing ideas and looking for opportunities 
  to make the events as entertaining as possible.
  The Character Sheet
  Players, your character sheet contains everything you 
  need to know about your PC: aspects, skills, stunts, 
  powers, and any other resources that character has 
  to use in the game. Grab a blank character sheet, and 
  we’ll go over all the components.
  Aspects
  Aspects are phrases that describe some significant 
  detail about a character. They are the reasons why 
  your character matters, why we’re interested in seeing 
  your character in the game. Aspects can cover a wide 
  range of elements, such as personality or descriptive 
  traits, beliefs, relationships, issues and problems, or 
  anything else that helps us invest in the character as 
  a person, rather than just a collection of stats.
  Aspects come into play in conjunction with fate points. 
  When an aspect benefits you, you can spend fate 
  points to invoke that aspect for a bonus. When your 
  aspects complicate your character’s life, you gain 
  fate points back, this is called accepting a compel.
  Wraith has Once a criminal, Now a Hero on 
  his character sheet, which likely  gives him 
  some knowledge into the criminal underworld. 
  It can also bring in some complications to a 
  scene when someone recognizes him from his 
  time in the underworld. 
  Aspects can describe things that are beneficial or 
  detrimental. In fact, the best aspects are both.
  And aspects don’t just belong to characters; the 
  environment your characters are in can have aspects 
  attached to it as well.
  Barrage and Midnight Avenger have tracked 
  a known arms dealer to a warehouse in the 
  Beauman Straights district. As they enter the 
  warehouse, the GM lets them know that the 
  interior has Deep, Dark Shadows and Lots 
  of Abandoned Machinery as aspects on the 
  environment.
  Skills
  Skills are what you use during the game to do 
  complicated or interesting actions with the dice. 
  Each character has a number of skills that represent 
  his or her basic capabilities, including things like 
  perceptiveness, 
  physical 
  prowess, 
  professional 
  training, education, and other measures of ability.
  At the beginning of the game, the player-characters 
  have skills rated in steps from Average (+1) to 
  Fantastic (+6). Higher is better, meaning that the 
  character is more capable or succeeds more often 
  when using that skill.
  
  15
  If for some reason you need to make a roll using a skill 
  your character doesn’t have, you roll it at Mediocre 
  (+0). 
  Midnight Avenger has the Stealth skill at Great 
  (+4), which makes him suited to sneaking up 
  on an opponent, or past a guard. He does not 
  have the Vehicles skill, however, so when the 
  game calls upon him to drive a car or pilot an 
  aircraft, he’ll have to roll that at Mediocre (+0). 
  Stunts
  Stunts are special tricks that your character knows 
  that allow you to get an extra benefit out of a skill 
  or alter some other game rule to work in your favor. 
  Stunts are like special moves in a video game, letting 
  you do something unique or distinctive compared to 
  other characters. Two characters can have the same 
  rating in a skill, but their stunts might give them vastly 
  different benefits.
  Wraith has a stunt called Into the Fray. The 
  character is at his best when facing a group 
  of opponents, and whenever his opponents 
  have a bonus for teamwork against him in a 
  conflict, he does an extra Shift of damage 
  when attacking them.
  Stress
  Stress is one of the two options you have to avoid 
  losing a conflict, it represents temporary fatigue, getting 
  winded, superficial injuries, and so on. You have a 
  number of stress levels you can burn off to help keep 
  you in a fight. They reset at the end of a conflict, once 
  you’ve had a moment to rest and catch your breath.
  Consequences
  Consequences are the other option you have to 
  stay in a conflict, but they have a more lasting 
  impact. Every time you take a consequence, it puts 
  a new aspect on your sheet describing your injuries. 
  Unlike stress, you have to take time to recover from 
  a consequence, and it’s stuck on your character 
  sheet in the meantime, which leaves your character 
  vulnerable to complications or others wishing to take 
  advantage of your new weakness.
  Refresh
  Refresh is the number of fate points you get at the start 
  of every game session to spend for your character. 
  Your total resets to this number unless you had more 
  fate points at the end of the last session.
  Taking Action
  Players, some of the things you’ll do in a Daring 
  Comics game require you to roll dice to see if your 
  character succeeds or not. You will always roll the 
  dice when you’re opposing another character with 
  your efforts, or when there’s a significant obstacle in 
  the way of your effort. Otherwise, just say what your 
  character does and assume it happens.
  Common Action Types
  Below are the most common reasons why 
  you’ll roll the dice in the Daring Comics RPG.
  Overcome to overcome an obstacle
  Create an Advantage to create or unlock an 
  advantage for your character, in the form of 
  an aspect you can use
  Attack to attack someone in a conflict
  Defend to defend yourself in a conflict
  Rolling the Dice
  When you need to roll dice in Daring Comics RPG, 
  pick up four fate dice and roll them. When you read 
  the dice, read every + as +1, every 0 as 0, and 
  every - as –1. Add them all together. You’ll get a 
  result from –4 to +4, most often between –2 and +2.
  Result
  % Chance
  +4
  1.23
  +3
  4.94
  +2
  12.35
  +1
  19.75
  +0
  23.46
  -1
  19.75
  -2
  12.35
  -3
  4.94
  -4 
  1.23
  
  16
  Here are some sample dice totals:
  -+0+ = +1
  +-00 = +0
  +++- = +2
  -000 = −1
  The result on the dice isn’t your final total, however. 
  If your character has a skill that’s appropriate to the 
  action, you get to add your character’s rating in that 
  skill to whatever you rolled.
  The Ladder
  Daring Comics uses a ladder of adjectives and 
  numbers to rate the dice results, a character’s skills, 
  and opposition to an action.
  Terrible  
   
  (-2)
  Poor   
   
  (-1)
  Mediocre   
  (+0)
  Average   
  (+1)
  Fair  
   
  (+2)
  Good  
   
  (+3)
  Great  
   
  (+4)
  Superb  
   
  (+5)
  Fantastic   
  (+6)
  Epic  
   
  (+7)
  Legendary  
  (+8)
  Monstrous   
  (+9)
  Colossal   
  (+10)
  Unearthly   
  (+11)
  Inconceivable 
  (+12)
  It doesn’t really matter which side of the ladder you 
  use. Some people remember the words better, some 
  people remember the numbers better, and some 
  people like using both. So you could say, “I got a 
  Great,” or “I got a +4,” and it means the same thing. 
  Interpreting Results
  When you roll the dice, you’re trying to get a high 
  enough roll to match or beat your opposition. That 
  opposition is going to come in one of two forms: active 
  opposition, from someone rolling dice against you, 
  or passive opposition, from an obstacle that just has 
  a set rating on the ladder for you to overcome. (GMs, 
  you can also just decide your NPCs give passive 
  opposition when you don’t want to roll dice for them.)
  Generally speaking, if you beat your opposition on 
  the ladder, you succeed at your action. A tie creates 
  some effect, but not to the extent your character 
  was intending. If you win by a lot, something extra 
  happens (like doing more harm to your opponent in 
  a fight).
  If you don’t beat the opposition, either you don’t 
  succeed at your action, you succeed at a cost, or 
  something else happens to complicate the outcome. 
  Some game actions have special results when you 
  fail at the roll.
  When you beat a roll or a set obstacle, the difference 
  between your opposition and your result is what we 
  call Shifts. When you roll equal to the opposition, you 
  have zero shifts. Roll one over your opposition, and 
  you have one shift. Two over means two shifts, and 
  so on. Later on, we’ll talk about different instances 
  where getting shifts on a roll benefits you.
  Wraith is interrogating a captured underworld 
  thug, and wants to know not only when a 
  certain arms shipment is coming it, but on 
  which dock.
  Mike decides this will be an active opposition 
  Overcome action between the thug’s Mediocre 
  (+0) Will, and Wraith’s Fair (+2) Provoke.
  Both Mike and Xander pick up the dice and 
  roll. Mike rolls +--+ for a Mediocre (+0) 
  result, since he had no skill bonus to add to 
  the dice.
  Xander rolls ++-0 and adds the +1 result 
  from the dice to his Fair (+2) Provoke skill, for 
  a grand total of a Good (+3) result.
  Xander gets 3-Shifts over Mike, granting him 
  a success with style (which we’ll discuss in 
  Chapter 11: Actions and Outcomes). 
  Fate Points
  You use tokens to represent how many fate points 
  you have at any given time during play. Fate 
  points are one of your most important resources in 
  Daring Comics— they’re a measure of how much 
  influence you have to make the story go in your 
  character’s favor.
  
  17
  You can spend fate points to invoke an aspect, to declare 
  a story detail, or to activate certain powerful stunts.
  You earn fate points by accepting a compel on one 
  of your aspects.
  Invoking an Aspect
  Whenever you’re making a skill roll, and you’re in a 
  situation where an aspect might be able to help you, 
  you can spend a fate point to invoke it in order to 
  change the dice result. This allows you to either reroll 
  the dice or add +2 to your roll, whichever is more 
  helpful. (Typically, +2 is a good choice if you rolled –2 
  or higher, but sometimes you want to risk a reroll to 
  get that +4.) You do this after you’ve rolled the dice, if 
  you aren’t happy with your total.
  You also have to explain or justify how the aspect 
  is helpful in order to get the bonus—sometimes 
  it’ll be self-evident, and sometimes it might require 
  some creative narrating.
  You can spend more than one fate point on a single 
  roll, gaining another reroll or an additional +2, as long 
  as each point you spend invokes a different aspect.
  It’s nighttime, and Midnight Avenger is trying 
  to sneak past a couple of guards blocking his 
  way from getting into a high security facility, 
  where he needs to get evidence from a 
  corporate mainframe. The guards are giving 
  him passive opposition of Good (+3) and his 
  Stealth skill is also Great (+4).
  Dylan rolls and gets a +---, which gives 
  him a Fair (+2) result, which means he’s going 
  to be discovered— not a good thing.
  Dylan invokes his The Shadows are My 
  Domain aspect for an additional +2. He 
  explains that since he is basically a breed of 
  vampire and is used to hunting at night, he’s 
  adept at using the shadows to his advantage,. 
  Mike agrees, so Dylan hands over a fate point. 
  He decides to add a +2 to his roll, raising it to 
  Great (+4). That gives him a 1-Shift success to 
  remain undetected by the guards as he makes 
  his way across the corporate grounds.
  Declaring a Story Detail
  Sometimes, you want to add a detail that works 
  to your character’s advantage in a scene. For 
  example, you might use this to narrate a convenient 
  coincidence, like retroactively having the right 
  supplies for a certain job (“Of course I brought that 
  along!”), showing up at a dramatically appropriate 
  moment, or suggesting that you and the NPC you 
  just met have mutual clients in common.
  To do this, you’ll spend a fate point. You should 
  try to justify your story details by relating them to 
  your aspects. GMs, you have the right to veto any 
  suggestions that seem out of scope or ask the player 
  to revise them, especially if the rest of the group isn’t 
  buying into it.
  Barrage and Trinity have made it into the 
  corporation’s 
  main 
  server 
  room, 
  where 
  they hope to find the evidence they need 
  on the company’s involvement in the illegal 
  manufacturing and selling of weapons based 
  on extraterrestrial technology that is supposed 
  to be banned by the government.
  They get into the room and Mike informs 
  them that the servers are several generations 
  more advanced than anything they’ve ever 
  seen before, and the interface looks to be 
  something beyond normal Earth designs.
  Keirdwyn looks at her sheet for Barrage, 
  and reminds the group that she has Hi-Tech 
  Billionaire Hero. She wants to know if Barrage 
  can take a few minutes to study the interface 
  and intuitively know how it operates. 
  Mike thinks about it for a few seconds, and 
  agrees. 
  Compels
  Sometimes (in fact, probably often), you’ll find 
  yourself in a situation where an aspect complicates 
  your character’s life and creates unexpected drama. 
  When that happens, the GM will suggest a potential 
  complication that might arise. This is called a compel.
  Sometimes, a compel means your character 
  automatically fails at some goal, or your character’s 
  choices are restricted, or simply that unintended 
  consequences cloud whatever your character does. 
  You might negotiate back and forth on the details a 
  little, to arrive at what would be most appropriate and 
  dramatic in the moment.
  Once you’ve agreed to accept the complication, you 
  get a fate point for your troubles. If you want, you 
  can pay a fate point to prevent the complication from 
  happening, but we don’t recommend you do that very 
  often. You’ll probably need that fate point later, and 
  getting compelled brings drama (and hence, fun) into 
  your game’s story.
  
  18
  Players, you’re going to call for a compel when you 
  want there to be a complication in a decision you’ve 
  just made, if it’s related to one of your aspects. 
  GMs, you’re going to call for a compel when you 
  make the world respond to the characters in a 
  complicated or dramatic way.
  Anyone at the table is free to suggest when a compel 
  might be appropriate for any character (including 
  their own). GMs, you have the final word on whether 
  or not a compel is valid. And speak up if you see that 
  a compel happened naturally as a result of play, but 
  no fate points were awarded.
  Dylan has Avenging Vampiric Detective on 
  his sheet as the hero group is trying to get 
  the cooperation of Detective Paul Blake. They 
  need information on certain gang activities 
  near the docks that his Special Crimes Unit 
  possesses, but the detective isn’t too keen on 
  a bunch of costumes trying to do get in the 
  way of real police doing their jobs.
  During the scene, Mike looks at the player’s 
  aspects and notices the one for Midnight 
  Avenger. He suggests that the detective isn’t 
  as forthcoming as the group had hoped. Since 
  Midnight Avenger hasn’t been able to feed on 
  blood lately, the detective’s reluctance makes 
  him pretty angry. He’s had a rage slowly 
  boiling inside of him from the hunger. Midnight 
  Avenger is going to bare his fangs and assume 
  his full vampiric visage as he attempts to 
  attack the detective for needlessly holding out 
  on them. Although the group will hold the hero 
  back, the detective is now, more than ever, not 
  about to help the team.
  Dylan accepts the new story twist, and Mike 
  hands him a fate point. The group will have 
  to probably find another way to get the 
  information they need.
  Start Playing!
  These are the basic things you need to know to play 
  Daring Comics RPG. The following chapters go into 
  greater detail on everything we’ve covered above, and 
  will show you how to get your game off the ground.
  
  19
  Chapter 2: Aspects And Fate Points
  series aspects during series creation. They describe 
  beginning problems or threats that exist in the world, 
  and are going to be the basis for at least your first 
  story arc.
  Everyone can invoke, compel, or create an advantage 
  on a series aspect at any time; they’re always there 
  and available for anyone’s use.
  Character Aspects
  Character aspects are attached to an individual 
  character. They describe a near-infinite number of 
  things that set each of them apart, such as:
  • A concept phrase that tells what your character 
  is all about, such as: Patriotic Super-Soldier, 
  Billionaire Playboy Inventor, or Uncanny Crime-
  fighting Archer.
  • The character’s motivation for what he does, 
  such as: With Great Power Comes Great 
  Responsibility, If Good Does Not Act, Evil Wins, 
  or There is No Justice, Only Punishment
  • Something from the past, such as a life-changing 
  event: Inaction Harms Others, or Living With the 
  Ghosts of my Parents.
  • A core value, such as: The law is Immutable, 
  Killing is Never an Option, or The Legal System 
  is a Revolving Door.
  You can invoke or call for a compel on any of your 
  character aspects whenever they’re relevant. GMs, 
  you can always propose compels to any character 
  aspect. Players, you can suggest compels for other 
  characters, but the GM is always going to get the final 
  say on whether or not it’s a valid suggestion.
  Power Set Aspect
  Each of your powers are arranged under a thematic 
  power set. Your character might have one power set, 
  two power sets, or in some cases even three or more 
  power sets. However many power sets you have, 
  each one has its own aspect that can be invoked and 
  compelled as normal. Power sets also have another 
  function, but we’ll cover that in the Powers chapter.
  The power set aspect should say something about 
  the origins or theme of the powers contained within 
  Aspects and fate points are the main driving force 
  behind any game using the fate system, and they’re 
  vitally important to your super-heroes. Through 
  aspects and fate points, your heroes will pull off more 
  daring action and wield more narrative power than 
  simply rolling a few dice.
  Before we go any further, let’s take a detailed look at 
  aspects, fate points, and how they work together.
  Defining Aspects
  Aspects are phrases that describes something unique 
  or noteworthy about whatever they’re attached to. 
  They’re the primary way you spend and gain fate 
  points, and they influence the story by providing 
  an opportunity for a character to get a bonus, 
  complicating a character’s life, or adding to another 
  character’s roll or passive opposition.
  Defining Fate Points
  GMs and players, you both have a pool of points 
  called fate points that you can use to influence the 
  game. You represent these with tokens, as already 
  mentioned in Chapter 1: The Basics. Players, you 
  start with a number of fate points equal to your 
  character’s refresh every story arc. You’ll also reset to 
  your refresh rate if you ended an issue with fewer fate 
  points than your rate. GMs, you get a budget of fate 
  points to spend in every scene.
  When your aspects come into play, you will usually 
  spend or gain a fate point.
  Types Of Aspects
  Daring Comics has a few different kinds of aspects: 
  series aspects, character aspects, power set aspects, 
  situation aspects, consequences, and boosts. They 
  primarily differ from one another in terms of what 
  they’re attached to and how long they last.
  Series Aspects
  Series aspects are permanent fixtures of the series, 
  hence the name. While they might change over time, 
  they’re never going to go away. You’ll define the initial 
  
  20
  it, such as: Master of Fire Control, Arcane Spells 
  and Mastery, Intensive Training and Study, Alien 
  Physiology.
  Situation Aspects
  A situation aspect is temporary, intended to last only 
  for a single scene or until it no longer makes sense (but 
  no longer than an Issue, at most). Situation aspects 
  can be attached to the environment the scene takes 
  place in, which affects everybody in the scene; but 
  you can also attach them to specific characters by 
  targeting them when you create an advantage.
  Situation aspects describe significant features of the 
  circumstances the characters are dealing with in a 
  scene. Some example are:
  • Physical features of the environment: Dense 
  Underbrush, Obscuring Snowdrifts, Low Gravity 
  Planet.
  • Positioning or placement: Sniper’s Perch, In the 
  Trees, Backyard.
  • Immediate obstacles: Burning Building, Hi-Tech 
  Lock, Yawning Chasm.
  • Contextual details that are likely to come 
  into play: Disgruntled Police Officer, Security 
  Cameras, Loud Machinery.
  • Sudden changes in a character’s status: 
  Disarmed, Dazed, Cornered.
  Who can use a situation aspect depends a lot on 
  narrative context. Sometimes it’ll be very clear, 
  and sometimes you’ll need to justify how using the 
  aspect makes sense based on what’s happening in 
  the scene. The GM is the final arbiter on what aspect 
  uses are valid.
  Sometimes situation aspects become obstacles 
  that characters need to overcome. Other times they 
  give you justification to provide active opposition 
  against someone.
  Consequences
  A consequence is more permanent than a situation 
  aspect, but not quite as permanent as a character 
  aspect. They’re a special kind of aspect you take in 
  
  21
  order to avoid getting taken out in a conflict. They 
  describe lasting injuries or problems that you take 
  away from a conflict: Dislocated Shoulder, Bloody 
  Nose, and so forth.
  Consequences stick around for a variable length 
  of time, from a few scenes to an entire story arc, 
  depending on how severe they are and what series 
  tone you chose. Because of their negative phrasing, 
  you’re likely to get compelled a lot when you have 
  them, and anyone who can justifiably benefit 
  from the consequence can invoke it or create an 
  advantage on it.
  Boosts
  Boosts are a super-transient kind of aspect. You get a 
  boost when you’re trying to create an advantage but 
  don’t succeed well enough, or as an added benefit 
  to succeeding especially well at an action. You get 
  to invoke them for free, but as soon as you do, the 
  aspect goes away.
  If you want, you can also allow another character to 
  invoke your boost, if it’s relevant and could help them out.
  What Aspects Do
  In Daring Comics, aspects do two major things: they 
  tell you what’s important about the game, and they 
  help you decide when to use the mechanics.
  Importance
  Each collection of aspects indicates what you need to 
  focus on during the game. Think of them as guiding 
  you toward a dramatic narrative impact.
  GMs, when you create stories in Daring Comics, you’re 
  going to use those aspects, and the connections 
  between aspects, to generate the problems your 
  heroes are going to solve. Players, your aspects are 
  the reason why your heroes stand out from every 
  other character who might have similar skills. 
  The series aspects do something similar, but on 
  a larger scale. They help show why the heroes are 
  involved in the larger story, what threatens the lives 
  of innocents or is prepared to endanger an entire 
  galactic sector.
  Situation aspects make the moment-to-moment 
  interactions of play interesting by adding color and 
  depth to what might otherwise be a boring scene. A 
  fight in a city street is generic by nature. It could be any 
  city street, anywhere. But when you add the aspect 
  Gathering Crowd of Spectators to the scene, and 
  it’s brought into play, it becomes a different ballgame 
  entirely as now the heroes have to worry about the 
  innocent people too stupid to flee a super-brawl.
  Deciding When to 
  Use Mechanics
  Because aspects tell us what’s important, they also tell 
  us when it’s most appropriate to use the mechanics 
  to deal with a situation, rather than just letting the 
  group decide what happens by  only describing what 
  the characters do.
  GMs, this comes up for you most often when you’re 
  trying to figure out whether to require a player to roll 
  dice. If a player says is simply flying over an island, then 
  there’s no real reason to require an overcome action 
  to grab it. But if the situation aspects tell you that the 
  island is Protected by Defensive Batteries and the 
  villain has a Massive Weather Dominator Device, 
  then you suddenly have an element of pressure and 
  risk that makes it worth going to the dice.
  Players, this comes up for you most often when 
  invoking your aspects and considering compels. 
  Your aspects highlight what makes your character an 
  individual, and you want to play that up. So when the 
  opportunity comes up to make your character more 
  awesome by invoking, or when you see an opportunity 
  to influence the story by suggesting a compel for your 
  character, do it! The game will be much richer for it.
  Making A Good Aspect
  Since aspects are so important to the game, it’s 
  important to make the best possible aspects. 
  How do you know what is a good aspect? Simple: the 
  best aspects are double-edged. They say more than 
  one thing. They also keep the phrasing simple.
  Double-Edged
  Good aspects offer a clear benefit to a character while 
  also providing opportunities to complicate their lives.
  An aspect with a double-edge is going to come up 
  in play more often than a mostly positive or negative 
  one. You can use them more frequently, and you’ll 
  be able to accept more compels and gain more fate 
  points.
  Try this as a litmus test: list two ways you might invoke 
  the aspect, and two ways someone else could invoke 
  it or you could get a compel from it. If the examples 
  
  22
  come easily to mind, great! If not, add more context 
  to make that aspect work or put that idea to the side 
  and come up with a new aspect.
  Let’s look at an aspect like Covert Expert. 
  The benefits of having this aspect are 
  pretty obvious: any time you’re breaking 
  into someplace, using deceit and lies to get 
  information, or maybe wearing a disguise, you 
  could justify invoking it. But it doesn’t seem 
  like there’s a lot of room for that aspect to 
  work against you. So, let’s think of a way we 
  can spice that up a bit.
  What if we change that aspect to Lone 
  Wolf Black Operative? That still carries the 
  connotations that would allow you to take 
  advantage of it while working undercover and 
  on covert operations, but it adds a downside, 
  you’re likely used to working on your own and 
  untrusting of people. This might mean that 
  you could accept compels to trip-up potential 
  allies, or someone might invoke your aspect 
  when you’re required to work with other 
  people in certain situations.
  GMs, this is just as true of your game and situation 
  aspects. Any feature of a scene you call out should be 
  something that either the PCs or their foes could use 
  in a dramatic fashion. Your game aspects do present 
  problems, but they also should present ways for the 
  PCs to take advantage of the status quo.
  Say More Than One Thing
  Earlier, we noted several things that a character aspect 
  might describe: personality traits, backgrounds, 
  relationships, problems, possessions, and so forth. 
  The best aspects overlap across a few of those 
  categories, because that means you have more ways 
  to bring them into play.
  Let’s look at a simple aspect that a new 
  hero might have: I Must Prove Myself. You 
  can invoke this whenever you’re trying to do 
  something to gain the approval of others or 
  demonstrate your competence. Someone 
  might compel it to bait you into getting into a 
  fight you want to avoid, or to accept a hardship 
  for the sake of approval. So we know it has a 
  double edge, so far so good.
  That’ll work for a bit, but eventually this aspect 
  will run out of steam. It says just one thing about 
  the character. Either you’re trying to prove 
  yourself, or this aspect isn’t going to come up.
  Now tie that aspect in with a relationship to 
  an organization: I Must Prove Myself to the 
  Sentinels of Society. Your options open up a 
  great deal. Not only do you get all the content 
  from before, but you’ve introduced a super-
  hero team that can govern your actions as a 
  new hero, give you assignments or threaten 
  to take you out of the field, and demand that 
  you abide by a certain moral code (such as no 
  killing). You can also invoke the aspect when 
  dealing with the super-team or with anyone 
  else who might be affected by the team’s 
  reputation. Suddenly, that aspect has a lot 
  more going on around it.
  GMs, for your situation aspects, you don’t have 
  to worry about this as much, because they’re only 
  intended to stick around for a scene. It’s much more 
  important for game and character aspects to suggest 
  multiple contexts for use.
  Clear Phrasing
  Because aspects are phrases, they come with all the 
  ambiguities of language. If no one knows what your 
  aspect means, it won’t get used enough. Just a 
  Simple Detective isn’t quite as inspiring as Avenging 
  Vampiric Detective. However, don’t do this at the 
  expense of clarity. Avoid metaphors and implications, 
  when you can get away with just saying what you 
  mean. That way, other people don’t have to stop and 
  ask you during play if a certain aspect would apply, or 
  get bogged down in discussions about what it means.
  Let’s look at Memories and Nightmares. 
  There’s something evocative about the 
  phrase, but as an aspect, I don’t really know 
  what it’s supposed to do. How does it help 
  you? What are the memories of? What are the 
  nightmares about? Without some concrete 
  idea of what the aspect’s referring to, invoking 
  and compelling it is pretty much impossible.
  Suppose we talk about this some, and you 
  specify that you were going for this idea that 
  your character was scarred from years spent 
  in the setting’s recent war against an evil alien 
  race (the Necroleans) hell-bent on destroying 
  all life in the universe. You watched entire 
  planets fall, saw twisted lifeforms you never 
  imagined possible, and pretty much had all 
  your normal view of the world (even accounting 
  for super-powers) turned inside-out.
  A possibly better aspect for all that might 
  be Scars from the Necrolean War. Less 
  
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  ambiguous, and it directly references all the 
  stuff you’re talking about, and gives me ideas 
  about people from your past I may be able to 
  bring back into your life.
  If you’re wondering if your aspect is unclear, ask the 
  people at the table what they think it means.
  If You Get Stuck
  Now you know what makes for a good aspect, but 
  that doesn’t narrow down your potential choices 
  any—you still have a nearly infinite set of topics and 
  ideas to choose from.
  If you’re still stuck about what to choose, here are 
  some tips to make things a little easier on you.
  Sometimes, It’s Better 
  Not to Choose
  If you can’t think of an aspect that really grabs you, 
  then you’re better off leaving that space blank or just 
  keeping whatever ideas you had scribbled in the 
  margins. Sometimes it’s much easier to wait for your 
  character to get into play before you figure out how 
  you want to word a particular aspect.
  So when in doubt, leave it blank. Maybe you have 
  a general idea of the aspect but don’t know how 
  to phrase it, or maybe you just have no idea. Don’t 
  worry about it. There’s always room during the game 
  to figure it out as you go.
  The same thing is true if you have more than one idea 
  that seems interesting, but they don’t work together 
  and you don’t know xwhich one to pick. Write them 
  all down in the margins and see which one seems to 
  really sing in play. Then fill the space with the one that 
  gets the most mileage.
  Vary It Up
  You don’t want all your aspects to describe the 
  same kind of thing. Five relationships means that 
  you can’t use your aspects unless one of them is 
  in play, but five personality traits means that you 
  have no connection to the game world. If you’re 
  stuck on what to pick for an aspect, looking at 
  what kinds of things your other aspects describe 
  may help you figure out which way to go for the 
  current phase.
  Let Your Friends Decide
  We’ve talked before about the fact that the game 
  works best if everyone is invested in what everyone 
  else is doing— collaboration is at the heart of the 
  game, and we’ll probably say it a lot more times 
  before the end of this book.
  You always have the option, especially with aspects, 
  of simply asking the GM and other players to come up 
  with something on your behalf. Pitch them the events 
  of the phase, and ask them the same questions 
  they’re going to be asking of you. What matters to 
  them? What are they excited about? Do they have 
  suggestions about how to make the events of the 
  phase more dramatic or intense? What aspect do 
  they think would be most interesting or appropriate?
  You have the final decision as to what your character’s 
  aspects are, so don’t look at it as giving up control. 
  Look at it as asking your ever-important fan club 
  and audience what they want to see, and using their 
  suggestions to jumpstart your own train of thought. 
  If everyone has a bit of input on everyone else’s 
  characters, the game will benefit from that sense of 
  mutual investment.
  Invoking Aspects
  The primary way you’re going to use aspects is to 
  invoke them. If you’re in a situation where an aspect is 
  beneficial to your character somehow, you can invoke 
  it.
  In order to invoke an aspect, explain why the aspect 
  is relevant, spend a fate point, and you can choose 
  one of these benefits:
  • Take a +2 on your current skill roll after you’ve 
  rolled the dice.
  • Reroll all your dice.
  • Pass a +2 benefit to another character’s roll, if 
  it’s reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking 
  would be able to help.
  • Add +2 to any source of passive opposition, if it’s 
  reasonable that the aspect you’re invoking could 
  contribute to making things more difficult. You 
  can also use this to create passive opposition at 
  Fair (+2) if there wasn’t going to be any.
  
  24
  The Reroll Vs. The +2
  Rerolling the dice is a little riskier than just 
  getting the +2 bonus, but has the potential for 
  greater benefit. We recommend you reserve this 
  option for when you’ve rolled a –3 or a –4 on 
  the dice, to maximize the chance that you’ll get 
  a beneficial result from rerolling. The odds are 
  better that way.
  It doesn’t matter when you invoke the aspect, but 
  usually it’s best to wait until after you’ve rolled the 
  dice to see if you’re going to need the benefit. You 
  can invoke multiple aspects on a single roll, but you 
  cannot invoke the same aspect multiple times on a 
  single roll. So if your reroll doesn’t help you enough, 
  you’ll have to pick another aspect (and spend another 
  fate point) for a second reroll or that +2.
  The group has to buy into the relevance of a particular 
  aspect when you invoke it; GMs, you’re the final 
  arbiter on this one. The use of an aspect should make 
  sense, or you should be able to creatively narrate 
  your way into ensuring it makes sense.
  Precisely how you do this is up to you. Sometimes, it 
  makes so much sense to use a particular aspect that 
  you can just hold up the fate point and name it. Or 
  you might need to embellish your character’s action a 
  little more so that everyone understands where you’re 
  coming from. (That’s why we recommend making 
  sure that you’re on the same page with the group 
  as to what each of your aspects means—it makes it 
  easier to justify bringing it into play.)
  Free Invocations
  You don’t always have to pay a fate point to invoke an 
  aspect— sometimes it’s free.
  When you succeed at creating an advantage, you 
  “stick” a free invocation onto an aspect. If you 
  succeed with style, you get two invocations. Some of 
  the other actions also give you free boosts.
  You also get to stick a free invocation on any 
  consequences you inflict in a conflict.
  Free invocations work like normal ones except in 
  two ways: no fate points are exchanged, and you 
  can stack them with a normal invocation for a better 
  bonus. So you can use a free invocation and pay 
  a fate point on the same aspect to get a +4 bonus 
  instead of a +2, two rerolls instead of one, or you can 
  add +4 to another character’s roll or increase passive 
  opposition by +4. Or you could split the benefits, 
  getting a reroll and a +2 bonus. You can also stack 
  multiple free invocations together.
  After you’ve used your free invocation, if the aspect 
  in question is still around, you can keep invoking it by 
  spending fate points.
  Wraith succeeds on an attack, and causes 
  his opponent to take the Mild Concussion 
  consequence. On the next exchange, he 
  attacks him again, and he can invoke that for 
  free because he put it there, giving him a +2 
  or a reroll.
  If you want, you can pass your free invocation to another 
  character. That allows you to get some teamwork 
  going between you and a buddy. This is really useful in 
  a conflict if you want to set someone up for a big blow. 
  Everyone creates an advantage and passes their free 
  invocations onto one person, then that person stacks 
  all of them up at once for a huge bonus.
  Compelling Aspects
  The other way you use aspects in the game is called a 
  compel. If you’re in a situation where having or being 
  around a certain aspect means your character’s life is 
  more dramatic or complicated, someone can compel 
  the aspect. That aspect can be on your character, 
  the scene, location, game, or anywhere else that’s 
  currently in play. We’ll start with character aspects, 
  and then talk about situation aspects in a bit.
  In order to compel an aspect, explain why the 
  aspect is relevant, and then make an offer as to 
  what the complication is. You can negotiate the 
  terms of the complication a bit, until you reach 
  a reasonable consensus. Whoever is getting 
  compelled then has two options:
  • Accept the complication and receive a fate point
  • Pay a fate point to prevent the complication 
  from happening
  The complication from a compel occurs regardless 
  of anyone’s efforts—once you’ve made a deal and 
  taken the fate point, you can’t use your skills or 
  anything else to mitigate the situation. You have 
  to deal with the new story developments that arise 
  from the complication.
  If you prevent the complication from happening, then you 
  and the group describe how you avoid it. Sometimes it 
  just means that you agree that the event never happened 
  
  25
  in the first place, and sometimes it means narrating your 
  character doing something proactive. Whatever you 
  need to do in order to make it make sense works fine, 
  as long as the group is okay with it.
  GMs, you’re the final arbiter here, as always— not 
  just on how the result of a compel plays out, but on 
  whether or not a compel is valid in the first place. Use 
  the same judgment you apply to an invocation— it 
  should make instinctive sense, or require only a small 
  amount of explanation, that a complication might 
  arise from the aspect.
  Finally, and this is very important: if a player wants 
  to compel another character, it costs a fate point to 
  propose the complication. The GM can always compel 
  for free, and any player can propose a compel on his 
  or her own character for free.
  Types of Compels
  There are two major categories for what a compel 
  looks like in the game: events and decisions. These 
  are tools to help you figure out what a compel should 
  look like and help break any mental blocks.
  Events
  An event-based compel happens to the character in 
  spite of herself, when the world around her responds 
  to a certain aspect in a certain way and creates a 
  complicating circumstance. It looks like this:
  You have ____ aspect and are in ____ situation, so it 
  makes sense that, unfortunately, ____ would happen 
  to you. Damn your luck.
  Here are two:
  Barrage has Heir to State Industries, one 
  of the world’s leading conglomerates in 
  technological research and development. 
  She’s covertly attending a press conference, 
  expecting an attack on the Mayor. Someone 
  in the crowd recognizes her anyway, from 
  an article about her father’s company that 
  appeared last month. The person makes a 
  huge fuss, and all eyes turn to her.
  Wraith was Once a Criminal, Now a Hero. 
  While tailing someone important to finding out 
  where a crime boss is hiding out, an unmarked 
  police car drives by, turns around, and flashes its 
  lights. Two detectives step out— the very same 
  two who Wraith once had violent, personal run-
  ins with in the past. They slam him against the 
  wall, and the person he was following disappears.
  As you’ll see with decision-based compels, the real 
  mileage is in the complication itself. Without that, you 
  don’t really have anything worth focusing on—the 
  fact that the PCs continually have complicated and 
  dramatic things happen to them is, well, exactly what 
  makes them PCs in the first place.
  GMs, event-based compels are your opportunity to 
  party. You’re expected to control the world around 
  the PCs, so having that world react to them in an 
  unexpected way is pretty much part and parcel of 
  your job description.
  Players, event-based compels are great for you. You 
  get rewarded simply by being there—how much more 
  awesome can you get? You might have a difficult 
  time justifying an event-based compel yourself, as it 
  requires you to assert control over an element of the 
  game that you typically aren’t in charge of. Feel free 
  to propose an event-based compel, but remember 
  that the GM has the final say on controlling the game 
  world and may veto you if she’s got something else 
  in mind.
  Decisions
  A decision is a kind of compel that is internal to 
  the character. It happens because of a decision he 
  makes, hence the name. It looks like this:
  You have ____ aspect in ____ situation, so it makes 
  sense that you’d decide to ____. This goes wrong 
  when ____ happens.
  Here are two:
  Barrage has With Money Comes Power, so 
  she decides to propose a possible donation 
  to the Police Department in exchange for 
  some information concerning an ongoing 
  investigation. This goes wrong when the 
  Detective considers it a bribe attempt, 
  and puts her and her hero team in his own 
  investigative crosshairs.
  Midnight Avenger has Crime Feeds on 
  Innocence, I Feed on Crime, and decides 
  to use his vampiric powers to feed on a 
  criminal who had murdered a young child 
  in a drive-by. This goes wrong when two 
  women in the neighborhood witness the 
  attack from their third story windows, and 
  the police are given a description.
  So the real dramatic impact from these kinds of 
  compels is not what decision the character makes, 
  but rather how things go wrong. Before something 
  
  26
  goes wrong, the first sentence could be a prelude to 
  making a skill roll or simply a matter of roleplaying. 
  The complication that the decision creates is really 
  what makes it a compel.
  GM Compel Warning
  If you offer a decision-based compel, and no 
  one can agree on what the decision part should 
  be, it shouldn’t cost a fate point to counter—just 
  drop it. Countering a decision-based compel 
  should only mean that the “what goes wrong” 
  part doesn’t happen.
  GMs, remember that a player is ultimately 
  responsible for everything that the character 
  says and does. you can offer decision-based 
  compels, but if the player doesn’t feel like the 
  decision is one that the character would make, 
  don’t force the issue by charging a fate point. 
  instead, negotiate the terms of the compel until 
  you find a decision the player is comfortable 
  making, and a complication that chains from 
  that decision instead. if you can’t agree on 
  something, drop it. 
  The decision part should be very self-evident, and 
  something a player might have been thinking about 
  doing anyway. The same goes for players trying to 
  compel NPCs or each other’s PCs, make sure you 
  have a strong mutual understanding of what that NPC 
  or other character might do before proposing the 
  compel.
  Players, if you need fate points, this is a really good 
  way of getting them. If you propose a decision-based 
  compel for your character to the GM, then what you’re 
  basically asking is for something you’re about to do 
  to go wrong somehow. You don’t even have to have 
  a complication in mind—simply signaling the GM 
  should be enough to start a conversation. GMs, as 
  long as the compel isn’t weak (as in, as long as there’s 
  a good, juicy complication), you should go with this. 
  If the compel is weak, poll the rest of the group for 
  ideas until something more substantial sticks.
  Retroactive Compels
  Sometimes, you’ll notice during the game that you’ve 
  fulfilled the criteria for a compel without a fate point 
  getting awarded. You’ve played your aspects to the 
  hilt and gotten yourself into all kinds of trouble, or 
  you’ve narrated crazy and dramatic stuff happening to 
  a character related to their aspects just out of reflex.
  Anyone who realizes this in play can mention it, and 
  the fate point can be awarded retroactively, treating 
  it like a compel after the fact. GMs, you’re the final 
  arbiter. It should be pretty obvious when something 
  like this occurs, though. Just look at the guidelines for 
  event and decision compels above, and see if you can 
  summarize what happened in the game according to 
  those guidelines. If you can, award a fate point.
  Compelling with 
  Situation Aspects
  Just like with every other kind of aspect use, you 
  can use situation aspects (and by extension, game 
  aspects) for compels. Because situation aspects are 
  usually external to characters, you’re almost always 
  looking at event-based compels rather than decision-
  based ones. The character or characters affected get 
  a fate point for the compel.
  Here are two examples:
  Because the apartment complex is On Fire, 
  and the player characters must rescue people 
  from within, it makes sense that, unfortunately, 
  the thug they’re chasing can get away in the 
  confusion.
  The corporate structure the team is breaking 
  into to find connections to a black market 
  super-soldier program has redundant security, 
  and Redundant Security for the Redundant 
  Security. So, it makes sense that their 
  intrusion will be noticed at some point. 
  Using Aspects For Roleplaying
  Finally, aspects have a passive use that you can draw 
  on in almost every instance of play. They can be used 
  as a guide to roleplaying your character. Aspects give 
  a big picture of what your character’s about, and they 
  can reveal interesting implications if you read between 
  the lines. If you’re wondering what your character 
  might do in a certain situation, look at your aspects. 
  What do they say about your character’s personality, 
  goals, and desires? Are there any clues in what your 
  aspects say that might suggest a course of action? 
  Once you find that suggestion, go for it.
  Playing to your aspects also has another benefit: 
  you’re feeding the GM ideas for compels. You’re 
  already bringing your aspects into the game, so all 
  she has to do is offer you complications and you’re 
  good to go.
  
  27
  GMs use the NPC aspects the same way.
  GMs can also use character aspects as a way of 
  figuring 
  out 
  how the world 
  reacts 
  to 
  the 
  c h a r a c t e r s . 
  Does someone 
  have the aspect 
  No 
  One 
  is 
  S t r o n g e r ? 
  That’s 
  a 
  reputation that 
  might 
  precede 
  that 
  character, 
  one that villains 
  might 
  know 
  about and react 
  to. 
  Also, it might 
  even 
  suggest 
  s o m e t h i n g 
  about 
  that 
  c h a r a c t e r ’ s 
  physical 
  size 
  and 
  build 
  (though 
  with 
  super-powers, 
  not 
  always). 
  You know that 
  most people are 
  going to give 
  that 
  character 
  a 
  wide 
  berth 
  in a crowded 
  space, 
  might 
  be 
  naturally 
  intimidated, or 
  might be overly 
  aggressive or brusque as overcompensation for 
  being intimidated.
  But no one’s going to ignore that character. Inserting 
  these kinds of aspect-related details into your 
  narration can help your game seem more vivid and 
  consistent, even when you’re not shuffling fate points 
  around.
  Barrage, in her civilian disguise of Amanda 
  State, daughter of Darren State and heir to her 
  father’s corporate empire, she is on a national 
  talk show discussing her life as one of the 
  wealthiest heirs on in the country.
  During the interview, the host mentions her 
  mother’s death in a mugging, an event that 
  happened when Amanda was 14 years old 
  and 
  serves 
  as one of 
  her 
  main 
  r e a s o n s 
  for secretly 
  becoming a 
  super-hero.
  Although the 
  topic starts 
  innocently 
  enough, the 
  host 
  soon 
  shows 
  that 
  he has an 
  axe to grind, 
  and accuses 
  A m a n d a 
  of 
  learning 
  n o t h i n g 
  from 
  what 
  happened to 
  her mother, 
  and 
  living 
  a sheltered 
  life not truly 
  aware 
  of 
  what it’s like 
  out 
  there 
  for everyday 
  people.
  A m a n d a 
  can’t exactly 
  go on record 
  that 
  she 
  is 
  actually 
  Barrage, but dredging up her mother’s death 
  has struck a chord. Keirdwyn looks at her 
  sheet and sees the aspect: I will Always Miss 
  My Mother.
  Playing on that, she tears up as she recalls 
  that night eight years ago, and goes off on 
  the host not only about using her mother as a 
  weapon against her, but also discussing all the 
  community fundraising and outreach events 
  she has done as Amanda State. Right there 
  on national television.
  Invoking for Effect
  
  28
  When you invoke for effect, you’re spending a fate 
  point— or a free invocation— to create a specifically 
  defined mechanical effect, something other than what 
  a typical aspect is capable of. Although this is primarily 
  used with Power Set effects in Daring Comics, it can 
  also be used for pretty much any character aspect if 
  the your group agrees. 
  When you create an aspect, look at it and decide 
  whether or not it needs a special effect attached to 
  it. Maybe your hero can control the Earth, and can 
  invoke the Power Set aspect to avoid falling down or 
  being moved against his will, or maybe your psychic 
  detective can invoke Mental Eavesdropper to read 
  someone’s surface thoughts.
  Mechanically, an aspect effect should be worth the 
  fate point you’re spending— the equivalent to two 
  shifts’ worth of potency, just like any other effect 
  of invoking an aspect. Aspect effects should do 
  something, like in the examples above, rather than 
  provide a static bonus. A regular aspect invocation 
  already provides a bonus, so you don’t need a 
  special effect that does that, too. An aspect effect is 
  a bit like having an extra rules-exception stunt that 
  you always have to pay for, both in terms of what the 
  effect can accomplish and the amount of complexity 
  it adds to your character.
  In terms of cost, it’s okay for PCs to have one or 
  even two of these effects, and they should never 
  replace purchasing a power. They should be on 
  par with a normal aspect invocation in terms of 
  potency, and should be more situational so they’re 
  less likely to be used often. If an effect is more than 
  that, the GM is within his rights to either suggest 
  you purchase the proper power, or at least spend a 
  Hero Point on additional effects.
  Removing Or Changing 
  An Aspect
  Game and character aspects change through 
  advancement. See the Milestones section in Chapter 
  15: Advancing the Series for that.
  If you want to get rid of a situation aspect, you can do it 
  in one of two ways: roll an overcome action specifically 
  for the purpose of getting rid of the aspect, or roll some 
  other kind of action that would make the aspect make no 
  sense if you succeed. (For example, if you’re Grappled, 
  you could try to sprint away. If you succeed, it wouldn’t 
  make sense for you to be Grappled anymore, so you’d 
  also get rid of that aspect.)
  If a character can interfere with your action, they get 
  to roll active opposition against you as per normal. 
  Otherwise, GMs, it’s your job to set passive opposition 
  or just allow the player to get rid of the aspect without 
  a roll, if there’s nothing risky or interesting in the way.
  Finally, if at any point it simply makes no sense for a 
  situation aspect to be in play, get rid of it.
  Creating And Discovering 
  New Aspects In Play
  In addition to your character aspects, series aspects, 
  and the situation aspects that the GM presents, you 
  have the ability to create, discover, or gain access to 
  other aspects as you play.
  For the most part, you’ll use the Create an Advantage 
  action to make new aspects. When you describe 
  the action that gives you an advantage, the context 
  should tell you if it requires a new aspect or if it 
  derives from an existing one. If you’re bringing a 
  new circumstance into play, like throwing sand in 
  someone’s eyes, then you’re indicating that you need 
  a new situation aspect.
  With some skills, it’s going to make more sense to 
  stick an advantage to an aspect that’s already on 
  some other character’s sheet. In this case, the PC or 
  NPC you’re targeting would provide active opposition 
  to keep you from being able to use that aspect.
  If you’re not looking for a free invocation, and you 
  just think it’d make sense if there were a particular 
  situation aspect in play, you don’t need to roll the 
  dice or anything to make new aspects; just suggest 
  them, and if the group thinks they’re interesting, 
  write them down.
  Gm: Extremely Powerful 
  Ninja Gm Trick
  So, if you don’t have any aspects made up for a 
  scene or an NPC, just ask the players what kinds 
  of aspects they’re looking for when they roll to 
  create an advantage. If they tie or succeed, just 
  write down something similar to what they were 
  looking for and say they were right. If they fail, 
  write it down anyway, or write another aspect 
  down that’s not advantageous to them, so as to 
  contrast with their expectations.
  
  29
  Secret or Hidden Aspects
  Some skills also let you use the create an advantage 
  action to reveal aspects that are hidden, either on 
  NPCs or environments. In this case, the GM simply 
  tells you what the aspect is if you get a tie or better 
  on the roll. You can use this to “fish” for aspects if 
  you’re not precisely sure what to look for, doing well 
  on the roll is sufficient justification for being able to 
  find something advantage-worthy.
  Generally speaking, we assume that most of the 
  aspects in play are public knowledge for the players. 
  The PCs’ character sheets are sitting on the table, and 
  probably the main and supporting NPCs are as well. 
  That doesn’t always mean the characters know about 
  those aspects, but that’s one of the reasons why the 
  create an advantage action exists, to help you justify 
  how a character learns about other characters.
  Also, remember that aspects can help deepen the 
  story only if you get to use them—aspects that are 
  never discovered might as well never have existed in 
  the first place. So most of the time, the players should 
  always know what aspects are available for their use, 
  and if there’s a question as to whether or not the 
  character knows, use the dice to help you decide.
  Finally, GMs, we know that sometimes you’re going to 
  want to keep an NPC’s aspects secret, or not reveal 
  certain situation aspects right away, because you’re 
  trying to build tension in the story. If the PCs are 
  investigating a series of murders, you don’t exactly 
  want the culprit to have Sociopathic Serial Murderer 
  sitting on an index card for the PCs to see at the 
  beginning of the adventure.
  In those cases, we recommend you don’t make an 
  aspect directly out of whatever fact you’re trying to 
  keep secret. Instead, make the aspect a detail that 
  makes sense in context after the secret is revealed.
  Michael is making an NPC who’s secretly a 
  super-villain living in New York City, the main 
  bad guy in the story arc he’s planning. He’s 
  also a known philanthropist, so he doesn’t 
  want to give things away too easily.
  Instead of making a Secretly a Criminal 
  Mastermind aspect, he decides to make a 
  few personal details instead: Super-Hero 
  Groupie (he takes an uncanny interest in 
  super-heroes and their exploits), Smarter 
  Than He Looks, and Wheels Within Wheels. 
  If the heroes discover a couple of these, or 
  see them on the table, they might start to 
  suspect the NPC, but it’s not going to ruin the 
  mystery of the story arc right away.
  Invoking or Compelling 
  Another Character’s Aspect
  You can invoke or compel any aspect (that you know 
  about) attached to another player-character or NPC. 
  To do so, simply spend a fate point and declare the 
  invocation or compel.
  To invoke another character’s or NPC’s aspect, the 
  fate point you would pay goes to that player, or the 
  gamemaster. Place it somewhere on the table (you’ve 
  just spent it), but they do not get it until the end of 
  the scene. For gamemasters, it goes into their default 
  pool at the beginning of the next scene.
  Compelling another’s aspect works the same way, 
  except when they spend a fate point to resist the 
  compel, it goes to the player who initiated the compel.
  The Fate Point Economy
  For the most part, the use of aspects revolves 
  around fate points. You indicate your supply of fate 
  points by using tokens, such as poker chips, glass 
  beads, or other markers.
  Ideally, you want a consistent ebb and flow of fate 
  points going on throughout your sessions. Players 
  spend them in order to be awesome in a crucial 
  moment, and they get them back when their lives 
  get dramatic and complicated. So if your fate points 
  are flowing the way they’re supposed to, you’ll end 
  up with these cycles of triumphs and setbacks that 
  make for a fun and interesting story.
  Here’s how that works.
  Refresh
  Each player gets a number of fate points to start each 
  issue off with. That total is called the refresh rate. The 
  refresh is determined by your Series Tone.
  You might end an issue of play with more fate points 
  than your actual refresh. If that happens, you don’t 
  lose the additional points when you start the next 
  issue, but you don’t gain any either. 
  At the start of a new story arc, you reset your fate 
  points to your refresh rate no matter what.
  
  30
  Spending Fate Points
  You spend fate points in any of the following ways:
  • Invoke an Aspect: Invoking an aspect costs you 
  one fate point, unless the invocation is free.
  • Power a Stunt or Power: Some stunts or 
  powers are very potent, and as such, cost a fate 
  point in order to activate.
  • Refuse a Compel: Once a compel is 
  proposed, you can pay a fate point to avoid the 
  complication associated with it.
  • Declare a Story Detail: To add something to 
  the narrative based on one of your aspects, 
  spend a fate point.
  Earning Fate Points
  You earn fate points in any of the following ways:
  • Accept a Compel: You get a fate point when 
  you agree to the complication associated 
  with a compel. As we said above, this 
  may sometimes happen retroactively if the 
  circumstances warrant.
  • Have Your Aspects Invoked Against You: 
  If someone pays a fate point to invoke an 
  aspect attached to your character, you gain 
  their fate point at the end of the scene. 
  This includes advantages created on your 
  character, as well as consequences.
  • Concede in a Conflict: You receive one fate 
  point for conceding in a conflict, as well as an 
  additional fate point for each consequence that 
  you’ve received in that conflict. (This isn’t the 
  same as being taken out in a conflict, by the 
  way, but we’ll get into that later.)
  The GM and Fate Points
  GMs, you also get to use fate points, but the rules are 
  a little bit different than the rules for players.
  When you award players fate points for compels or 
  concession, they come out of an unlimited pool you 
  have for doing so—you don’t have to worry about 
  running out of fate points to award, and you always 
  get to compel for free.
  The NPCs under your control are not so lucky. They 
  have a limited pool of fate points you get to use 
  on their behalf. Whenever a scene starts, you get 
  one fate point for every PC in that scene. You can 
  use these points on behalf of any NPC you want, 
  but you can get more in that scene if they take a 
  compel, like PCs do.
  You reset to your default total, one per PC, at the 
  beginning of every scene.
  There are two exceptions:
  You accepted a compel that effectively ended the last 
  scene or starts the next one. If that happens, take an 
  extra fate point in the next scene.
  You conceded a conflict to the PCs in the previous 
  scene. If that happens, take the fate points you’d 
  normally get for the concession into the next scene 
  and add them to the default total.
  If the immediate next scene doesn’t present a 
  significant interaction with NPCs, you can save these 
  extra points until the next scene that does.
  Michael is running a climactic conflict, where 
  the PCs are battling a nemesis they’ve been 
  trying to subdue for several scenarios now. 
  Here are the characters in the scene:
  Livewire, an electrical generating super-
  villain, a main NPC
  Brickhouse, a super strong and invulnerable 
  enforcer, a supporting NPC
  Five nameless NPC thugs
  Four PCs: Barrage, Wraith, Trinity, and 
  Midnight Avenger
  His total fate point pool for this scene is 4 
  fate points— one each for Midnight Avenger, 
  Barrage, Trinity, and Wraith. If Wraith had been 
  elsewhere (say, sneaking in a different way for 
  a later ambush), Michael would’ve gotten three 
  fate points, one each for Barrage, Midnight 
  Avenger, and Trinity.
  Late in the conflict, Livewire is forced to 
  concede so he can get away with his skin 
  intact. He has taken two consequences in the 
  conflict, meaning that he gets three fate points 
  for conceding. Those three fate points carry 
  over to the next scene.
  
  31
  Chapter 3: Series Creation
  Gritty Realism
  This type of campaign focuses on people with more-
  than-human abilities existing in a normal, everyday 
  world. Whether they go public with their abilities or 
  keep them secret is dependent upon the flavor of the 
  series. More than likely, however, the normal good, 
  evil, and gray areas will be explored through the 
  stories; and the government is likely to have a secret 
  agency whose sole purpose is the apprehension 
  and control (or study) of the Metahuman population.
  Base Hero Points: 5
  Urban Protectors
  In this type of campaign, the characters defend the 
  streets against gangs, insane villains, crime lords, 
  and other low-level villains. Although the characters 
  may develop to become slightly more than the peak 
  human potential, their crime-fighting careers are an 
  exercise in development and training.
  Base Hero Points: 10
  Super-Heroic
  Characters in this genre are capable of amazing 
  feats and can take on most small military forces. 
  Although not necessarily amongst the most 
  powerful on the planet, they run a wide range of 
  abilities and specialties.
  Base Hero Points: 15
  Earth’s Mightiest
  Characters in this genre are some of the greatest on 
  the planet. Villains enter the range of world-dominating 
  megalomaniacs, and some minor extraterrestrial or 
  inter-dimensional threats are not uncommon. 
  Base Hero Points: 20
  Off The Charts
  These types of characters can move mountains, 
  shake the Earth if they cut loose with their powers, 
  and take on most threats and have a good chance 
  of surviving. They might be an alien on Earth with 
  The first step in beginning a Daring Comics series is 
  to determine what type of stories you want to tell. 
  To do that, the players and the gamemaster should 
  gather around the table for the first session of the 
  game— series and character creation.
  Creating the Series
  Unlike a lot of other roleplaying games where 
  the players only create their characters and the 
  gamemaster creates the campaign on his own, in 
  Daring Comics everyone has input into the nature of 
  the series’ main themes and setting.
  Don’t worry, you are still responsible for creating your 
  individual player character, and the gamemaster is 
  still going to create the nuts and bolts of the series 
  and the individual issues. What this first session does 
  is, though, is make sure everyone is on the same 
  page, that everyone has some input into the stories 
  that are about to unfold, and that player characters 
  typically have minor connections to the setting prior 
  to the first issue.
  Let’s take a look at the process step by step.
  Series Level
  The first thing to determine is the Series Level, which 
  will determine beginning Hero Points, the general 
  types of stories that can be expected, and the overall 
  strength of the opposition.
  Daring Comics is divided into five different Series 
  Levels, and each level offers a range of Hero Points. 
  You’ll use the Hero Points to purchase your Stunts 
  and Powers. If you run out of points and need a few 
  more things to round out your character, then you 
  must spend your Refresh on it. Which means that 
  your base Refresh will be lower, giving you less fate 
  points to start out with. 
  Your Beginning Refresh can never drop below 1. 
  If it would, you can’t purchase additional Stunts 
  or Powers, and will have to wait to improve your 
  character through Milestones.
  
  32
  near unlimited power, or someone who imbues the 
  power of a god with a magic word. Villains often 
  times rule their own planets or dimensions.
  Base Hero Points: 25
  Series Tone
  While the Series Level tells you how many resources 
  you have for powers and stunts, and sets the 
  benchmark for how powerful your heroes will be, the 
  Series Tone sets the stage for the types of stories you 
  intend to tell.
  Series Tone comes in three flavors, representing the 
  most common tones in super-hero comic books. 
  Each tone establishes your beginning Refresh, 
  base mental and physical stress boxes, and how 
  long it takes to fully remove a Consequence after 
  taking a recovery action.
  Near Realistic
  This tone of series focuses more on heroes existing 
  in some version of the real world. Heroes might be 
  low in number, or generally remain hidden from the 
  public at large. Although powers can run the gamut, 
  when it comes to physical or mental confrontation, 
  heroes and their adversaries alike can walk away 
  with some lasting wounds.
  Beginning Refresh: 3
  Physical and Mental Stress: 2 boxes
  Mild Consequence: After one scene
  Moderate Consequence: After one issue
  Severe Consequence: After one story arc
  Dark & Grim
  While the series maintains the feel of a comic book, 
  it’s much darker than the normal super-hero style. 
  Heroes might not be heroes at all, but questionable 
  anti-heroes who operate outside the law and could 
  find themselves hunted by law enforcement as much 
  as the criminals. Physical and mental combat is 
  painful. Teams often times find themselves facing 
  an internal rift due to a conflict of ideologies and 
  personalities.
  Beginning Refresh: 3
  Physical and Mental Stress: 3 boxes
  Mild Consequence: After one scene
  Moderate Consequence: After one issue
  Severe Consequence: After two issues
  Four Color
  This type of series is the more traditional style of 
  comic book storytelling. Heroes are generally loved by 
  the public. Falling out of favor does occur, but rarely 
  has the ultra-serious effects of the more grim tones. 
  Flashy powers and hero vs. villain confrontations 
  are frequent, as are team dynamics in and out of 
  costume. Although personalities and ideologies on 
  a team might cause tension and even splinter some 
  members away, the team as a whole still continues to 
  fight for truth and justice.
  Beginning Refresh: 5
  Physical and Mental Stress: 4 boxes
  Mild Consequence: After one scene
  Moderate Consequence: After half an issue
  Severe Consequence: After one issue
  Experience Level
  The next thing to determine for your series is how 
  experienced each of the player-characters will be. 
  Will they all be new or young heroes, or are they more 
  just the average Joe stuck in a world where everyone 
  around them can toss around energy beams and cars 
  like they’re nothing?
  The general experience level of your character 
  determines your beginning skill points. Don’t worry 
  about how to spend them right now, we’ll cover that 
  in the Skills chapter. For now, just make a note of how 
  many skill points you get.
  The Experience Level also determines if the 
  characters get additional Hero Points, representing 
  past Milestones they’ve achieved.
  Normal Guy in a 
  Super World
  Although the people you work with can lift cars, shoot 
  energy beams from their eyes, fly, or move in the blink 
  of an eye, you’re just not on their level. Although you 
  might have a couple of special devices, your training 
  in a lot of areas is bare minimum. You’re either just 
  starting out, or just never put the time in yet to actually 
  hone your skills to their full potential.
  
  33
  You have a lot of room to grow. But don’t worry, 
  that growth will come quick the more you work with 
  your teammates to save the world.
  Skill Points: 25
  Additional Hero Points: 0
  New/Young Heroes
  You’re powered, you’re fired up, you’re ready to go 
  out and kick butt and take names. It’s time to put 
  the evil-doers behind bars! Except you have a lot 
  to learn, and are probably being reminded of that 
  often enough by the older or more experienced 
  heroes.
  Maybe you have great potential and a wide array 
  of powers, but little actual skill in using them. Or 
  maybe you’re all about your powers, and are being 
  constantly reminded that protecting lives requires 
  more than just brute force.
  You’ll grow. You’ll learn. But until then, you’re going 
  to have to face and accept your mistakes.
  Skill Points: 30
  Additional Hero Points: 2
  Know the Ropes
  You’ve fought crime for a little while now, taken 
  down some criminals, and started building a 
  reputation for yourself. You’ve also likely made 
  some dangerous enemies, but maybe a powerful 
  ally or two. You’ve started growing, training harder, 
  and getting better by actual experience.
  Skill Points: 35
  Additional Hero Points: 5
  Been Around the Block
  You’ve been at this for a couple of years, and have 
  amassed a lot of experience, most likely through a 
  combination of training, doing, and trial and error. 
  Often the younger and less experienced heroes 
  turn to you for advice, or have learned to steer 
  clear of you because you are too blasted scary or 
  psychotic.
  Regardless, the people know they can count on you to 
  protect them. You’ve done it countless times before.
  Skill Points: 40
  Additional Hero Points: 10
  Highly Experienced
  You’re a paragon to not only the people you’ve vowed 
  to protect, but to a lot of other heroes. Whether 
  masterminds looking to build a doomsday weapon, 
  megalomaniacs seeking to enslave mankind, or 
  even extraterrestrial and inter-dimensional threats— 
  you’ve seen it all. You’ve drawn the line, manned the 
  
  34
  barricades, and shown the world that you will never 
  give-up and never surrender.
  You’re a very experienced hero and have been at this 
  for several years, maybe even a decade or longer.
  Skill Points: 45
  Additional Hero Points: 15
  Series Framework
  Now that you’ve determined you’re the basic 
  foundations for you type of series, it’s time to start 
  figuring out what type of stories you want to tell. We 
  call this the Series Framework.
  By creating a framework for the series as a group, 
  the players are able to have some input into the 
  types of stories they want to help tell. Of course, 
  the players aren’t designing the whole thing. It’s the 
  GM’s job to flesh it out, expand it, create all the 
  abilities that the villains, supporting cast, and other 
  NPCs will have, and actually design the stories. But 
  through the framework, the GM is going to have a 
  solid basis to expand from, and everyone gets a 
  hand in creating the series.
  So let’s take you through the process step by step. 
  It would be a good idea to have a copy of the Series 
  Framework sheet for each player and the GM. If 
  you weren’t able to print them out, that’s okay. It’s 
  perfectly fine to use notebook paper, just as long as 
  you record each step in the framework for the GM to 
  have on hand when creating the actual stories.
  The Series Scope
  The first thing to determine is the scope of the series. 
  Part of this will already have been indicated by 
  the Series Level the group agreed upon. An Urban 
  Protector series is likely to focus on a particular city, 
  while a Super-Heroic level might take the heroes 
  to various cities. Obviously, an Earth’s Mightiest 
  series could take them around the globe, whereas 
  Off the Charts could likely put the entire universe or 
  multiverse in danger.
  Dylan, Anna, Keirdwyn, and Xander are the 
  players in a game Michael is running. They’ve 
  already decided to play an Urban Protector 
  series level, and to have a Know the Ropes 
  experience level. So the group has already 
  determined the type of game they want to 
  play: street level heroes who have been at it 
  a little while, but aren’t yet truly seasoned at 
  what they do.
  They don’t really want it Dark & Grim. They want 
  to play heroes with flaws, but they don’t want 
  the personal flaws and problems dominating the 
  series. So, they agree to go with the traditional 
  Four Color tone for the series.
  For the series scope, they decide it will take 
  place in a single city. They discuss it a bit and 
  decide it’ll be called Sentinel City. Although 
  there are powerful teams and heroes in the 
  city, they usually handle threats on a broader 
  scale than the group will.
  They decide the city has a wide range of 
  neighborhood types, from the wealthy, to 
  the scientific and corporate, to the poor and 
  rundown. They let Michael know that they 
  want the series to primarily focus on the 
  poor and rundown sections, where crime is 
  a serious problem, where gangs hold power, 
  and where maybe even the larger organized 
  crime families truly call the shots. They also 
  imagine those neighborhoods as having plenty 
  of abandoned buildings and shadows to use 
  in their war on crime.
  Everyone at the table makes notes for the 
  scope, and moves into the next step.
  Series Problems 
  and Aspects
  Next, you’ll create two major problems the heroes will 
  face during the first volume, meaning the first to 4 to 
  12 Issues or so. This doesn’t mean the series will only 
  face these two problems, just that these are the two 
  that you want to be a part of the storyline.
  The Broad Problem: The first problem should 
  represent the broader, lingering problem that will 
  indicate one of the main points of the volume. It’s 
  the problem that will set the stage for the types of 
  situations the characters will be drawn into, but 
  rests in the background. It slowly builds, until the 
  characters finally have to confront it in order to 
  achieve a major story impact.
  For this series, it’s decided that there is an 
  underworld power vacuum thanks to the 
  arrest (or supposed death) of a city’s crime 
  kingpin. That idea likely points to stories that’ll 
  involve the street gangs and crime cartels. It 
  might also mean that the heroes are going to 
  work with, or maybe even come into conflict 
  
  35
  with, local law enforcement. Throughout the 
  stories, this problem will serve as the overall 
  background problem (the power struggle), 
  and will continue to build immediacy. Perhaps 
  it starts out as rumors and a few gang tussles, 
  or that a powerful super-villain has moved in 
  to consolidate his power base and assume 
  the role of kingpin. Perhaps the heroes hear 
  suspicion that certain police officers are on the 
  take, and are helping one faction or another by 
  arresting and raiding the rivals.
  However it builds, this problem will come to 
  a head in order for the heroes to achieve their 
  Major Milestone. That doesn’t mean they will 
  win, either. Yes, they might stop the super-
  villain from becoming the kingpin, but that 
  still leaves a potential vacuum that could get 
  worse. With (likely) several of the old gangs 
  gone, it’s a ripe opportunity for new cartels to 
  move in. Maybe, too, the heroes don’t realize 
  the full scope of what they’re up against, the 
  super-villain they thought they needed to stop 
  was just a red herring put in place by the real 
  mastermind behind it all, and while the heroes 
  were taking the bait, he moved in and assumed 
  control over the city.
  For the first problem, the group creates an aspect 
  called: Upheaval in the Underworld. They decide 
  that, at least for now, that aspect serves the purpose: 
  it sounds like it can be both invoked and compelled 
  easily enough, and they even come up with a few 
  mock situations where both could apply. It might 
  be invoked during a meeting with a gang leader on 
  a Rapport check, using it to potentially cause him a 
  temporary break in confidence. The GM could compel 
  it, causing gang violence to rock a neighborhood at a 
  time the heroes were supposed to be there but were 
  instead chasing a red herring. Looks like the residents 
  are going to give the heroes a bit of friction on any 
  immediate, future cooperation. 
  In might be invoked during a combat action, 
  indicating the hero using the up in the air situation 
  between all the gangs, and any hesitation or second 
  guessing that might cause the lower members, to his 
  advantage. And the GM could again compel if, say, 
  the heroes managed to capture a gang leader that 
  all signs pointed to being the frontrunner for the title 
  of Kingpin. In this case, the prisoner was actually a 
  patsy, staged to take the fall so that the true, unseen 
  power behind the curtain would remain free.
  So yeah, the group decides that aspect will do. It 
  is even one they imagine can be adjusted after a 
  major milestone into a different form, representing 
  new facets to the growing power struggle, such as if 
  someone were to gain the top spot and have to face 
  adversity from various gangs who weren’t too happy 
  with his newfound power. 
  They write the aspect down on the series worksheet.
  The Immediate Problem: The second problem the 
  group will create is the immediate situation that spurs 
  them into the story. 
  This problem will usually springboard off the first, 
  broader problem. What the group determines as 
  the overall problem of the storyline will help dictate 
  some ideas for the immediate problems that get them 
  involved in the plotline.
  The group already determined they want 
  a story focusing on an underworld power 
  vacuum, with rival gangs and organized crime 
  families all vying for the top spot.
  Expanding on that, they decide that what 
  gets their heroes really involved in the story 
  is a series of public battles between gangs— 
  some super-powered, some with quite an 
  arsenal of weapons— that has taken a few 
  innocent lives in the crossfire. The police are 
  finding themselves ill-equipped to handle 
  the escalating war, especially since there are 
  factions within the Department on the take.
  It’s time for them to get involved, and start 
  getting to the bottom of what’s going on, and 
  who’s calling what shots.
  For this problem, the group creates an aspect 
  called Gang Violence is Out of Control. They 
  decide there should be some opportunities to both 
  invoke and compel the aspect, and jot it down on 
  the series worksheet.
  The Setting
  The final step is creating a little bit about the actual 
  setting where the main stories will take place. Like the 
  other parts of getting the series created, this step is 
  also cooperative between the players and GM. This 
  is where the players get to create some locations and 
  people to populate the stories, and also anchor their 
  own characters to parts of the setting.
  Although this step gives the players a say is some of 
  those locations and people, this step doesn’t have 
  the players creating everything about the setting. 
  
  36
  That’s ultimately still the province of the GM, who still 
  has to create the stories, adversaries, other allies, 
  and all the nut and bolts for each story arc. This step 
  just allows the players a little input and creativity. It 
  basically allows them to say that a certain location 
  or NPC is in some way, even if minor, important to 
  the overall setting and should play some kind of role. 
  Even if it’s just their favorite watering hole.
  Creating the setting comprises three phases, as 
  detailed below.
  Phase One: 
  The Broad 
  View
  The first phase is what we 
  call the broad view, the 
  meaning of which will vary 
  depending on the scope 
  of your series. This might 
  be looking at various 
  planets around the galaxy, 
  countries 
  around 
  the 
  world, cities across the 
  country, or neighborhoods 
  within a city.
  Whichever the case for 
  your series, each of your 
  players (assuming a group 
  of about four players) will 
  create one or two general 
  locations. Players should 
  write down the name of 
  the broad location, and 
  a couple of notes about 
  it. You don’t have to get 
  too specific. Just give the 
  GM something to go on, 
  since it’ll be the GM that 
  truly fleshes it out when 
  the stories are created.
  In Mikes group, they 
  decided to play a 
  street vigilante series 
  that takes place in 
  Sentinel City. During 
  this 
  phase, 
  Anna, 
  Dylan, Xander, and 
  Keirdwyn will each 
  create one or two 
  neighborhoods.
  Xander 
  creates 
  a 
  neighborhood he calls Liberty Heights, and 
  determines that it is a rundown, low-income 
  area with a lot of abandoned buildings and 
  street crime.
  Anna 
  creates 
  a 
  neighborhood 
  called 
  Ravenswood. She knows she wants to play 
  a character with ties to the mystic, so she 
  decides this particular area of the city is 
  strong in mystic energy. The people there are 
  superstitious, and in the middle of the night it 
  
  37
  isn’t uncommon for things to be lurking in the 
  shadows or just under a sewer grate.
  Keirdwyn wants to play someone with a high 
  Resource skill and a lot of money. After all, 
  someone has to be able to afford to outfit 
  this team. She creates a neighborhood 
  called Cedar Valley. She makes note that it’s 
  a secondary downtown area, and home to 
  a lot of large corporate HQs. Matter of fact, 
  she asks the GM if it would be okay to call it 
  the financial hub of the city. Michael thinks 
  about it, and agrees.
  Dylan keeps thinking that other heroes are 
  going to exist in the city, not just the player-
  group, and that any place with super-heroes 
  would probably have a fairly healthy scientific 
  R&D industry. He creates a neighborhood 
  called Hydesville, and notes that it’s home to 
  the main universities, as well as more powerful 
  super-hero teams known for their scientific 
  knowledge and experiments.
  In a game with a higher series level, such as Earth’s 
  Mightiest, this phase could easily have been 
  dedicated to creating foreign nations, other cities of 
  importance across the U.S., or even hidden nations 
  of unique residents.
  Phase Two: The 
  Focused View
  After the general locations are noted, the next phase 
  zooms in on those locations a bit more. In this phase, 
  the players will now create a few specific locations 
  within those broader areas, basically making note of 
  places they want the GM to filter into the game at 
  some point, perhaps even on a repeating level.
  Each player should create two or three locations 
  within their broader area from Phase One.
  Continuing with Michael’s group, Anna, 
  Keirdwyn, Dylan, and Xander will now each 
  create a few specific places within the 
  neighborhoods they noted in Phase One.
  Xander thinks about it, and since his 
  neighborhood is a rundown, crime-ridden 
  place, decides that he’ll stay with that 
  theme. He creates the Iron Horse Tavern, 
  and makes note that it’s a biker bar where 
  drug deals are made, and other gangs think 
  twice about hitting due to the sheer amount 
  of fire power inside of it. He then decides to 
  take a slighting different path, and creates the 
  Barludi Foundation for Abused Women and 
  Children. He makes a note that the Foundation 
  has centers throughout the city, and that it is 
  owned by one of the major crime families as a 
  legitimate, philanthropic, non-profit business.
  Anna thinks about her mystic neighborhood, 
  and creates Beltane Park— a sprawling area 
  almost on the scale of New York’s Central 
  Park, where strange thinks lurk in the shadows, 
  people fear to tread at night, and with a high 
  concentration of mystic energy to those who 
  can sense such things. She also decides that the 
  local Native Americans have a decent presence 
  in this neighborhood, and creates an old Burial 
  Ground on the outskirts of Ravenswood. The 
  Burial Grounds are extremely important to the 
  neighborhood, and are protected by something 
  very powerful and vengeful.
  Keirdwyn has three ideas for her secondary 
  downtown. The first is for a black-market 
  Genetic Research company that she notes 
  is secretly controlled by an organized crime 
  family, and has been around in the shadows 
  for quite some time. Basically, they mutate 
  and alter supers and normal people, trying 
  to create tailor-made super-soldiers to sell 
  to various world governments. She then 
  decides to create an 18-21 year old Nightclub 
  called Sidekicks, where young heroes hang 
  out both in and out of costume, and mingle 
  with the teenagers of the city. Finally, thinking 
  about Anna’s neighborhood and the mystic 
  themes that the game will include, she 
  creates Investigation offices called Germaine 
  Investigations, Inc., and notes that they study 
  and battle the paranormal.
  Dylan has two ideas for his neighborhood. The 
  first is a place called the Daring Building, which 
  he notes is both home and business to a family 
  of super-heroes known for adventures into 
  strange kingdoms and alternate dimensions. 
  He also creates Quantum Mechanics, and 
  notes that it was originally founded decades 
  ago by a super-hero, and is dedicated to 
  the manipulation of time, ways to shrink/
  miniaturize things, and other cutting edge 
  science that has plenty of ways to go wrong.
  Again, in a higher series level game, this phase might 
  have included specific regions on a planet, villages or 
  towns in a foreign nation, or general neighborhoods 
  in a different city.
  
  38
  Phase Three: The People
  The final phase of creating the setting’s basics 
  involves each player creating two or three NPCs to 
  populate the locations they previously jotted down. 
  These should be just general people, and shouldn’t be 
  significant allies, members of the character’s family, 
  or specific members of a Rogues Gallery. Those 
  types of NPCs will be created during the character 
  creation steps in the next chapter, and have specific 
  rewards attached to them. Instead, the NPCs for this 
  phase are just people who still might help or hinder 
  the heroes depending upon the scene and story 
  direction at the time, but are generally there to bring 
  the locations to life.
  Such NPCs should generally possess the abilities of 
  a Nameless NPC or a Supporting NPC (which are 
  explained to the GM in Chapter 13: Running the Game), 
  depending upon what works best for each one.
  Xander notes that a man named Ben Carter 
  owns the Iron Horse Tavern. Ben is going to 
  be a member of the a local biker gang known 
  as Sons of Nebecar, which is a powerful 
  extradimensional demon. He notes that the 
  gang is heavy into drug distribution and gun 
  running, and also has several black arts sorcerers 
  in their ranks. This might also connect them in 
  some way to the Ravenswood neighborhood, 
  or even Germaine Investigations. He also 
  creates Michelle Barludi, a mother of two small 
  children and wife to one of the top organized 
  crime personas in the city. He decides 
  she’s the one who really runs the Barludi 
  Foundation, and that maybe her efforts have 
  recently garnered the attention of a low-level 
  super whose children are in hiding from him.
  Anna decides that a strange creature calling 
  itself Spring-Heeled Jack haunts Beltane 
  Park, and has done so for the past several 
  decades. He bears a strong resemblance 
  to the old British legend, and is often not 
  seen for years, before suddenly appearing 
  again to terrorize the park at night. She then 
  decides that the Burial Grounds are guarded 
  by a powerful spirit known as the Manitou. 
  Generally, the spirit is dormant, unless 
  something threatens the Burial Grounds or 
  areas of Ravenswood close to it.
  Keirdwyn looks at her locations and what the 
  other players are creating, and immediately 
  decides the Germaine Investigations contains 
  a half-demon daughter of Nebecar. Not only 
  that, but she’s dedicated to stopping her father 
  from his efforts to invade and conquer Earth, 
  and maybe even has the Sons of Nebecar 
  on her personal radar. She also decides that 
  sidekicks is run by a retired hero who was 
  famous 30 years ago, but never quite made 
  it beyond sidekick status. He’s a good fellow, 
  who started the nightclub as a way of getting 
  current young heroes some exposure.
  Dylan decides that one of the top scientists 
  at Quantum Mechanics is Dr. Timothy 
  Henderson. He’s an expert in cybernetic 
  development, 
  and 
  someone 
  Dylan’s 
  character has helped out a few times in 
  the past when one super-villain or another 
  tried to kidnap him or steal his work. Dylan 
  also decides that the front lobby guard 
  he’s friends with at the Daring Building 
  was secretly once a street vigilante himself 
  known as the Silver Eagle, who disappeared 
  from the public (and vigilante work) over 
  20 years ago when he got too old to keep 
  putting his body through it night after night. 
  The guard, old Henry Weathers, is someone 
  Dylan imagines his character regularly talks 
  to and gets advice from.
  Putting it all Together
  By now, you should know the type of series you’re 
  going to play, as well as the general power and 
  experience levels of the player-characters. The GM 
  should have a decent setting basis to expand on, 
  thanks to the group creating some general locations, 
  specific locales, and a few people to populate them.
  Ideally, the setting basics will also provide some 
  ties between each other, having already determined 
  a few broad strokes about the player-characters, 
  and provide more than a couple of story seeds for 
  the series.
  With that done, now it’s time to head into the next 
  chapter, where you’ll get the concepts, backstory, 
  and aspects created for the main stars of the series: 
  the player-characters.
  
  39
  Chapter 4: Character Creation
  Step One: Character Name
  If you haven’t done it by now, this is when you’ll choose 
  your characters costumed and civilian identities.
  Step Two: Character Aspects
  Your character aspects are one of the primary nuts 
  and bolts of game play in Daring Comics. During your 
  stories, these Aspects will be your primary method of 
  spending fate points on aspect invocations to gain a 
  +2 to a roll or be able to reroll the dice. Your character 
  aspects are also where a majority of your aspect 
  compels will come from, granting you a fate point in 
  exchange for something about your character adding 
  a complication to a given scene.
  As already discussed, your character aspects, like any 
  aspect, should be phrased as a double-edged sword. 
  It should be able to help you in certain situations, or 
  be used against you. But they should also be fun, and 
  be descriptive of some part of your character, whether 
  their basic concept, a flaw in their character or dark 
  part of their life, something about their powers or 
  extreme training that makes them more than human, 
  or even portions of their history or personality.
  In Daring Comics , your character will have five 
  character aspects. Two of them must are mandatory, 
  while the other three are open for your group to mix 
  and match however best fits your setting.
  Required Character 
  Aspects
  The required character aspects are the two aspects 
  that every character must possesses. They represent 
  two core values about your character, and are 
  absolutely vital to the super-heroic theme of any 
  Daring Comics story. 
  Concept 
  Your Concept aspect is a phrase that sums up what 
  your character is about— who he is and what he does. 
  It’s an aspect, one of the first and most important 
  ones for your character.
  Welcome back True Believers! Now that you’ve gone 
  through the process of choosing the type of series 
  you want to play, and created something about the 
  general setting your heroes will populate, now it’s 
  time to ramp it up and get to the nuts and bolts of 
  determining who your heroes actually are. If you 
  thought series creation was fun, you haven’t seen 
  nothin’ yet. And if you didn’t find it fun . . . then you’re 
  probably doing it wrong.
  Creating Those 
  Famous Characters
  It is entirely possible to recreate your favorite 
  characters from Marvel, DC Comics, and other 
  of your favorite comic book titles out there. 
  One thing to consider, though, is exactly how 
  experienced those characters are. Some of 
  them have been around for a while, and might 
  have accumulated a few Milestones.
  Then, to get them recreated under the Daring 
  Comics point system, ask yourself the following:
  • How big of a supporting cast do they have 
  (as this grants extra skill points)?
  • How many Rogues in their gallery truly 
  know their secrets and/or weaknesses (as 
  this grants extra hero points?
  • How many points of beginning Refresh 
  might they have spent? 
  Not only considering their Milestone 
  history, but also those three questions, is 
  absolutely vital to recreating your favorite 
  comic book characters.
  Okay, so what happens now? 
  In this chapter, you’re going to create the fundamentals 
  of who your character is, why he or she became a 
  hero, what moments in their past set define them, and 
  who some of their closest friends and enemies are. 
  There are six steps to creating your hero. Let’s take a 
  look at each of the steps.
  
  40
  Think of this aspect like your job, your role in life, or 
  your calling— it’s what you’re good at, but it’s also a 
  duty you have to deal with, and it’s constantly filled 
  with problems of its own. That is to say, it comes with 
  some good and some bad. There are a few different 
  directions you can take this:
  • You could take the idea of “like your job” literally: 
  Vigilante Detective, Super-Soldier, Billionaire 
  Playboy, or Crime-fighting Archer.
  • You could throw on an adjective or other descriptor 
  to further define the idea: Dark Vigilante Detective, 
  Patriotic Super-Soldier, Billionaire Playboy Inventor, 
  or Uncanny Crime-fighting Archer.
  • You could mash two jobs or roles together that 
  most people would find odd: Billionaire Playboy 
  Dark Avenger, Amazonian Warrior Diplomat, 
  Secret Agent Super-Hero.
  • You could play off of an important relationship 
  to your family or an organization you’re 
  deeply involved with (especially if the family or 
  organization are well-connected or well-known): 
  Outcast Agent of the Government, Former Hitman 
  for Gerabaldi, Franchise Hero for VanCorp.
  These aren’t the only ways to play with your concept, 
  but they’ll get you started. But don’t stress out over it. 
  The worst thing you can do is make it into too big of a 
  deal. You’ll come up with four other aspects after this 
  one, so you don’t have to get it all nailed right now.
  Keirdwyn wants to play the billionaire heir to 
  State Industries, one of the world’s leading 
  developers of advanced computer and robotics 
  technology. She imagines her hero being in 
  her 20’s, and with some high-tech weapons in 
  her fight on crime. For her concept, she writes 
  down Hi-Tech Billionaire Hero
  Meanwhile, Xander wants to play the result 
  of a black book, illegal genetic engineering 
  program. He was once a petty criminal, but 
  after all the experimentations and his entire 
  world being turned inside out, he became a 
  hero. For his concept, he goes with Secret 
  Black-Ops Superhuman Experiment.
  Motivation
  Your Motivation aspect is about why you do what 
  you do. What drives you to be a super-hero and put 
  yourself in constant danger to protect innocent lives? 
  At your core, what pushes you to fight the never-
  ending battle against crime and injustice?
  Here are a few examples:
  • No Innocent Will Suffer.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
  • If Good Does Nothing, Evil Wins
  • There is No Justice, Only Punishment
  Those are just a few examples, but should serve good 
  enough to get you thinking about your core reason for 
  doing what you do.
  Keirdwyn, keeping with the rich-kid turned 
  hero idea, decides that her money and 
  access to highly advanced technology is 
  what caused her to become a hero. Her 
  father, always the philanthropist, raised her to 
  always help those less fortunate, and never 
  take the blessings she has for granted. For 
  her motivation, she writes down: Defend 
  Those Unable to Defend Themselves.
  Xander 
  decides 
  that 
  the 
  agency 
  that 
  experimented upon him is actually owned 
  and operated by a power underworld crime 
  organization. He feels that this is likely what 
  turned his criminal into a hero, and that the 
  character has vowed revenge against not only 
  the crime organization, but against anyone 
  who would prey on the innocent. He decides 
  that Extract Revenge Against The Criminal 
  Underworld is a good motivation.
  Contingent Character 
  Aspects
  After you create your Required Character Aspects, 
  you have three other Contingent Character Aspects 
  that should be created. These are called “contingent” 
  because you are now able to choose three of them 
  from the options below, or your group can create an 
  entirely new category that fits into your setting.
  Life Changing Event
  Life Changing Event covers what it was that 
  propelled you to become a super-hero in the first 
  place. What event so profoundly affected your 
  character that it spurred him along the path to risk 
  his life against all threats to protect the innocent? 
  This isn’t the same as your Motivation, though there 
  might be some overlap. Your Motivation is the core 
  of why you are a hero, the Life Changing Event is 
  the specific event or circumstances that pushed you 
  into your chosen path.
  
  41
  Core Value
  Core Value is the one thing you will hold on to no 
  matter what. It is the soul of your character. It might 
  be that you will never take a life, no matter what; or 
  that you hold the value of loyalty above all else. 
  Inner Strength
  Inner Strength is the thing that allows you to push 
  through the most trying times, it allows you to pick 
  yourself up off the floor even when you’re broken or 
  bloody. It’s what stops you from ever giving up, even 
  when the chips are entirely stacked against you. It 
  could be a memory of someone, a desire to always 
  adhere to a certain code, or maybe even a faith in 
  some greater power.
  Inner Demons
  Your Inner Demons aspect is something that nips at 
  your heals throughout most days or nights. Although 
  it can work to try to bring you down, it can, in the 
  right circumstances, also provide you with a sense of 
  strength to keep going. It might be a tragic event that 
  still haunts you— maybe even one you blame yourself 
  for, it might be memories of a time when you were in 
  great pain and betrayed something you still believe 
  in, or it could be a traumatic childhood memory.
  Flaw
  Flaw is the complication that 
  defines your life, whether it’s an 
  inability to get close to others, 
  having to juggle family and a 
  secret life as a super-hero, a 
  dark side to your personality 
  that causes you no end of 
  complications, or some other 
  type of problem that will plague 
  you at inopportune moments 
  throughout the series.
  Dark Secret
  A Dark Secret is something from 
  your past that, if discovered, 
  could hurt your relationship with 
  friends or family, or even damage 
  (if not destroy) your super-heroic 
  career. It might be a previous 
  life as a criminal, the murdered 
  of someone you could have 
  easily brought into custody, or 
  even an affiliation with a power 
  organization that isn’t out for the 
  benefit of mankind.
  Relationships
  If 
  you 
  have 
  any 
  special 
  Relationships, create an aspect 
  for them. These do not have 
  to be the same people as your 
  Supporting Cast, though they 
  could be. Most invocations of 
  the aspect will involve those 
  relationships somehow providing 
  assistance, or even giving you 
  the inner strength to complete a 
  
  42
  task. Likewise, compels against this aspect will likely 
  mean the relationship has caused a complication 
  in some way, and one that could set you and your 
  super-team back at least a little bit.
  Personal Belief
  The Personal Belief aspect represents something 
  that you believe in so strongly, it not only complicates 
  your life at times, but can also be used to guide you 
  through troubling situations. It might be a steadfast 
  belief in the legal system, a strong belief in the 
  foundations of America, or even the fact that you’re 
  still, deep down, a devout Catholic.
  Step Three: Supporting 
  Cast and Rogues Gallery
  This is where you will create a few members of your 
  supporting cast and rogues gallery, which will directly 
  affect the rest of your character creation. 
  Each supporting cast member you create (think Aunt 
  May, Alfred, Lois Lane, Pepper Potts, and so forth 
  from Marvel and DC Comics) gives you +1 skill point 
  for Step Four.
  You’ll create one or two aspects for each member of 
  your supporting cast. Either you can work with the GM 
  to assign any relevant skills, or the GM can add them 
  as needed during play. The point is, your supporting 
  cast, as in any typical super-hero comic, are there 
  to not only ground you, but to provide some story 
  complications. As far as Mechanics go, each character 
  you create during this step is treated like a Supporting 
  NPC (see: Chapter 13: Running the Game).
  For your Rogues Gallery you will create two or three 
  aspects per rogue (the GM will secretly create the 
  rest). These guys are your enemies, and are going to 
  be Named NPCs capable of challenging you at every 
  turn. Your GM will give them their skills, stunts, and 
  powers however he needs in order to provide such a 
  challenge. Each member of your beginning Rogues 
  Gallery provides you with 1 free Hero Point. After all, 
  these villains are out to get you, personally.
  Wait a minute! That’s a nice bonus. Well, yeah, it is, 
  but there’s a reason. For one, the rogue is going to 
  be a direct challenge to your character in ability. For 
  two, since he is your rogue, he automatically knows 
  one of your aspects, and once per issue when he is in 
  some way opposing you, he gets to use that aspect 
  against you at no fate point cost. So, either that rogue 
  is going to hit you where it hurts, or cost you a fate 
  point to resist it, at no cost to himself. And if you 
  spend a fate point to resist such a compel, the rogue 
  directly gets it to use against you.
  Keep in mind that although you, the player, created 
  a few aspects for your rogue, your character does 
  not know those aspects until they are actually 
  discovered in play. The point is to only give you 
  players a hand in creating the rogues gallery for your 
  characters. Of course, if your character creation 
  phases suggested you encountered a particular main 
  villain previously and an obvious aspect might have 
  been discovered, then the player and GM should 
  work out if the character knows anything about the 
  NPC’s aspects. If so, we suggest the character not 
  know more than one of the NPC’s aspects.
  Anyway, it is recommended you create no more than 
  three supporting cast members, and two rogues.
  Step Four: Skills
  Once you’ve created your backstory and chosen 
  your five aspects, and after you’ve determined some 
  supporting cast members and a beginning Rogues 
  Gallery, you’ll then spend those skill points you 
  received based on your Experience Level from the 
  skill list in the next chapter. We won’t cover that step 
  too much in this chapter, since the chapter on Skills 
  goes into all the details.
  Step Five: Spend Hero Points
  As soon as you have your skills chosen, you get 
  to then move on to spending the Hero Points you 
  received based on the Series Level. With the Hero 
  Points, you’ll purchase any Stunts for your skills, as 
  well as your powers or gadgets. 
  Like with Step Three, this chapter won’t go into detail 
  on this step, since both the Stunts and the Powers 
  chapters explain how to spend the points on those 
  portions of your character.
  If you run out of Hero Points and still need more 
  powers or stunts for your character, you must spend 
  it from your Refresh. A single Hero Point costs one 
  Refresh. Your Refresh may never go below “1.”
  Step Six: Finishing Up
  Finally, you’ll determine how many physical and 
  mental stress boxes your hero gets, how many 
  
  43
  Consequence slots of each type, and get any gear 
  you might be due.
  Stress and Consequences
  Determine how much of a beating your 
  character can take.
  When Daring Comics characters find themselves in 
  harm’s way, they have two ways to stand their ground 
  and stay on their feet: stress and consequences.
  The Conflicts section of Chapter 12: Comic Book 
  Action chapter fully explains what these mean 
  and how they’re used. In brief, stress represents 
  the ephemeral toll of participating in a conflict, 
  whereas consequences are the lingering effects, and 
  sometimes quite traumatic ones, of taking harm.
  Every PC has two different stress tracks. The 
  physical stress track deals with physical harm, and 
  the mental stress track mitigates mental harm. The 
  more boxes in a stress track, the more resilient the 
  character is in that regard. By default, a character the 
  number of stress boxes given by the Series Tone.
  Every PC also has three  consequence slots. One 
  is mild, one is moderate, and the last one is severe. 
  Unlike stress, these aren’t classified as either 
  physical or mental— any of them can apply to any 
  type of harm. As mentioned above, consequences 
  are the injuries and traumas you can’t just shake off 
  after the dust settles.
  Certain skills and some stunts can add to these 
  defaults. See the respective chapters for more on that. 
  For the sake of quick reference, these are the skills in 
  Daring Comics that alter stress and consequences:
  Physique helps with physical stress, and Will helps 
  with mental stress. Either skill grants one more stress 
  box of the respective type (physical or mental) if rated 
  at Average (+1) or Fair (+2), or two more stress boxes if 
  rated at Good (+3) or higher. At Superb (+5) or higher, 
  they also grant an additional mild consequence 
  slot. Unlike the standard three, this consequence 
  slot is specifically restricted to either physical harm 
  (Physique) or mental harm (Will).
  The number of Stress boxes and consequence slots 
  that a character has is also increased through the 
  Hardiness super-power.
  Other Types of Stress
  You can add stress tracks if the characters in 
  your game suffer unique kinds of harm, such 
  as wealth stress in a series where the heroes 
  are all also rich or corporate owners, or even a 
  Spiritual track if you want to track mystic stress 
  differently than psychic and mental stress.
  You’re All Set!
  At the end of this process, you should have a 
  character with:
  • A name
  • Five aspects, along with some backstory
  • A completed Skill Column
  • Your beginning Hero Points worth of Stunts 
  and Powers
  • A mental and physical stress track
  • A refresh rate of at least 1 fate point
  Quick Character Creation
  If you want to skip making a detailed character and 
  just want to play, you can leave most of the character 
  blank and fill in as you play. For details on how to do 
  this, see the Pick-Up Game variant in the Appendix: 
  Turning the Dials, and also pay attention to the Pick-
  Up Style for Beginning a Series boxed text.
  
  44
  Chapter 5: Complications
  Aspects must work both ways. Complications only 
  work against you.
  Character Complications
  A character complication is tied into your character 
  as a whole, and is not dependent on any super-power 
  or power set. It defines a hindrance to your character 
  that can only be brought into play to cause them 
  some type of harm or setback.
  A complication is a negative effect on your character 
  that isn’t easily handled by an aspect. By their very 
  nature, an aspect, even one that goes along with a 
  character flaw or a dark secret from the past, should 
  be a double-edged sword. It should both be able to be 
  invoked to assist the character in certain situations, 
  and it should be able to be compelled to complicate 
  the character’s life.
  Complications, on the other hand, are those things 
  that exist only to hinder you. They cannot be invoked 
  to your benefit. In that way, they 
  aren’t the same as aspects.
  There 
  are 
  two 
  types 
  of 
  complications: 
  character 
  and 
  power. Well, actually, there are 
  other types as well, such as Super-
  Team Complications and Devices; 
  but they’re handled in the Super-
  Team and Devices and Gear 
  chapters, respectively. For now, 
  we’re only going to discuss the two 
  types that affect your character on 
  a personal level.
  Complications 
  vs Aspects
  In some of the example ideas 
  below, you will no doubt see that 
  there could be some overlap on 
  whether something should be a 
  complication or an aspect. And 
  indeed, in some cases the decision 
  could go either way. Take things like 
  Disability or Temper, for example. 
  Both can just as easily be one of 
  your character aspects instead.
  The key to remember is that if it 
  is something you want to both 
  help and hinder your character, 
  then make it an aspect. But if it’s 
  something you only want to hinder 
  your character with absolutely no 
  narrative or mechanical benefit, 
  then make it a complication.
  
  45
  Below are a few examples of character complications. 
  It’s by no means meant to be an exhaustive list, and 
  you should feel free to create any complications 
  needed for your series.
  Addiction: You’re addicted to some type of substance, 
  most typically alcohol or some type of drug. This 
  complication could come into play when your use 
  of the substance (i.e. you’re drunk or high) can be a 
  reason to complicate a scene, or the inability to get 
  the substance causes you some sort of setback.
  Disability: Are you deaf? Blind? In a wheelchair? 
  Missing a limb? Whatever the nature of your disability, 
  it can come into play at seriously inopportune times 
  to hinder you. Otherwise, the disability is there, but 
  doesn’t directly cause you any problems.
  Fame/Reputation: Your character is either very well 
  known in a positive light, or has a dark reputation 
  attached to him. When he comes into play, it might 
  complicate a scene by having you slowed down by 
  fans or the media, or even have law enforcement 
  misinterpret your intentions.
  Identity: This type of complication assumes your 
  character has either a secret identity, or a completely 
  different alter ego he must change into. Such a 
  complication comes into play in a scene where not 
  being able to change identities causes either some 
  type of harm to your character, or causes a setback 
  in the goals he’s trying to achieve. For example, being 
  in your secret civilian identity at a public function as 
  armed thugs are  stealing a dangerous or expensive 
  object would count as the complication coming into 
  play. The criminal element you are facing is getting 
  a step ahead because you’re bound by maintaining 
  your secret in the scene.
  Likewise, being captured and beaten by the enemy 
  and somehow being unable to transform into your 
  super-powered alter ego, thereby suffering some 
  type of (albeit minor) harm, would count as the 
  complication coming into play.
  Phobia: You’re deathly afraid of some type of animal, 
  insect, situation, or object. The most obvious outcome 
  of this complication coming into play would be having 
  your character freeze-up, or even flee in fear.
  Secret: What secrets from your past might come 
  back to haunt you in the present day? What have 
  you done that could dismantle everything you’re 
  fighting for? When this complication comes into play, 
  it doesn’t necessarily mean that the secret is that 
  revealed, but rather that the secret is threatening to 
  come to light unless you take measures (usually also 
  secretive) to stop it.
  Temper: While some heroes are known to have a 
  Berserker Rage that gives them an upper hand in 
  fights (and should be represented by an aspect), 
  when tempers comes into play it really messes up 
  a scene for you. It might be that you just blew all 
  chances to get needed information or assistance, or 
  even a mechanical function such as +2 to Create an 
  Advantage action by people attempting to use your 
  rage against you.
  Vulnerability: You’re vulnerable to some type of 
  element or substance. Typically, this will result in an 
  attack against your character by the substance or 
  an increase to damage when attacked by a weapon 
  utilizing the element or substance. Here are a few 
  ideas on how to handle it:
  • Exposure to the element (typically being in the 
  same zone) causes 2-Stress per minute.
  • Being attacked with a weapon composed of the 
  element causes 2-Shifts of additional damage.
  • Being in the same zone as the element causes 
  an attack against Physique or Will each round, 
  with the element having an attacking skill of Fair 
  (+2).
  Weakness: This type of complication means that you 
  have a specific need for something, and without it you 
  become weaker in some way. It could be the need to 
  submerge yourself in water every so often, a need to 
  drink blood, or even a need to absorb solar energy. 
  Without it, actions become more and more difficult.
  As a general rule of thumb, when this complication 
  is brought into play, the character should take a 
  consequence every hour or so until the weakness 
  is resolved. Once the character does whatever he 
  needs to do to resolve the situation, the consequence 
  is automatically healed.
  Power Complications
  Although the powers chapter deals with limits to 
  powers, the very nature of limits means that they are 
  always on and always hinder the power in some way. 
  A power complication, by comparison, only comes 
  into play when you or the GM calls for it.
  Device or Gear: Yes, this is optional. Not every series 
  will want to deal with devices or gear being able to 
  run out of ammunition or deplete a power source. If it 
  
  46
  fits your series, perhaps because of a military or spy 
  theme, then use this complication. When it comes 
  into play, the device or piece of gear (such as a normal 
  gun) is shut down via whatever method makes sense. 
  It might be the device’s power cell ran out of juice, or 
  that the gun ran out of bullets. Whatever the cause, 
  it is operational again once the current scene is over. 
  Ineffective Against Something: One or more of 
  your powers are ineffective against something that, 
  while you might not commonly encounter it, has been 
  known to show up against you at inopportune times. 
  It might be a certain type of substance, a color, or 
  even an emotional state.
  Power Loss: Being near a certain object, substance, 
  or element causes your powers to diminish. As a rule 
  of thumb, consider something like 1 Power Level every 
  minute. Those powers without more than one level are 
  immediately shutdown at the end of that first minute.
  You might even consider a reduction in the Controlling 
  skill instead, lowering it one step on the ladder until it 
  reaches a minimum of Terrible (-2).
  Being removed from the vicinity of whatever is 
  causing the loss of your powers can have them return 
  immediately or gradually. Talk it over with the GM or 
  other players when taking this complication
  Recharge: Some or all of your powers need to be 
  recharged sporadically. When this comes into play, 
  your powers might suffer increased opposition up to 
  a maximum increase, and are then effectively shut 
  down until you resolve the need.
  Bringing a Complication 
  into Play
  So what happens when a complication is brought 
  into play? Well, whenever a complication is first 
  brought into play in a scene, the player immediately 
  earns a fate point. Pay attention to the bolded text, 
  because for those complications that may hinder a 
  character repeatedly or continuously throughout a 
  scene, the player still only earns a single fate point. 
  But yes, if the complication is going to last more than 
  one scene, than the player earns another fate point 
  for each additional scene.
  
  47
  Rejecting a Complication
  Unlike compelling an aspect, a player cannot 
  reject a complication coming into play simply by 
  spending a fate point each time. As a matter of 
  fact, a player cannot buy off a complication being 
  brought into play.
  Likewise, 
  GMs, 
  don’t 
  abuse 
  a 
  character’s 
  complications— especially those that have normal 
  gear (with bullets and such). The idea is that a 
  complication comes into the story only occasionally, 
  and when it does, it has a dramatic reason for doing 
  so. If you’re going to constantly use the complication 
  against the player, then give them back a Hero Point 
  or two as if it was a power limit (whether or not the 
  complication affects their powers). Limits refund points 
  because they are always in play. Complications grant 
  fate points because they are meant to occasionally 
  add drama to the series.
  Example Complications
  Below are a few examples to show you how some 
  complications might be built in Daring Comics. You 
  should recognize them right off the bat, since we 
  used popular instances from comic books and filed 
  off the serial numbers.
  Vulnerability 
  (Element-X Sickness)
  When in the same zone as Element-X, make an attack 
  with a skill of Fair (+2) against passive opposition 
  equal to the character’s Physique.
  Vulnerability 
  (Element-X Weapon)
  Weapon causes +2-hits of damage and ignores all 
  levels of Invulnerability.
  Power Loss (Element-X)
  All powers are reduced by 2 levels when in the 
  same zone as Element-X. Those with less than 2 
  levels are shutdown.
  Recharge (Solar 
  Absorption)
  If you go too long without absorbing solar energy, 
  you become weakened. All rolls involving the use of 
  a power suffer a +2 to active or passive opposition, 
  and increase by +1 every hour to a maximum of +4. 
  If you’ve not recharged within one hour after reaching 
  the +4 maximum, your powers are shut down until 
  you spend at least an hour absorbing solar energy.
  Device (Out of Ammo)
  At an inopportune time, [power or weapon name] 
  is out of ammo, effectively shutting it down for the 
  rest of the scene.
  Weakness (Dehydration)
  Suffer a Consequence every hour, beginning with 
  a Mild Consequence, until you spend at least an 
  hour fully submerged in water. Once you rehydrate 
  yourself, all related consequences are removed.
  Final Advice: Building 
  Your Complication
  As you can see from this chapter, building your 
  complication is more of a narrative feature than a 
  hard and fast rule. The core rule of thumb to keep 
  in mind is to make sure the complication warrants 
  a fate point, that it accomplishes what you want to 
  say concerning that part of your character, and that it 
  cannot be used to your character’s benefit. Be careful 
  not to make it too restrictive to your character, unless 
  of course that is the fun effect you’re going for.
  Remember, too, that complications are completely 
  optional. You do not have to take any for your character 
  if it doesn’t fit your concept. They’re only there to 
  handle some of the things we see in comics that don’t 
  work quite as well as aspects or power limits.
  
  48
  Chapter 6: Super Teams 
  the GM places them in a scene, or you bring them 
  into a scene through a Create an Advantage action.
  Charter
  Your Charter aspect represents the core reason for 
  your team charter. The aspect should basically say 
  something about why the team formed in the first 
  place— i.e. the purpose for its existence.
  The group decides to officially form a super 
  team known as the Sentinels of Society. 
  For their charter, they decide upon: United 
  Nations Global Response Team.
  The aspect can be used both to assist them 
  in trouble situations, as well as to hinder 
  them. For example, when something bad has 
  happened, people have been injured or killed, 
  and the Sentinels of Society were somehow 
  involved in the scene, they could be restricted 
  by, or even called in for testimony before, the 
  U.N. Security Council. The Aspect could also 
  be compelled depending upon story plots, 
  such as one of the Security Council members 
  having an axe to grind against the team.
  Friction
  No group of superhumans is going to get together 
  and there not be problems. There are simply too many 
  personalities, methods of operation, and personal 
  philosophies in the mix. This aspect should represent 
  some friction within the team. It could be a conflict 
  of personalities, discipline versus showmanship, or 
  even financial troubles.
  If you get stuck, look to each member’s character 
  aspects, and see if any jump out as possible conflict 
  with those of other characters.
  The Sentinels of Society is made up of a 
  group of heroes with differing opinions on 
  how far the fight against villainy should go. A 
  few members believe strongly in the criminal 
  justice system and that their enemies should 
  be apprehended and brought to justice. 
  Meanwhile, one or two others feel that there 
  are certain situations where killing is not only 
  justified, it’s necessary.
  Extraordinary beings in comic books often form 
  unique groups with other super-powered individuals, 
  all working together for a common cause or goal. 
  Super teams are as much a staple of the genre as 
  flashy powers and strange attire.
  In Daring Comics, super teams are more than just a 
  cool name and a central base of operations. The super 
  team you create will have its own aspects and stunts.
  Of course, just because you form a team of like-
  minded and goal oriented individuals doesn’t mean 
  you have to employ the super team mechanics. It’s 
  completely optional, and totally up to you whether or 
  not it fits the tone of your series.
  Super-Team Resources
  A super-team’s financial power is equal to 
  the highest Resource skill rating of the player-
  characters. You may also create your own 
  Team Stunts, representing private investors 
  and backers contributing to your super-
  heroic exploits, to offer additional benefits 
  or roll bonuses in certain situations to team 
  Resource skill rolls.
  Step One: Super Team Name
  Although we probably don’t have to state it, we’re 
  going to anyway: the first thing you should do is 
  determine what to call your little band of crime-
  fighters. Come up with something cool, because it’s 
  going to be the name you’ll be best known by.
  Step Two: Super Team Aspects
  Your super team is going to have two aspects. Like 
  with all aspects in Daring Comics, they should be able 
  to assist you in certain situations, as well as hinder 
  you in some narrative ways. Unlike character aspects, 
  which are always with you, the super team aspects 
  act more like a hybrid of a character and situation 
  aspect. Although they are always there for roleplaying 
  purposes, they are only in play mechanically when 
  
  49
  The group decides to create the aspect: 
  Tension on What Lines Should be Crossed. 
  The aspect can be invoked when those 
  differing points of view might be brought to 
  bear to either throw off an enemy, or combine 
  different philosophies into a stronger whole. 
  Likewise, compels are a relatively simple affair, 
  and would easily come into a scene when 
  those differing philosophies hinder the group’s 
  performance.
  Step Three: Rogues Gallery
  In this stage, you can (if you want) create up to three 
  members of a team-wide Rogues Gallery, each of 
  which will be a Named NPC capable of taking on at 
  least half the team, if not all of it. Create one or two 
  aspects for each rogue, but only the GM can create 
  the two Required Aspects.
  On the worksheet, outline or detail the team’s 
  encounter with the rogue, how many times they’ve 
  fought, and any specific history or special dynamics 
  the villain might have with the team (for example, the 
  villain was once a close friend of a team member 
  before things went wrong).
  Create a couple of details about the rogue. This can 
  be the costume, known powers or weaknesses, and 
  even a couple of skills that the team might know they 
  possess. Again, the GM is going to fill-in the blanks 
  and create the rest of the rogue.
  For each rogue, you gain an additional Team Stunt.
  Step Four: Team Stunts
  The final step is purchasing your team stunts. You 
  choose one team stunt for each player-character in 
  your group, plus another for each team rogue you’ve 
  created. So, a team with four player-characters can 
  choose four team stunts, while a team with four 
  player-characters and two rogues can purchase six 
  stunts. It really doesn’t matter how the stunts are 
  chosen, as long as the group is in agreement.
  Just like with character stunts, we provide some 
  ready-made examples. You’re encouraged to use 
  the normal Stunt Creation rules to make your own, 
  unique stunts (for how to create your own stunts, see 
  Chapter 8: Stunts).
  Heroes Assemble
  The team has trained intensively on how to work 
  together and assist one another in the field. Once per 
  scene, each team member receives an additional +1 
  bonus when invoking a situation aspect created by 
  another teammate. This is a flat +1 bonus and is only 
  used once per member, even if the aspect in question 
  is invoked twice by the same character due to having 
  two free invocations attached to it (or twice by using 
  a free invocation and then invoking again for a fate 
  point).
  United We Stand
  (Requires Heroes Assemble)
  The Heroes Assemble Stunt can now be used twice 
  per scene by each team member.
  Brotherhood
  (Requires United We Stand)
  The team is so cohesive that they instinctively aid one 
  another in the field. At the beginning of each session, 
  the team has a pool of fate points equal to half the 
  number of player character members (round up). The 
  pool resets each session, and cannot be increased.
  Iconic
  The heroes have battled crime and saved the world 
  on many occasions. As a result, the respect they gain 
  from the public, media, and authorities gives them +2 
  to Rapport rolls when using the Create an Advantage 
  action at social functions, such as a press conference, 
  charity gathering, and so forth.
  Media Liaison
  The team has someone whose sole purpose is 
  to handle the team’s media coverage and public 
  image. Whenever the team must attempt to remove 
  a Collateral Damage Consequence that involves the 
  public, such as a battle that destroyed part of the city, 
  they receive +2 to the roll.
  Public Relations Specialist
  (Requires Media Liaison)
  The 
  team’s 
  media 
  relations 
  management 
  is 
  so 
  experienced 
  that 
  Mild 
  Collateral 
  Damage 
  Consequences are automatically removed at the end 
  of the scene.
  
  50
  Reserve Member
  Each time this stunt is taken, the team has a reserve 
  member on its roster. The member is considered a 
  Supporting Character (see: Running the Game) and 
  can be created by either the players or the GM. 
  Once per issue, any team member can spend a fate 
  point to call a reserve member to the scene. The 
  reserve member sticks around as long as it makes 
  narrative sense.
  Signature Fast Ball
  The team has practiced the Fast Ball maneuver 
  (See: Combat & Tactics) to the point that it is almost 
  second nature. The throwing character receives +2 to 
  the Accuracy roll.
  Team Base
  The same as the Personal Headquarters stunt, your 
  team has a base of operations. Each time this stunt is 
  taken, the team gains 10 Headquarter points.
  Vengeance
  The team understands what it means to be a unit. 
  As a result, once per scene when a team member is 
  Taken Out or Concedes a conflict, the remaining team 
  members in the scene each gain a Boost to represent 
  their intensified determination to win the fight. 
  Ultimate Vengeance
  (Requires Vengeance)
  The determination of the team when a member falls 
  is uncanny. Once per scene when a member is Taken 
  Out or Concedes a conflict, the remaining members 
  in the scene may immediately clear 2-Stress or a Mild 
  Consequence slot.
  Step Five: Complications
  This step is entirely optional. It allows you to choose 
  a complication or two for the team. Whenever the 
  complication is brought into a scene, each team 
  member it affects immediately gains a fate point.
  Below are a few sample complications, but you 
  should really create your own for the team.
  Corporate Investor
  The team has the backing of a corporate entity. The 
  corporation can call upon the team to perform tasks 
  
  51
  or missions at their request. Failure for the team to 
  follow orders should result in the Corporate Investor 
  using whatever resources it needs to make sure the 
  team knows that they have little choice in the matter 
  the next time they’re called upon.
  Dark Secret
  The team has committed some act, either as a group 
  or due to one of its members, that if publicly known 
  would potentially end their careers. The nature of the 
  secret must be determined when this complication is 
  chosen.
  Bringing the complication into the scene should 
  usually involve discovering that someone knows the 
  nature of the secret— quite possibly because they’re 
  blackmailing the team with the knowledge.
  Media Animosity
  The team has made an enemy either in the media, or 
  with strong media contacts and influences. Typically, 
  the media organization in question will attempt to 
  sway public opinion against the heroes. Exactly 
  what form this takes will depend on the nature of 
  your game. It might result in the Opposition to clear 
  Collateral Damage Consequences increasing by +1, 
  a negative impact on Rapport with the media, and so 
  forth.
  Unwanted Attention
  The team has gained an unwanted fan, a pain-in-
  the-rear reporter, or some other NPC that is always 
  following them around, showing up at the most 
  inopportune moments and risking injury, and generally 
  causing the team no end of problems.
  Improving Your Super Team
  Improving a super team over time, however, is no 
  easy task. There’s a lot of coordination, time, and 
  dedication involved. 
  Whenever you get an additional Hero Point due to a 
  Major Milestone (see: Advancing the Series), instead 
  of spending it on your character, you can spend it 
  on advancing the team by purchasing a new stunt. 
  Basically, it represents that you are putting aside your 
  individual needs in exchange for focusing on making 
  the entire team better.
  Turning the Dials
  Your super team doesn’t have to end here. In 
  Appendix: Turning the Dials, we provide more 
  options for your team; such as how to create a 
  team with more members than just your own player-
  group, including super team skills, stress tracks, and 
  consequences representing your expanded roster. 
  Then we tell you how to use those skills, stress 
  boxes, and consequence slots to run the team as 
  its own character, off on a different adventure in the 
  background, while your player-characters are the 
  stars of their series. 
  In other words, how to create a super-team of dozens 
  of heroes like some of the mega-teams from popular 
  comic books, and how to represent their exploits 
  during your game without taking the focus away from 
  your own stories. Including how those side adventures 
  affect your player-group during the series.
  
  52
  Chapter 7: Skills
  Colossal (+10): You are one of the best within the 
  galaxy
  Unearthly (+11): Your prowess is known across the 
  universe
  Inconceivable (+12): Your skill is recognized on a 
  multiversal scale
  Purchasing Skills
  The Series Creation chapter provided you with a 
  number of beginning skill points based upon the 
  experience level you chose for your character 
  (modified by any supporting cast members you 
  created). 
  Your skills form a column, and cannot go above 
  Fantastic (+6) rating. Each skill rating beginning at 
  Fair (+2) must have at least the same number of skills 
  as the rating below it (not counting Mediocre (+0).
  For example, at 40 skill points your column 
  could look like this:
  Fantastic (+6): o
  Superb (+5): oo
  Great (+4) : oo 
  Good (+3): oo
  Fair (+2): ooo
  Average (+1): oooo
  Or
  Superb (+5): oo
  Great (+4) : oo 
  Good (+3): ooo
  Fair (+2): oooo
  Average (+1): ooooo
  A skill describes a broad family of competency at 
  something (such as Athletics, Fight, or Deceive), 
  which your character might have gained through 
  innate talent, training, or years of trial and error. Skills 
  are the basis for everything your character actually 
  does in the game that involves challenge and chance
  Skills are rated on the adjective ladder. The higher the 
  rating, the better your character is at the skill. Taken 
  together, your list of skills gives you a picture of that 
  character’s potential for action at a glance— what 
  you’re best at, what you’re okay at, and what you’re 
  not so good at.
  Skills are defined in two ways: What game actions that 
  you can do with them, and the context in which you 
  can use them. There are only a handful of basic game 
  actions, but the number of potential contexts is infinite.
  Skill Benchmarks
  Sometimes, a descriptive word and number on a 
  ratings ladder isn’t enough to get a feel for how good 
  your character is at a particular skill. The following 
  benchmarks further breakdown the ladder, giving 
  you a clearer picture of what a particular skill rating 
  means.
  Mediocre (+0): Untrained
  Average (+1): Minimal training
  Fair (+2): Formal training
  Good (+3): Advanced training
  Great (+4): An expert in the field
  Superb (+5): One of the foremost experts in a large 
  nation
  Fantastic (+6): One of the foremost experts in the 
  world
  Epic (+7): Your prowess is recognized as the world’s 
  authority on the skill
  Legendary (+8): Beyond what is normally expected 
  on earth
  Monstrous (+9): You are one of the best within 
  several star systems
  
  53
  But could not be built as follows because 
  there would be more skills at Good (+3) than 
  at Fair (+2)
  Good (+3): oooo
  Fair (+2): ooo
  Average (+1): ooooo
  Sample Skill Columns
  For quick and easy skill column construction, feel 
  free to choose one of the options below based on the 
  number of skill points you received, and simply fill in 
  the appropriate number of skills for each rating. 
  There 24 skills available in Daring Comics, and as the 
  example skill columns show, it’s near impossible for 
  a single hero to begin with a skill at the Skill Cap, 
  and still have all of the skills available at a rating of 
  Average (+1) or above. Even those who have their 
  peak skill below the skill cap will still possess a few 
  skills at Mediocre (+0) rating. This is done on purpose, 
  so even characters with overlap in skills between 
  them will still have skills only they possess, or ratings 
  greater than their teammates. In any comic book, 
  every hero should eventually have their moment to 
  shine.
  45 skills points
  • Fantastic (+6): 2 skills
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 3 skills
  Total: 14 skills
  • Fantastic (+6): 1 skill
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 4 skills
  Total: 16 skills
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 3 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 6 skills
  Total: 18 skills
  • Superb (+5): 1 skill
  • Great (+4): 3 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 6 skills
  • Average (+1): 7 skills
  Total: 20 skills
  40 skills points
  • Fantastic (+6): 1 skill
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 4 skills
  Total: 14 skills
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  •  Average (+1): 5 skills
  Total: 16 skills
  •  Superb (+5): 1 skill
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 4 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 7 skills
  Total: 18 skills
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 4 skills
  • Fair (+2): 6 skills
  • Average (+1): 8 skills
  Total: 20 skills
  35 skills points
  • Superb (+5): 2 skills 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 5 skills
  Total: 14 skills
  • Superb (+5): 1 skill
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  
  54
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 6 skills
  Total: 16 skills
  • Great (+4): 3 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 9 skills
  Total: 18 skills
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 12 skills
  Total: 20 skills
  30 skills points
  • Superb (+5): 1 skill 
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 5 skills
  Total: 13 skills
  • Great (+4): 2 skills 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 7 skills
  Total: 15 skills
  • Great (+4): 1 skill
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 9 skills
  Total: 17 skills
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 4 skills
  • Average (+1): 13 skills
  Total: 20 skills
  25 skills points
  • Superb (+5): 1 skill 
  • Great (+4): 1 skill 
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 4 skills
  Total: 11 skills
  • Great (+4): 1 skill 
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 6 skills
  Total: 13 skills
  • Good (+3): 3 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 10 skills
  Total: 16 skills
  • Good (+3): 2 skills
  • Fair (+2): 3 skills
  • Average (+1): 13 skills
  Total: 18 skills
  The Basic Game Actions
  We cover these in more detail in Chapter 11: Actions 
  and Outcomes, but here’s a quick reference so that 
  skills make sense to you right now.
  Overcome: True to its name, you tackle some kind 
  of challenge, engaging task, or hindrance related to 
  your skill.
  Create an Advantage: Whether you’re discovering 
  something that already exists about an opponent or 
  creating a situation that helps you succeed, creating 
  advantages allows you to discover and create 
  aspects, and lets you get free invocations of them.
  Attack: You try to harm someone in a conflict. That 
  harm may be physical, mental, emotional, or social in 
  nature.
  Defend: You try to keep someone from harming you, 
  getting past you, or creating an advantage to use 
  against you.
  There are also some special effects that some skills 
  perform, such the Physique and Will skills giving you 
  additional stress boxes.
  Even though there are only four actions that all skills 
  adhere to, the skill in question lends context to the 
  action. For example, both Thief and Rapport allow you 
  to Create an Advantage, but only under very different 
  contexts. Thief allows you to do it when you’re casing 
  a place you’re about to break into, and Rapport when 
  you are trying to affect someone’s reaction to you. 
  The different skills let you differentiate the heroes’ 
  abilities from one another a bit, allowing each person 
  to have a unique contribution to the game.
  
  55
  Accuracy
  Accuracy is the skill for making ranged attacks, 
  whether with a weapon or power, or throwing things 
  and hitting your mark.
   Overcome: Unless, for some reason, you need to 
  demonstrate your Accuracy ability in a non-conflict 
  situation, you probably won’t be using this skill for 
  normal obstacles much. 
   Create an Advantage: In physical conflicts, Accuracy 
  can be used to perform a wide variety of moves, like 
  trick shots, keeping someone under heavy fire, and 
  even disarming them from a distance— pretty much 
  anything you’ve seen in comic books. You could also 
  make the argument for creating aspects based on 
  your knowledge of ranged weapons (like placing a 
  Prone to Jams aspect on an opponent’s gun).
   Attack: This skill makes physical attacks, and you 
  can make them at a distance as listed under the 
  specific category of gun or type of power. 
   Defend: Accuracy is unique in that it doesn’t really 
  have a defense component to it— you’d use Athletics 
  for that. You could use it to lay down some covering 
  fire, which might act as a defense for your allies or 
  provide opposition to someone else’s movement. 
  That could just as easily be represented by using 
  Create and Advantage, such as Covering Fire or Hail 
  of Bullets.
  Arcanum
  Arcanum is the skill if your character is in tune with 
  the mysteries of the mystic world. From knowing 
  of extradimensional entities, to knowing about the 
  dark things that exist just to the side of man’s sight, 
  to understanding ancient rituals involving blood and 
  sinew, it’s the general knowledge skill for things 
  beyond the mundane.
  Overcome:  You can use Arcanum to overcome 
  any obstacle that requires applying your character’s 
  mystical knowledge to achieve a goal. For example, 
  you might roll Arcanum to decipher some ancient 
  language in an old tome, under the presumption that 
  your character might have researched it at some 
  point. Basically, you can use Arcanum as a go-to skill 
  for arcane knowledge any time you need to know if 
  your character can answer a difficult question, where 
  some tension exists in not knowing the answer.
  You’ll also use Arcanum against the opposition in rolls 
  to create rituals.
  Create an Advantage:  Arcanum provides a lot of 
  very flexible opportunities to create advantages, 
  provided you can research the subject in question. 
  More often than not, you’ll be using Arcanum to get a 
  story detail, some obscure bit of information that you 
  uncover or know already, but if that information gives 
  you an edge in a future scene, it might take the form 
  of an aspect. Likewise, you can use the skill to create 
  advantages based on any arcane subject matter your 
  character might have studied, which gives you a fun 
  way to add details to the setting. Plus, you’ll likely 
  be using Arcanum to create aspects to assist you in 
  ritual casting.
  Attack: Arcanum isn’t used in conflict.
  Defend: You won’t use it to Defend. 
  Artificing
  Artificing is used to create and destroy mystical 
  artifacts, whether for good or ill, presuming you 
  have the time and tools you need. It does for arcane 
  artifacts what the Technology skill does for mundane 
  and super-science devices.
  Overcome:  Crafts allows you to build, break, or fix 
  mystic artifacts, presuming you have the time and 
  tools you need. Often, actions with Artificing happen 
  as one component of a more complex situation, 
  making it a popular skill for challenges.
  Create an Advantage:  You can use Artificing to 
  create aspects representing features of a mystic 
  object, such as an amulet or ancient artifact, pointing 
  out useful features or strengths you can use to your 
  advantage (Nexus of Great Power) or vulnerability 
  for you to exploit (It Hungers for Souls, or Crack in 
  the Crystal).
  Attack: You generally won’t use Artificing to attack, 
  as any artifact you create will usually use one of the 
  normal attack skills.
  Defend: Like with an attack action, you generally 
  won’t use Artificing to Defend.
  Athletics
  The Athletics skill represents your character’s general 
  level of physical fitness, whether through training, 
  natural gifts, mutation, or accident. It’s how good you 
  
  56
  are at moving your body. 
  Overcome: Athletics allows you 
  to overcome any obstacle that 
  requires physical movement— 
  jumping, 
  running, 
  climbing, 
  swimming, etc. If it resembles 
  something you’d do in the 
  decathlon, you roll Athletics. 
  You use overcome actions with 
  Athletics to move between 
  zones in a conflict if there’s 
  a situation aspect or other 
  obstacle in your way. You also 
  roll Athletics to chase or race in 
  any contests or challenges that 
  rely on these types of activities.
  Create an Advantage: When 
  you’re creating an advantage 
  with Athletics, you’re jumping 
  to high ground, running faster 
  than the opponent can keep 
  up with, or performing dazzling 
  acrobatic maneuvers in order to 
  confound your foes.
  Attack: Athletics is not meant 
  as an attack skill.
  Defend: Athletics is what you 
  would normally use to Defend 
  against ranged attacks. You can 
  also use it to defend against 
  characters trying to move past 
  you, if you’re in a position 
  to 
  physically 
  interfere 
  with 
  whoever’s making the attempt.
  Contacts
  Contacts is the skill of knowing and making 
  connections with people, whether on the street, in 
  law enforcement and government agencies, or in the 
  board room. 
   Overcome: You use Contacts to overcome any 
  obstacle related to finding someone you need to find. 
  Whether that’s old-fashioned “man on the street” 
  type of work, polling your information network, or 
  searching archives and computer databases, you’re 
  able to hunt down people or somehow get access to 
  them.
   Create an Advantage: Contacts allows you to know 
  who the perfect person to talk to is for anything you 
  might need, or to decide that you know the perfect 
  person already. It’s likely that you’ll create story 
  details with this skill, represented by aspects. (“Hey, 
  guys, my contacts tell me that John Irons is the Best 
  Mechanic For A Thousand Miles— we should talk 
  to him.”)
  You can also create an advantage that represents what 
  the word on the street is about a particular individual, 
  object, or location, based on what your contacts 
  tell you. These aspects almost always deal with 
  reputation more than fact, such as A Man Without 
  Fear or Kingpin of Crime. Whether that person lives 
  up to their reputation is anybody’s guess, though that 
  
  57
  doesn’t invalidate the aspect—people often have 
  misleading reputations that complicate their lives.
  Contacts could also be used to create aspects that 
  represent using your information network to plant or 
  acquire information. 
   Attack: Contacts isn’t used for attacks; it’s hard to 
  harm someone simply by knowing people.
   Defend: Contacts can be used to defend against 
  people creating social advantages against you, 
  provided your information network can be brought to 
  bear in the situation. You might also use it to keep 
  someone from using Deceive or Contacts to go “off 
  the grid”, or to interfere with Investigate attempts to 
  find you.
  Controlling Skill 
  (Magic/Mental/Power)
  A special set of skills used only in the control of certain 
  super-powers, which skill you choose depends on 
  the source of your powers. Arcane powers use the 
  Magic skill, while psychic powers use Mental. If your 
  powers are more traditional in nature (such as from a 
  mutation, accident of birth, or is contained within a 
  piece of technology), you’ll use Power.
  The skill doesn’t have to be taken individually for 
  each super-power it applies to (though it can be, if 
  you really want to differentiate your capabilities with 
  different powers). Simply add the appropriate skill 
  to your Skill Column, and it applies to all relevant 
  powers.
  Overcome: Whether or not the skill can be used to 
  overcome obstacles will depend on the nature of the 
  power involved. Very few powers, however, cannot 
  be used this way, so you’ll likely find a lot of use for 
  the skill.
  Create an Advantage: Some powers offers a bonus 
  to creating advantages in a scene. Typically, though, 
  this skill is useful for setting up situation aspects as 
  long as you can narrate how the specific super-power 
  applies.
  Attack: Usually, these skills are not used for attack, 
  but it’s really determined by the power’s description.
  Defend: Again, whether or not the skill applies to 
  Defend actions will depend on the power’s description.
  Deceive
  Deceive is the skill about lying to and misdirecting 
  people, whether verbally or through disguises.
   Overcome: Use Deceive to bluff your way past 
  someone, or to get someone to believe a lie, or to 
  get something out of someone because they believe 
  in one of your lies. For nameless NPCs, this is just an 
  overcome roll, but for PCs or named NPCs, it requires 
  a contest, and the target opposes with Empathy. 
  Winning this contest could justify placing a situation 
  aspect on your target, if buying into your lie could 
  help you in a future scene.
  You can also use Deceive to do small tricks of sleight-
  of-hand and misdirection.
   Create an Advantage: Use Deceive to create 
  momentary distractions, cover stories, or false 
  impressions. You could feint in a swordfight, putting 
  an opponent Off-Balance and setting you up for an 
  attack. You could do the whole, “What’s that over 
  there!” trick to give you a Head Start when you run 
  away. You could establish a Tough Street Guy cover 
  story for when you attempt to infiltrate a criminal 
  hangout (for instance, as part of an investigation). 
  You could trick someone into revealing one of their 
  aspects or other information.
   Attack: Deceive is an indirect skill that creates a lot 
  of opportunities you can capitalize on, but it doesn’t 
  do direct harm to an individual.
   Defend: You can use Deceive to throw off Investigation 
  attempts with false information and to defend against 
  efforts made to discern your true motives with the 
  Empathy skill.
  Empathy
  Empathy involves knowing and being able to spot 
  changes in a person’s mood or bearing. It’s basically 
  the emotional Notice skill.
   Overcome: You don’t really use Empathy to 
  overcome obstacles directly—normally, you find out 
  some information with it, and then use another skill to 
  act. In some cases, though, you might use Empathy 
  like you would Notice, to see if you catch a change in 
  someone’s attitude or intent.
   Create an Advantage: You can use Empathy to read 
  a person’s emotional state and get a general sense 
  
  58
  of who they are, presuming you have some kind of 
  interpersonal contact with them. Most often, you’ll 
  use this to assess the aspects on another character’s 
  sheet, but sometimes you’ll also be able to create 
  new aspects, especially on NPCs. If the target has 
  some reason to be aware that you’re trying to read 
  them, they can defend with Deceive or Rapport.
  You can also use Empathy to discover what 
  circumstances will allow you to make mental attacks 
  on someone, figuring out their breaking points. 
   Attack: Empathy can’t really be used in this capacity.
   Defend: This is the skill to go to in order to defend 
  against Deceive actions, allowing you to pierce 
  through lies and see through to someone’s true intent. 
  You can also use it to defend against those creating 
  social advantages against you in general.
  Special: Empathy is the main skill you use to help 
  others recover from consequences that are mental in 
  nature.
  Fight
  The Fight skill covers all forms of unarmed close-
  quarters combat (in other words, within the same 
  zone).
   Overcome: Since you don’t really use Fight outside of 
  a conflict, it’s not often used to overcome obstacles. 
  You might use it to display your fighting prowess in 
  a demonstration, or to participate in some kind of 
  regulated bout or sport fighting, which would allow 
  you to use this skill in a contest.
   Create an Advantage: You’ll probably use Fight 
  for most of the advantages you create in a physical 
  conflict. Any number of special moves can be 
  covered with advantages: a targeted strike to stun, a 
  “dirty move,” disarming, and so on. You could even 
  use Fight to assess another fighter’s style, spotting 
  weaknesses in his or her form that you can exploit.
   Attack: This is self-explanatory. You make physical 
  attacks with Fight. Remember, this is for close-
  in work, so you have to be relatively close to your 
  opponent
   Defend: You use Fight to defend against any other 
  attack or create an advantage attempt made with 
  Fight, as well as pretty much any action where violently 
  interposing yourself could prevent it from happening. 
  If you have a means of doing so, you can use this skill 
  to defend against Accuracy attacks, such as blocking 
  a blast with your invulnerable hands.
  Investigate
  Investigate is the skill you use to find things out. It’s 
  a counterpart to Notice— whereas Notice revolves 
  around situational alertness and surface observation, 
  Investigate revolves around concentrated effort and 
  in-depth scrutiny.
   Overcome: Investigate obstacles are all about 
  information that’s hard to uncover for some reason. 
  Analyzing a crime scene for clues, searching a 
  cluttered room for the item you need, even poring 
  over a musty old tome to try and find the passage 
  that makes everything make sense.
  Racing against the clock to collect evidence before 
  the cops show up or disaster occurs is a classic way 
  to use Investigate in a challenge. 
   Create an Advantage: Investigate is probably one 
  of the most versatile skills you can use to create an 
  advantage. As long as you’re willing to take the time, 
  you can find out just about anything about anyone, 
  discover nearly any detail about a place or object, or 
  otherwise make up aspects about nearly anything in 
  the game world that your character could reasonably 
  unearth.
  If that sounds broad, consider the following as 
  just a few of the possibilities for using Investigate: 
  eavesdropping on a conversation, looking for clues at 
  a crime scene, examining records, verifying the truth 
  of a piece of information, conducting surveillance, 
  and researching a cover story. 
   Attack: Investigate isn’t used to make attacks.
   Defend: Same here.
  Knowledge
  A broad skill that represents your character’s 
  academic knowledge. A Mediocre (+0) rating in 
  Knowledge means the character has a general high 
  school education, or may be just beginning his 
  college career.
  Overcome: Knowledge is used to overcome any 
  obstacle that requires academic knowledge of a 
  particular topic, such as knowing what area of a 
  city is controlled by a particular street gang, what 
  technicalities might see a criminal walk free from 
  the justice system, or any other topic where your 
  
  59
  character’s research and general reading on the 
  matter would come in handy.
  Create an Advantage: Knowledge is useful for 
  creating advantages to get a story detail or to 
  establish that you have a slight edge in something 
  because of your expertise on the subject. By creating 
  advantages based on the character’s studies, it gives 
  you a cool way to add new details to a scene or story.
  Attack:  Knowledge is not used to attack.
  Defend:  Knowledge doesn’t really do anything for 
  Defend.
  Leadership
  Your character is a born leader on the battlefield, able 
  to command of others and devise strategies based 
  on the strengths of your allies, and the weaknesses 
  of your enemies. While Empathy might help you 
  understand people better, and Rapport allows you to 
  get them to like and trust you (both good additional 
  skills to take), Leadership is about leading them into 
  dangerous situations and understanding what is 
  needed to bring them back out alive.
  Overcome: Mostly, Leadership is used to 
  overcome difficulties in combat, such as figuring 
  out an opponent’s weakness, knowing how best 
  to direct your teammates, and what battlefield 
  tactics to expect from those you’ve faced before, 
  or at least studied. Most uses of the skill will involve 
  advice from the GM in the form of knowledge your 
  character would possess concerning the present 
  battlefield and opponents.
  Create an Advantage: Whether it is bolstering the 
  team with a well-placed battle-cry, directing them 
  on how best to work together, providing direct 
  support to a fellow hero where it’s needed most, 
  or recognizing situations on the field that could 
  be used to your advantage, Leadership provides 
  a wide range of options for creating aspects, 
  allowing you to spotlight your character’s tactical 
  genius.
  Attack: Leadership is not use to directly attack 
  an opponent.
  Defend:  Leadership doesn’t assist directly with 
  Defend actions.
  Notice
  The Notice skill involves just that— noticing things. 
  It’s a counterpart to Investigate, representing a 
  character’s overall perception, ability to pick out 
  details at a glance, and other powers of observation. 
  Usually, when you use Notice, it’s very quick 
  compared to Investigate, so the kinds of details you 
  get from it are more superficial, but you also don’t 
  have to expend as much effort to find them.
  Notice is also rolled to determine initiative in conflicts.
   Overcome: You don’t really use Notice to overcome 
  obstacles too often but when you do it’s used in a 
  reactive way: noticing something in a scene, hearing 
  a faint sound, spotting the concealed gun in that 
  guy’s waistband.
  Note that this isn’t license for GMs to call for Notice 
  rolls left and right to see how generally observant 
  the players’ characters are; that’s boring. Instead, 
  call for Notice rolls when succeeding would result in 
  something interesting happening and failing would 
  result in something just as interesting. 
  
  60
  Create an Advantage: You use Notice to create 
  aspects based on direct observation—looking over 
  a room for details that stand out, finding an escape 
  route in a debris-filled building, noticing someone 
  sticking out in a crowd, etc. When you’re watching 
  people, Notice can tell you what’s going on with them 
  externally; for internal changes, see Empathy. You 
  might also use Notice to declare that your character 
  spots something you can use to your advantage in a 
  situation, such as a convenient Escape Route when 
  you’re trying to get out of a building, or a Subtle 
  Weakness in the enemy’s defense. For example, if 
  you’re in a back alley brawl you could make a Notice 
  roll to say that you spot a puddle on the ground, right 
  next to your opponent’s feet that could cause him to 
  slip.
  Attack: Notice isn’t really used for attacks.
  Defend: You can use Notice to defend against any 
  uses of Stealth to get the drop on you or ambush you, 
  or to discover that you’re being observed.
  Physique
  The Physique skill is a counterpart to Athletics, 
  representing 
  the 
  character’s 
  natural 
  physical 
  aptitudes, such as raw strength and endurance. 
  Overcome: You can use Physique to overcome 
  any obstacles that require the application of brute 
  force—most often to overcome a situation aspect 
  on a zone—or any other physical impedance, like 
  prison bars or locked gates. Of course, Physique is 
  the classic skill for arm-wrestling matches and other 
  contests of applied strength, as well as marathons or 
  other endurance-based challenges.
  Create an Advantage: Physique has a lot of potential 
  for advantages in physical conflict, usually related to 
  grappling and holding someone in place, making them 
  Pinned or Locked Down. You might also use it as a 
  way of discovering physical impairments possessed 
  by the target.
  Attack: Physique is not used to harm people directly—
  see the Fight skill for that.
  Defend: Though you don’t generally use Physique 
  to defend against attacks, you can use it to provide 
  active opposition to someone else’s movement, 
  provided you’re in a small enough space that you can 
  effectively use your body to block access. You might 
  also interpose something heavy and brace it to stop 
  someone from getting through.
  Special: The Physique skill gives you additional 
  physical stress or consequence slots. Average (+1) 
  or Fair (+2) gives you 1 extra stress box. Good (+3) or 
  Great (+4) gives you 2 extra stress boxes. Superb (+5) 
  and above give you an additional mild consequence 
  slot along with the additional stress boxes. This slot 
  can only be used for physical harm.
  Lifting: To lift a weight, make a Physique roll in an 
  Overcome action against the indicated opposition.
  Lifting Opposition 
  Mediocre (+0)
  50 lbs
  Average (+1)
  100 lbs
  Fair (+2)
  200 lbs
  Good (+3)
  300 lbs
  Great (+4)
  400 lbs
  Superb (+5)
  500 lbs
  Fantastic (+6)
  600 lbs
  Epic (+7)
  800 lbs
  Monstrous (+8)
  1000 lbs
  Colossal (+10)
  1400 lbs
  Unearthly (+11)
  1600 lbs
  Inconceivable (+12)
  2000 lbs
  Provoke
  Provoke is the skill about getting someone’s dander 
  up and eliciting negative emotional response from 
  them, such as: fear, anger, shame, annoyance, and 
  so forth.
  To use Provoke, you need some kind of justification. 
  That could come entirely from situation, or because 
  you have an aspect that’s appropriate, or because 
  you’ve created an advantage with another skill (like 
  Rapport or Deceive), or because you’ve assessed 
  your target’s aspects (see Empathy).
  This skill requires that your target can feel 
  emotions— androids and mechanical minions 
  typically can’t be provoked.
  Overcome: You can Provoke someone into doing 
  what you want in a fit of emotional pique. You might 
  
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  intimidate them for information, piss them off so 
  badly that they act out, or scare them into running 
  away. This will often happen when you’re going up 
  against nameless NPCs or it isn’t worthwhile to play 
  out the particulars. Against PCs or important NPCs, 
  you’ll need to win a contest. They oppose with Will.
  Create an Advantage: You can create advantages 
  representing momentary emotional states, like 
  Enraged, Shocked, or Hesitant. Your target 
  opposes with Will.
  Attack: You can make mental attacks with Provoke, 
  to do emotional harm to an opponent. Your 
  relationship with the target and the circumstances 
  you’re in figure a great deal into whether or not you 
  can use this action.
  Defend: Being good at provoking others doesn’t 
  make you better at avoiding it yourself. You need 
  Will for that.
  Rapport
  The Rapport skill is all about making positive 
  connections to people and eliciting positive emotion. 
  It’s the skill of being liked and trusted.
  Overcome: Use Rapport to charm or inspire people to 
  do what you want, or to establish a good connection 
  with them. Charm your way past the thugs, convince 
  someone to take you into their confidence, or become 
  the man of the hour at the local bar. For nameless 
  NPCs, this is just an overcome action, but you may 
  have to enter a contest to sufficiently ingratiate 
  yourself to a named NPC or PC.
  Create an Advantage: Use Rapport to establish 
  a positive mood on a target or in a scene or to get 
  someone to confide in you out of a genuine sense 
  of trust. You could pep talk someone into having 
  Elevated Confidence, or stir a crowd into a Joyful 
  Fervor, or simply make someone Talkative or Helpful.
  Attack: Rapport doesn’t cause harm, so you don’t 
  use it for attacks.
  Defend: Rapport defends against any skill used 
  to damage your reputation, sour a mood you’ve 
  created, or make you look bad in front of other 
  people. It does not, however, defend against mental 
  attacks. That requires Will.
  Resources
  Resources describes your character’s general level of 
  material wealth and ability to apply it. This is not just 
  your cash on hand, but also the net worth of all your 
  assets and credit lines. It represents your purchasing 
  power, lifestyle, and ability to make money do the 
  talking for you.
  Overcome: You can use Resources to get yourself 
  out of or past any situation where throwing money 
  at the problem will help, such as committing bribery 
  or acquiring rare and expensive things. Challenges or 
  contests might involve auctions or bidding wars.
  Create an Advantage: You might use Resources to 
  grease the wheels and make people more likely to 
  help you achieve your goals, whether that represents 
  an actual bribe, or putting out a reward on an enemy’s 
  head to make their life difficult. You can also use 
  Resources to declare that you have something you 
  need on hand, or can quickly acquire it, which could 
  give you an aspect representing the object.
  Attack: Resources isn’t used for attacks.
  Defend: Resources isn’t used to defend.
  Available Funds
  Currency isn’t typically measured in comic books, a 
  character is usually strapped for cash, is independently 
  wealthy, or are somewhere in between. In the Daring 
  Comics, your wealth is tied directly into your Resource 
  skill rating. Instead of tracking actual monetary worth, 
  which isn’t fun for most people and isn’t really a factor 
  in most comic books, purchasing something is a 
  simple Overcome action. The guidelines for what can 
  be purchased at what opposition are shown below. 
  These are just guidelines (it would be impossible to 
  account for everything), but should give a GM enough 
  of a gauge when assigning opposition.
  
  62
  Purchase Opposition
  Opposition
  Types of 
  Purchases
  Mediocre (+0)
  Everyday Items
  Average (+1)
  Most street level 
  firearms, high-
  end electronics
  Fair (+2)
  High-end Firearms, 
  Top of the line 
  consumer electronics
  Good (+3)
  Average vehicle, 
  SOTA electronics
  Great (+4)
  Top-end vehicle, 
  Average house
  Superb (+5)
  Small Mansion
  Fantastic (+6)
  Large Mansion
  Epic (+7)
  Military vehicles 
  such as a tank.
  Monstrous (+8)
  Fighter jet, private 
  luxury jet
  Colossal (+10)
  A Skyscraper
  Unearthly (+11)
  A private space craft
  Inconceivable (+12)
  You can buy real 
  estate off world.
  Stealth
  The Stealth skill allows you to avoid detection, both 
  when hiding in place and trying to move about unseen. 
  It pairs well with the Thief skill.
  Overcome: You can use Stealth to get past any 
  situation that primarily depends on you not being 
  seen. Sneaking past sentries and security, hiding 
  from a pursuer, avoiding leaving evidence as you 
  pass through a place, and any other such uses all fall 
  under the purview of Stealth.
  Create an Advantage: You’ll mainly use Stealth to 
  create aspects on yourself, setting yourself in an ideal 
  position for an attack or ambush in a conflict. That 
  way, you can be Well-Hidden when the patrol passes 
  you in the secret villain lair and take advantage of 
  that, or Hard to Pin Down if you’re fighting in the dark.
  Attack: Stealth isn’t used to make attacks.
  Defend: You can use this to foil Notice attempts to 
  pinpoint you or seek you out, as well as to try to throw 
  off the scent of an Investigate attempt from someone 
  trying to track you.
  Technology
  Characters with this skill understand the mechanics 
  of how things operate, from primitive catapults, 
  to modern vehicles, and even powered-armor or 
  alien technology. Like with the Knowledge skill, the 
  Technology skill represents a broad knowledge, 
  while Stunts allow you to narrow your character’s 
  true areas of expertise.
  Overcome: Technology is used to overcome obstacles 
  that relate to repairing anything from a car, to a computer, 
  to alien and super-science technology. You’ll also use 
  it for hacking through computer systems, as well as 
  bypassing electronic security devices. When you 
  discover a piece of mysterious technology, you’ll also 
  use the skill to figure out how it works, and whether or 
  not it is about to go BOOM! Technology is also used 
  for inventing any non-magical device.
  Create an Advantage: Primarily, Technology is used 
  to create situational advantages that will assist you 
  in overcoming obstacles, such as having advanced 
  tools on hand, getting a brain-storm, or having some 
  other type of technological knowledge asset that 
  gives you an edge.
  Attack: You probably won’t use Technology to attack 
  in a conflict, unless the conflict is directly about 
  using some sort of machinery. GMs and players, talk 
  over the likelihood of this happening in your game if 
  you have someone who is really interested in taking 
  this skill. Usually, weapons you invent are likely to be 
  used with other skills to attack— a guy who makes 
  an ice gun still needs Accuracy to have a chance of 
  hitting his target.
  Defend: As with attacking, Technology doesn’t 
  defend, unless you’re somehow using it as the skill 
  to control a piece of machinery that you can use to 
  block an attack.
  
  63
  Thief
  The Thief skill covers your character’s aptitude for 
  stealing things and getting into places that are off-
  limits.
  Thief shares one benefit with Technology, which is 
  knowledge of electronic security systems. So, if your 
  character is skilled and breaking-and-entering, but 
  isn’t necessarily knowledgeable in a broader range 
  of technology, the Thief skill will serve your purposes 
  just fine.
  Overcome: As stated above, Thief allows you to 
  overcome any obstacle related to theft or infiltration. 
  Bypassing electronic locks and motion sensors, 
  pickpocketing and filching, covering your tracks, and 
  other such activities all fall under the purview of this 
  skill.
  Create an Advantage: You can case a location with 
  Thief, to determine how hard it will be to break into 
  and what kind of security you’re dealing with, as well 
  as discover any vulnerabilities you might exploit. 
  You can also examine the work of other burglars to 
  determine how a particular heist was done, and create 
  or discover aspects related to whatever evidence 
  they may have left behind.
  Attack: Thief isn’t used for attacks.
  Defend: Same here. It’s not really a conflict skill, so 
  there’s not a lot of opportunity to use it to defend.
  Treatment
  This skill covers the treatment and diagnosis of 
  physical injuries, and is used to treat patients such 
  as with first-aid, quick suturing, or even emergency 
  surgery.
  Overcome: Treatment will mostly be used when 
  healing another’s physical injuries, and as such will 
  have to overcome the Opposition to do so. It can also 
  be used to notice when someone else (such as an 
  opponent) is injured and trying to hide, which means 
  that Treatment would be used instead of the Notice 
  skill and would be opposed by the other’s Deceive 
  skill.
   Create an Advantage: The Treatment skill offers an 
  interesting range of options when creating advantages 
  on a patient, from hitting them up with Pain Reducing 
  Drugs to giving them a Boost of Adrenaline.
  Attack: Treatment is not used to attack.
  Defend: Treatment does not apply to a Defend action.
  Vehicles
  The Vehicles skill is all about operating vehicles 
  and things that go fast— everything from cars and 
  motorcycles, to boats, to aircraft and space vessels.
  Overcome: Vehicles is the equivalent of Athletics 
  when you’re in a vehicle—you use it to successfully 
  accomplish movement in the face of difficult 
  circumstances, like rough terrain, small amounts of 
  clearance, or stunt driving. Obviously, Vehicles is also 
  ripe for contests, especially chases and races.
  Create an Advantage: You can use Vehicles to 
  determine the best way to get somewhere in a vehicle, 
  and a good enough roll might allow you to learn 
  features of the route that get expressed as aspects, 
  or declare that you know a Convenient Shortcut or 
  something similar.
   You can also just read the Athletics description, and 
  then make it about a vehicle. Advantages created 
  using Vehicles often revolve around getting good 
  positioning, doing a fancy maneuver, or putting your 
  opponent in a bad spot. 
  Attack: Vehicles isn’t usually used as an attack skill 
  (though stunts can certainly alter this). If you want to 
  ram a vehicle, you can attack with Vehicles, but you 
  take the same shifts of harm you inflict.
  Defend: Avoiding damage to a vehicle in a physical 
  conflict is one of the most common uses of Vehicles. 
  You can also use it to defend against advantages 
  being created against you or overcome actions of 
  someone trying to move past you in a vehicle.
  Weapons
  Shields, swords, maces, batons, fighting sticks— 
  these are just more tools of your trade when you’re 
  trained in the Weapons skill. 
  Overcome: Just as with Fight, you don’t really use 
  Weapons outside of a conflict, it’s not often used to 
  overcome obstacles. 
  Create an Advantage: Again, same as with Fight, 
  and we’ll just repeat it here: You’ll probably use 
  Weapons for most of the advantages you create in a 
  physical conflict. Any number of special moves can 
  be covered with advantages: a targeted strike to stun, 
  
  64
  a “dirty move,” disarming, and so on. 
  Attack: Naturally, this is a skill for melee fighting, 
  which means you’ll have to be close to your opponent.
  Defend: Blocks, parries, and deflections— Weapons 
  is a key skill for defense.
  Will
  The Will skill represents your character’s general 
  level of mental fortitude, the same way Physique 
  represents your physical fortitude.
  Overcome: You can use Will to pit yourself against 
  obstacles that require mental effort. Puzzles and 
  riddles can fall under this category, as well as any 
  mentally absorbing task, like deciphering a code. 
  Use Will when it’s only a matter of time before you 
  overcome the mental challenge, and Knowledge if it 
  takes something more than brute mental force to get 
  past it. Many of the obstacles that you go up against 
  with Will might be made part of challenges, to reflect 
  the effort involved.
  Contests of Will might reflect particularly challenging 
  games, like chess, or competing in a hard set of 
  exams.
  Will also serves as your defense against psychic and 
  mystical attacks 
  Create an Advantage: You can use Will to place 
  aspects on yourself, representing a state of deep 
  concentration or focus.
  Attack: Will isn’t really used for attacks. 
  Defend: Will is the main skill you use to defend 
  against mental attacks from Provoke, representing 
  your control over your reactions. It is also used in 
  Defend actions against psychic and mental attacks.
  Special: The Will skill gives you additional mental 
  stress boxes or consequence slots. Average (+1) or 
  Fair (+2) gives you 1 extra stress box. Good (+3) or 
  Great (+4) gives you 2 extra stress boxes. Superb (+5) 
  and above give you an additional mild consequence 
  slot along with the additional stress boxes. This slot 
  can only be used for mental harm.
  
  65
  Chapter 8: Stunts
  There are three basic things a stunt can do, as detailed 
  below.
  Add a New Action to a Skill
  The most basic option for a stunt is to allow a skill 
  to do something that it normally can’t do. It adds a 
  new action onto the base skill in certain situations, 
  for those with this stunt. This new action can be one 
  that’s available to another skill (allowing one skill to 
  swap for another under certain circumstances), or 
  one that’s not available to any skill.
  Attention to Detail: You can use Investigate instead 
  of Empathy to defend against Deceive attempts. 
  What others discover through gut reactions and 
  intuition, you learn through careful observation of 
  minute expression.
  Quick Draw: You can use Accuracy instead of Notice 
  to determine turn order in any physical conflict where 
  shooting quickly would be useful.
  Strike from the Shadows: You can use Stealth to 
  make physical attacks, provided your target isn’t 
  already aware of your presence.
  Unnatural Aura: You can use Provoke to enter the 
  kinds of contests that you’d normally need Physique 
  for, whenever your ability to psych your opponent 
  out with the force of your presence alone would be 
  a factor.
  Create a Rules Exception
  Finally, a stunt can allow a skill to make a single 
  exception, in a narrow circumstance, for any other 
  game rule that doesn’t precisely fit into the category 
  of an action. The Comic Book Action chapter is full 
  of different little rules about the circumstances under 
  which a skill can be used and what happens when 
  you use them. Stunts can break those, allowing your 
  character to stretch the boundaries of the possible.
  The only limit to this is that a stunt can’t change any 
  of the basic rules for aspects in terms of invoking, 
  compelling, and the fate point economy. Those 
  always remain the same.
  Eavesdropper: On a successful Investigate roll 
  to create an advantage by eavesdropping on a 
  A stunt is a special trait your character has that 
  changes the way a skill works for you. Stunts indicate 
  some special, privileged way a character uses a skill 
  that is unique to whoever has that stunt, which is a 
  pretty common trope in a lot of settings— special or 
  elite training, exceptional talents, the mark of destiny, 
  genetic alteration, innate coolness, and a myriad of 
  other reasons all explain why some people get more 
  out of their skills than others do.
  Unlike skills, which are about the sort of things 
  anyone can do in your campaign, stunts are about 
  individual characters. Although all the characters on 
  a team might have the same skill, their stunts will 
  differentiate them from each other.
  Stunt Creation Examples
  All of the stunts shown as examples under 
  the stunt Creation rules are listed as part 
  of the sample stunts as well. Some sample 
  stunts have also been drawn from other Fate 
  system products thanks to various System 
  Reference Documents and the Open Gaming 
  License. In such instances, they were stunts 
  we also felt were already seen in super-hero 
  comic books, and didn’t feel that reinventing 
  them purely for the sake of doing so would 
  have been in the spirit of the SRD and OGL. 
  Gamers who already owned such other 
  products were already familiar with those 
  specific stunt designs.
  Basic Stunt Creation
  Daring Comics allows players to take stunts during 
  character creation, or leave open the option to take 
  stunts during play. There are a number of example 
  stunts listed in this chapter. These are not a hard 
  and fast list; rather, they’re there to show you how to 
  create your own (though you can certainly lift directly 
  from the book if you’d like to).
  Creating your own stunts is not hard, and in fact we 
  encourage you to do. Not only is it an investment in the 
  development of your hero, but stunts can also say a lot 
  about the style of comic book series you’re creating.
  
  66
  conversation, you can discover or create one 
  additional aspect (though this doesn’t give you an 
  extra free invocation).
  Iron Will: You can choose to ignore a mild consequence 
  for the duration of the scene. It can’t be compelled 
  against you or invoked by your enemies. At the end 
  of the scene it comes back worse, though; increase 
  the consequence to moderate. If Moderate is already 
  taken, it becomes Severe. If for some reason you 
  can’t increase the consequence, you are Taken Out.
  Take the Blow: You can use Physique to defend 
  against Fight attacks made with fists or blunt 
  instruments, though you always take 1 shift of stress 
  on a tie.
  Add a Bonus to an Action 
  under Specific 
  Circumstances
  Another use for a stunt is to give a skill 
  an automatic bonus under a particular, 
  very narrow circumstance, effectively 
  letting 
  a 
  character 
  specialize 
  in 
  something. The circumstance should 
  be narrower than what the normal 
  action allows, and only apply to one 
  particular action or pair of actions.
  The usual bonus is +2 to the skill total. 
  However, if you want, you can also 
  express the bonus as two shifts of 
  additional effect after the roll succeeds, 
  if that makes more sense. Remember, 
  higher shifts on a roll allow your action 
  to be more effective in certain ways.
  You can also use this to establish 
  any effect worth two shifts as an 
  additional benefit of succeeding at 
  the skill roll. This might be Fair (+2) 
  passive opposition, the equivalent 
  of a 2-point hit, a mild consequence, 
  or an advantage that takes Fair (+2) 
  opposition to remove.
  Killing Stroke: Once per scene, 
  when you force an opponent to take 
  a consequence, you can spend a fate 
  point to increase the consequence’s 
  severity (so mild becomes moderate, 
  moderate becomes severe). If your 
  opponent was already going to take a 
  severe consequence, he must either 
  take a severe consequence and a 
  second consequence or be taken out.
  Lead Rain: You really like emptying magazines. Any 
  time you’re using a fully automatic weapon and you 
  succeed at an Accuracy attack, you automatically 
  create a Fair (+2) opposition against movement in 
  that zone until your next turn, because of all the lead 
  in the air. (Normally, you’d need to take a separate 
  action to set up this kind of interference, but with the 
  stunt, it’s free.)
  Man of Industry: Gain a +2 bonus to any attempt 
  to overcome obstacles with Rapport when you’re 
  at corporate function, such as a trade show, board 
  meeting, or business related negotiation.
  Master of Shadows: Gain a +2 bonus to create an 
  advantage using Stealth, whenever the situation 
  specific has to do with using darkness and shadows.
  
  67
  Advanced Stunt Creation
  In addition to the three basic forms a stunt can take, 
  you can also expand that a little further with some 
  advanced stunt creation techniques, as shown 
  below. Be warned, though, that they can make 
  creating stunts a little trickier, and can easily throw a 
  stunt slightly out of balance. Of course, it’s difficult 
  to create a stunt that will break your story, and you 
  can always adjust it during play if it proves to be a 
  bit too powerful.
  Triggered Effects
  A triggered effect stunt is a stunt that— well— triggers 
  under a specific narrative condition, requires a skill 
  roll, and has a specific effect as a result. These types 
  of stunts are very useful when you want to see the 
  characters do certain types of things in the game, as 
  the stunts directly reward such actions.
  Now, you’ll notice that the following stunt examples 
  do not say what happens when the roll fails. It’s 
  deliberate. These triggered effects tend to be 
  powerful, so their drawbacks should be equally so. 
  A tie should be similar to a success, but at some 
  sort of minor cost. On a failure, feel free to apply 
  appropriate repercussions.
  Lead By Example: When you first take a Moderate 
  or Severe Consequence while in battle alongside 
  your teammates and continue to fight, roll Leadership 
  against Fair (+2) opposition. On a success, your 
  teammates gain +1 to their next single Defend or 
  Attack action, as they’re inspired by your “never say 
  die” determination. On a success with style, they get 
  a +1 to their next single Attack and Defend action, 
  and you still place a Boost as normal.
  Intimidating Presence: When you make it clear how 
  dangerous you are, roll Provoke against your target’s 
  Will. If you succeed, that target will not attack you 
  or willingly come near you unless you take action 
  against him first. If you succeed with style, neither 
  will anyone with a lower Will than your target.
  Fate Point-Powered Stunts
  Another way to restrict how often a stunt comes 
  into play is to have it cost a fate point to use. This 
  is a good option if the desired stunt effect is very 
  powerful, or there doesn’t seem to be a good way 
  for you to change the wording of the stunt to make it 
  come up less often in play.
  Our best advice for determining what really powerful 
  means is that it either goes beyond the specified limits 
  we gave above (so, if it adds a new action to a skill and 
  a bonus), or significantly affects conflicts. Specifically, 
  almost any stunt that allows you to do extra stress in 
  a conflict should cost a fate point to use (keep in mind 
  that powers do not share this rule, as explained in 
  Building Powers section in Chapter 9: Powers).
  Ninja Vanish: Once per scene, you can vanish while 
  in plain sight by spending a fate point, using a smoke 
  pellet or other mysterious technique. This places the 
  Vanished boost on you. While you’re vanished, no one 
  can attack or create an advantage on you until after 
  they’ve succeeded at an overcome roll with Notice 
  to determine where you went (basically meaning they 
  have to give up an exchange to try). This boost goes 
  away as soon as you invoke it, or someone makes 
  that overcome roll.
  Situational Reflexes: You may spend a fate point to 
  go first in an exchange, regardless of your initiative. 
  If multiple people with this stunt exercise this ability, 
  they go in turn of their normal initiative, before those 
  who don’t have the stunt get a chance to act. If the 
  exchange has already started, and you have not yet 
  acted, you may instead spend a fate point to act next, 
  out of the usual turn order.
  Stunt Families
  If you want to get detailed about a particular kind of 
  training or talent, you can create a stunt family for it. 
  This is a group of stunts that are related to and chain 
  off of each other somehow.
  Creating a stunt family is easy. You make one stunt 
  that serves as a prerequisite for all the others in the 
  family, qualifying you to take further stunts up the 
  chain. Then, you need to create a handful of stunts 
  that are all related somehow to the prerequisite, 
  either stacking the effects or branching out into 
  another set of effects.
  Stacking effects is perhaps the simplest way of 
  handling a related stunt, and is just making the original 
  stunt more effective in the same situation:
  If the stunt added an action, narrow it further and give 
  the new action a bonus. Follow the same rules for 
  adding a bonus— the circumstances in which it applies 
  should be narrower than that of the base action.
  If the stunt gave a bonus to an action, give an 
  additional +2 bonus to the same action or add an 
  additional two-shift effect to that action.
  
  68
  If the stunt made a rules exception, make it even more 
  of an exception. This might be difficult depending on 
  what the original exception is. Don’t worry, though, 
  you have other options.
  Keep in mind that the upgraded stunt effectively 
  replaces the original. You can look at it as a single 
  super-stunt that costs two points for the price of 
  being more powerful than other stunts.
  Here are some stunts examples that stack:
  Into the Fray: You’re at your best when facing a group 
  of opponents. Whenever you are outnumbered in a fight 
  (meaning your opponents have a bonus for teamwork 
  against you), you do an extra Shift of damage.
  Everywhere at Once (Requires Into the Fray): You 
  know how to use a group of opponents against each 
  other. Whenever facing two or more opponents at 
  once, you gain a +2 to Fight. 
  One-Man Army (Requires Everywhere at Once): 
  You are a one-man army; the odds don’t matter 
  to you. Whenever you are attacked, opponents 
  simply do not get a bonus to their attacks due to an 
  advantage of numbers.
  Branching Effects
  When you branch, you create a new stunt that 
  relates to the original in terms of theme or subject 
  matter, but provides a wholly new effect. If you 
  look at stacking effects as expanding a stunt or 
  skill vertically, you can look at branching effects as 
  expanding them horizontally.
  If your original stunt added an action to a skill, a 
  branching stunt might add a different action to 
  that skill, or it might provide a bonus to a different 
  action the skill already has, or create a rules 
  exception. The mechanical effect isn’t connected 
  to the prerequisite stunt at all, but provides a 
  complementary bit of versatility.
  This allows you to provide a few different paths 
  that follow from a single stunt. You can use this 
  to highlight different elements of a certain skill 
  and help characters who are highly ranked in the 
  same skill differentiate from each other by following 
  different stunt families.
  As an example of how this works, let’s take a look 
  at the Contacts skill, and one way we could create 
  some branching stunts which represent using one’s 
  reputation to an advantage.
  Big Man: When selecting this stunt, the player 
  picks a specific field (Criminal, Business, Politics, 
  Espionage and Occult are the most common); this 
  stunt is often written with that field incorporated, 
  e.g., Big Man in Politics. The character is not merely 
  well connected in that community, he is actually 
  a person of great importance within that area; for 
  maximum benefit, this should be paired with an 
  aspect that indicates similar things.
  In addition to the narrative benefits of such a position, 
  the character may use his Contacts skill in lieu of the 
  Resources skill for anything which might fall under 
  the auspices of members in that field. This stunt may 
  be taken multiple times, each time for a different field.
  Talk the Talk (Requires Big Man): Whenever dealing 
  with members of your chosen field, you put out all 
  the right signals, say all the right things. In such 
  circumstances, you may roll your Rapport at +2, or, 
  alternatively, use your Contacts instead of Rapport, 
  in order to get a favorable reaction.
  Big Name (Requires Big Man): You’re so well known 
  that an awareness of your name has crossed over 
  into other areas as well. The first time you deal with 
  someone who’s heard of you (spending a fate point 
  can assure that they have), and you’re using your 
  name, you get a +2 bonus to a Rapport or Provoke roll.
  Big Reputation (Requires Big Name): Your 
  reputation has reached great proportions, and people 
  are willing to believe all sorts of things about you.
  For a fate point, you may use your Contacts skill 
  instead of Rapport, Provoke, Deceive, Leadership, or 
  Will, provided those you are dealing with are aware of 
  your reputation (a second fate point will nearly always 
  assure that they do).
  This stunt combines with the bonus from Big Name, 
  getting the character a +2 to Contacts when using it 
  instead of Rapport or Provoke.
  Broad Stunts
  If you’re looking for more variety in your stunts than a 
  +2 or its equivalent, consider the idea of a broad stunt 
  that offers a +1 to two or three things. These could 
  be three different actions within the same skill, or 
  could branch across multiple related skills. If you’re 
  going to allow broad stunts like this, watch out for the 
  overlaps in stunt combinations: you don’t want two 
  broad stunts giving the net effect of three +2’s for the 
  price of only two stunts.
  
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  Combined Stunts
  If you want to offer particularly potent stunts, consider 
  bundling the benefit of multiple stunts together to 
  produce a single big effect. For example, you could 
  create a stunt that provides a monstrous 4-shift 
  effect¬—that’s a combination of two stunts, and as 
  such would cost two Hero Points.
  Stunts as Special Effects
  Sometimes it will make sense to include stunts as 
  part of a Power Set, such as Uncanny Agility or 
  Superhuman Agility as a part of a Super-Speed set, 
  or a Physique stunt as part of an Invulnerability set.
  That’s perfectly acceptable. What you are saying is 
  that the stunt is tied directly into the power, so if the 
  power is somehow nullified, you also lose access to 
  the stunt’s effect. Since Special Effects are designed 
  the same as stunts, it doesn’t break or unbalance 
  anything to treat any normal stunt as a power Special 
  Effect.
  Stunts and Power 
  Special Effect Overlap
  In some cases, a stunt shares the exact same 
  effect with a power special effect under a 
  different name. This is because some effects 
  work great when combined with a power, but 
  also work just as well if taken as a stunt— a 
  part of a character representing some sort of 
  training.
  Watch for those type of stunts vs special 
  effects, because the benefits do not stack.
  Sample Stunts
  Okay, so now that you’ve seen all the various methods 
  to creating your own stunts, the rest of this chapter 
  lists plenty of sample stunts that we’ve included for 
  you. The sample stunts can be purchased and added 
  directly to your character sheet if you find some that 
  fit your character’s concept. 
  Accuracy Stunts
  Any Object is a Bullet
  Once per conflict your hero can declare any small 
  object to be a ranged weapon when thrown by him. 
  Thrown attacks with the object have Weapon: 2 rating.
  Lead Rain
   You really like emptying magazines. Any time you’re 
  using a fully automatic weapon and you succeed at an 
  Accuracy attack, you automatically create a Fair (+2) 
  opposition against movement in that zone until your 
  next turn because of all the lead in the air. (Normally, 
  you’d need to take a separate action to set up this 
  kind of interference, but with the stunt, it’s free.)
  Quick Draw
  You can use Accuracy instead of Notice to determine 
  turn order in any physical conflict where shooting 
  quickly would be useful.
  Ricochet Expert
  You’re an expert when bouncing your attack off 
  surfaces to strike your target. You can perform a 
  ricochet twice per conflict, and you can bounce it off 
  of two surfaces before your opponents start accruing 
  bonuses per additional surface (see: Combat Tactics 
  for ricochet rules).
  Superior Marksman
  You’re extremely adept at taking aim on someone. 
  When you succeed with style when placing an 
  aspect to represent taking aim, you get an additional 
  free invocation.
  Trick Shot
  When using your ranged weapon to create a Situation 
  Aspect representing taking a fancy shot, such as 
  shooting the chain holding a chandelier, or shooting a 
  gun out of a thugs hand for a Disarmed aspect, you 
  get +2 to the roll.
  Arcanum Stunts
  Fortune Telling
  Fortune-telling is a form of the Create an Advantage 
  action. The character may, once per Issue, make a 
  
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  prediction, and make a roll against a difficulty set by 
  the GM. If the roll is successful, it’s a true fortune, 
  and there is now an aspect that represents it. If the 
  target of the fortune was a person, they receive the 
  temporary aspect for the duration of the Story Arc. 
  If it was a general prediction, it is considered to be 
  a scene aspect on every scene for the duration of 
  the Story Arc.
  Hypnotic Voice
  When interacting with others socially, you are able 
  to weave the patterns and methods of mesmerism 
  into your words, potentially putting someone you’re 
  talking to into a partial trance without them realizing 
  it. Provided you have had several minutes of calm 
  conversation with another character as a preamble, 
  you may start using your Arcanum skill instead 
  of Rapport or Deceit. You may not make such a 
  substitution if the conversation becomes strongly 
  charged with emotion or if other distractions break 
  the air of calm. This stunt works even when dealing 
  with an unwilling subject (in part because it simply 
  allows you to substitute Arcanum for the perfectly 
  normal functions of Rapport and Deceit).
  Sixth Sense
  You may use Arcanum instead of Notice when it 
  involves things that are mystical or sorcerous in nature. 
  Powerful Sixth Sense
  (Requires Sixth Sense)
  When using Arcanum in a Create an Advantage action 
  to discover an aspect, you gain +2 to the roll.
  Artificing Stunts
  A Kind of Magic
  When you succeed with style while creating an 
  artifact, you also get a free invocation of a single 
  aspect possessed by the artifact.
  Master Artificer
  When creating an artifact, you ignore the first two 
  points of opposition increase for the artifact being 
  a higher quality than your workshop. Beginning at 
  +3 points of higher artifact quality, your opposition 
  is still increased by +3, but you suffer no opposition 
  increase for the first two points. 
  Warded Workshop
  When you succeed at a major cost when creating 
  an artifact, your artifact suffers a Flaw aspect (as 
  though you succeeded at a minor cost) instead of 
  a Complication. 
  Athletics Stunts
  Dazing Counter 
  When you succeed with style on a defend action against 
  an opponent’s Fight roll, you automatically counter with 
  some sort of nerve punch or stunning blow. You get to 
  attach the Dazed situation aspect to your opponent 
  with a free invoke, instead of just a boost.
  Fluid Technique
  You know how to use your speed and agility in close-
  quarters conflict, allowing you to use Athletics instead 
  of Fight to attack and defend in melee.
  Uncanny Agility
  Your agility is such that you can quickly dodge 
  bullets, arrows, and other ranged attacks, and you 
  gain +2 bonus to Athletics rolls when using a Defend 
  actions to dodge. 
  Superhuman Agility
  (Requires Uncanny Agility)
  Your agility is such that you can move with inhuman 
  speed, and now grants +4 bonus to Defend actions 
  involving dodging. 
  Contacts Stunts
  Big Man
  When selecting this stunt, the player picks 
  a specific field (Criminal, Business, Politics, 
  Espionage and Occult are the most common); this 
  stunt is often written with that field incorporated, 
  e.g., Big Man in Politics. The character is not 
  merely well connected in that community, he is 
  actually a person of great importance within that 
  area; for maximum benefit, this should be paired 
  with an aspect that indicates similar things.
  In addition to the narrative benefits of such a position, 
  the character may use his Contacts skill in lieu of the 
  Resources skill for anything which might fall under 
  
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  the auspices of members in that field. This stunt may 
  be taken multiple times, each time for a different field.
  Talk the Talk
  (Requires Big Man)
  Whenever dealing with members of your chosen field, 
  you put out all the right signals, say all the right things. 
  In such circumstances, you may roll your Rapport 
  at +2, or, alternatively, use your Contacts instead of 
  Rapport, in order to get a favorable reaction.
  Big Name 
  (Requires Big Man)
  You’re so well known that an awareness of your 
  name has crossed over into other areas as well. The 
  first time you deal with someone who’s heard of you 
  (spending a fate point can assure that they have), 
  and you’re using your name, you get a +2 bonus to a 
  Rapport or Provoke roll.
  Big Reputation
  (Requires Big Name)
  Your reputation has reached great proportions, and 
  people are willing to believe all sorts of things about you.
  For a fate point, you may use your Contacts skill 
  instead of Rapport, Provoke, Deceive, Leadership, or 
  Will, provided those you are dealing with are aware of 
  your reputation (a second fate point will nearly always 
  assure that they do).
  This stunt combines with the bonus from Big Name, 
  getting the character a +2 to Contacts when using it 
  instead of Rapport or Provoke.
  In the Know
  You’ve an extensive network that can get you rumors 
  and vital information quickly. By spending a fate point 
  when encountering someone, you’re saying that 
  you already know something important about them. 
  Whenever you use Contacts to create a Situation 
  Aspect against them, you gain +2 bonus to the roll.
  People are always changing, however, and your 
  information won’t be valid forever. The +2 bonus is 
  not permanent. It lasts only for that issue, and you 
  must spend a fate point to have the bonus against 
  them again in a later issue.
  Tapping the Network
  Whenever a conflict is taking place where you’ve 
  built an extensive network of contacts, you can use 
  Contacts instead of Notice to determine initiative, 
  representing that you received a tip-off about the 
  upcoming problem, and perhaps even some useful 
  data on your opponents.
  Word on the Street
  When investigating a crime, news story, or some 
  other plot element, your contacts on the street 
  provide you with some information. Once per issue, 
  make a Contact roll against Fair (+2) Opposition. 
  On a success, you can create one Situation Aspect 
  to represent the clue your contacts gave you. On a 
  Success with Style, you gain an extra free invocation.
  This basically allows you to create an element of the 
  story, and the GM has final say on the nature of the 
  aspect. Since you get to create it, that means the GM 
  should work with you if the aspect is too broad, or 
  takes the story into a direction best not covered.
  Controlling Skill Stunts
  Power stunt Expert
  You’ve trained to use your powers in new and 
  unique ways, and gain a +2 bonus when performing 
  Power Stunts.
  Power stunt Mastery
  (Requires Power stunt Expert)
  You’re a master and expanding the scope of your 
  powers, and now get a +4 bonus to creating 
  Power Stunts.
  Deceive Stunts
  Actor
  Being a competent actor just means knowing how 
  to lie with an entirely new set of skills. You can use 
  Deceive instead of Rapport when trying to charm 
  your way through a situation.
  Impersonator
  Deceive can be used to convince people you are 
  someone you aren’t, but usually only in a general 
  sense. You can seem to be a cop, an author, et 
  
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  cetera, but you can’t seem to be a specific person 
  without a lot of work (and an elevated difficulty). With 
  this stunt, you can easily imitate the mannerisms 
  and voice of anyone you’ve had a chance to study, 
  removing another potential cause to have a disguise 
  examined, or perhaps convincing someone who 
  can’t see you that you’re someone else even though 
  you’re undisguised.
  Studying someone doesn’t require a skill roll, but it does 
  take a half an hour of time. If you wish to do it faster, 
  state how much time you want to take. The number of 
  steps on the Time Increment chart between a half an 
  hour and your new, short time is the opposition you 
  must overcome with a Deceive roll.
  Master of Disguise
  Your disguises are near perfect. you get a +2 bonus 
  whenever you roll Deceive to prevent someone from 
  seeing through your disguise.
  Empathy Stunts
  Counselor
  You have some professional training in counseling 
  others, helping them get through their psychosis and 
  other mental issues.
  When rolling to reduce Mental Consequences in other 
  people, you gain a +2 to your Empathy roll.
  Emotional Trigger
  You know how best to hit someone’s emotional 
  triggers. You can use Empathy in place of Provoke 
  when attempting to intimidate or anger someone.
  Empathic Read
  When you have a few minutes of observation or 
  interaction with someone, make a roll against Fair (+2) 
  Opposition. On a success, you treat getting a tie as 
  a success when using Empathy to place a Situation 
  Aspect on them. On a success with style, you get an 
  additional free invocation of the Aspect.
  Lie Detector
  You gain +2 to all Empathy rolls made to discern 
  or discover lies, whether they’re directed at you or 
  someone else.
  Fight Stunts
  Into the Fray
  You’re at your best when facing a group of opponents. 
  Whenever you are outnumbered in a fight (meaning 
  your opponents have a bonus for teamwork against 
  you), you do an extra Shift of damage.
  Everywhere at Once
  (Requires Into the Fray)
  You know how to use a group of opponents against 
  each other. Whenever facing two or more opponents 
  at once, you gain a +2 to Fight. 
  One-Man Army
  (Requires Everywhere at Once)
   You are a one-man army; the odds don’t matter 
  to you. Whenever you are attacked, opponents 
  simply do not get a bonus to their attacks due to an 
  advantage of numbers.
  Investigate Stunts
  Attention to Detail
  You can use Investigate instead of Empathy to defend 
  against Deceive attempts. What others discover 
  through gut reactions and intuition, you learn through 
  careful observation of micro-expressions.
  Eavesdropper
  On a successful Investigate roll to create an 
  advantage by eavesdropping on a conversation, you 
  can discover or create one additional aspect (though 
  this doesn’t give you an extra free invocation).
  Focused Senses
  The character is skilled at concentrating on one of his 
  senses to the exclusion of all others. The sense must 
  be specified at the time this stunt is taken. With a few 
  moments of concentration, the character may enter a 
  focused state. So long as he remains in that state, for as 
  long as the character uses nothing but Investigation, all 
  Investigation actions the character takes that use the 
  specified sense gain a +2 bonus. While in this state, if 
  the character needs to make a non-Investigation roll, 
  the opposition receives a +2 bonus.
  
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  This stunt may be taken multiple times, each time for 
  a single sense. If the character has specified multiple 
  senses, his focus may cover all of them at once.
  Knowledge Stunts
  Specialist
  Choose a field of specialization, such as criminology, 
  quantum physics, or even a fictional super-science 
  such as Temporal Physics or Transdimensional 
  Chemistry. You get a +2 to all Knowledge rolls 
  relating to that field of specialization. This stunt can 
  be taken multiple times, each time applying to a 
  different area of expertise.
  Dizzying Intellect
  (Requires Specialist)
  Your knowledge is so advanced, there’s usually no 
  one around who can tell if you’re making things up. 
  Whenever your field of specialization skill comes to 
  bear, you may use Knowledge instead of Deceit. If 
  you’ve taken Specialist multiple times, this stunt 
  applies to all covered areas.
  Know It All
  (Requires Specialist)
  Your specialized knowledge gives you flashes of 
  insight into all manner of things.
  When you use Knowledge to create Situation 
  Aspects related to your area of expertise, you gain an 
  additional free invocation.
  Mad Scientist
  (Requires Specialist)
  Well, you might not be evil, but your knowledge of 
  science allows you to create devices and inventions 
  related to your field of specialization (with the normal 
  +2 from Specialist). When doing so, you use your 
  Knowledge skill instead of Technology.
  Leadership Stunts
  Center of the Web
  Whether or not you lead it, you are like the spider at the 
  center of a web regarding any organization of which 
  you are a part. Information within the organization 
  flows your way naturally.
  Make a Leadership roll against opposition set by the 
  GM. On a success, you gain some specific insight (also 
  determined by the GM) into an important matter, such 
  as an arms deal going down, illegal drug shipment, or 
  movement by one of the various evil organization that 
  populate the campaign. This allows you to react to it 
  and get agents on the scene.
  On a success with style, you can automatically create 
  a situation aspect related to the information, and gain 
  a number of free invocation as though you actually 
  succeeded with style on a Create an Advantage action.
  Lead By Example
  When you first take a Mild or Moderate Consequence 
  while in battle alongside your teammates and continue 
  to fight, roll Leadership against Fair (+2) opposition. 
  On a success, your teammates gain +1 to their next 
  single Defend or Attack action, as they’re inspired 
  by your “never say die” determination. On a success 
  with style, they get a +1 to their next single Attack and 
  Defend action, and you still place a Boost as normal.
  Organizational Funding
  You have access to the resources of the organization 
  of which you’re a member. Use the greater of your 
  Leadership or Resources skill when using organization 
  funds to obtain equipment.
  Black Book Funding
  (Requires Organizational Funding)
  Your access to the organization’s funds is top level 
  clearance. Your Leadership or Resources skill is 
  treated as +2 steps higher on the ladder when using 
  organization funds to obtain equipment.
  Tactician
  Your ability to analyze the enemy and create tactics 
  to confront them is astounding. As long as you have 
  at least one minute to study your opponent, you gain 
  +2 whenever creating situation aspects against them. 
  Master Tactician
  (Requires Tactician)
  Your tactical ability means you can think on your 
  feet and react to the ever changing situations of 
  the battlefield. You only have to be in a conflict for 
  
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  one exchange before you gain the 
  +2 to Create an Advantage actions 
  against your enemy.
  Notice Stunts
  Body Language 
  Reader
  You can use Notice in place of 
  Empathy to learn the aspects of a 
  target through observation.
  Situational 
  Reflexes
  You may spend a fate point to go 
  first in an exchange, regardless of 
  your initiative. If multiple people 
  with this stunt exercise this ability, 
  they go in turn of their normal 
  initiative, before those who don’t 
  have the stunt get a chance to act. 
  If the exchange has already started, 
  and you have not yet acted, you 
  may instead spend a fate point to 
  act next, out of the usual turn order.
  Thought Equals 
  Action
  The character’s senses are so keyed 
  into minute changes that he is able to 
  respond more quickly to new details. 
  The character’s Notice skill is +2 for 
  purposes of determining initiative. 
  This stunt breaks ties whenever 
  facing opponents with the same 
  initiative.
  Physique Stunts
  Extraordinary 
  Determination
  The character may spend fate points to keep standing. 
  Any time the character would be taken out by (or 
  otherwise suffer a consequence from) a physical 
  hit he may spend a fate point to remain standing or 
  otherwise defer a consequence or concession for 
  one more exchange, or until he’s hit again, whatever 
  comes first. Once the extra time he’s bought is up, all 
  effects he has deferred come to bear at once. He may 
  keep spending fate points in this fashion until he runs 
  out, each time the time limit expires.
  This means that with a whole handful of fate 
  points he might go on for three exchanges with no 
  consequences or collapse impeding him, and then 
  suddenly keel over, revealing Multiple Bruises and a 
  Broken Rib and a few surplus consequences, which 
  would suggest an immediate taken out result to be 
  determined by his attacker, even if that attacker has 
  been defeated in the intervening time!
  
  75
  Face the Pain 
  The character is able to lessen the effects of physical 
  injury thanks to his incredible stamina. Once per scene, 
  the character may spend a fate point and remove a 
  check mark from his 1-Stress or 2-Stress box.
  Now You’ve Made Me Mad
  (Requires: Face the Pain)
  Once per scene, the character may turn a wound he 
  has taken into pure motivation. After the character 
  takes physical stress, spend a fate point and the 
  character gets to add the value of the Stress to an 
  action in the next exchange.
  Take the Blow
  You can use Physique to defend against Fight and 
  Weapons skill attacks.
  Tough as Nails
  Once per scene, at the cost of a fate point, you can 
  reduce the severity of a moderate consequence 
  that’s physical in nature to a mild consequence (if 
  your mild consequence slot is free), or erase a mild 
  consequence altogether.
  Provoke Stunts
  Armor of Fear 
  You can use Provoke to defend against Fight attacks, 
  but only until the first time you’re dealt stress in a 
  conflict. You can make your opponents hesitate to 
  attack, but when someone shows them that you’re 
  only human your advantage disappears.
  Doesn’t Shut-Up
  The character is constantly talking in combat, 
  cracking jokes and insulting his adversaries. When 
  using Provoke to create Situation Aspects on a target 
  to represent your loud mouth finally getting on their 
  nerves and causing them to make mistakes, you get 
  a +2 bonus to the roll.
  Know the Mental Tricks
  This character is just someone you don’t want to 
  cross, and that’s clear even to other intimidating folks. 
  Normally, Provoke attempts are resisted by Will; with 
  this stunt, the character can use his Provoke skill to 
  resist Provoke attempts.
  Intimidating Presence
  When you make it clear how dangerous you are, roll 
  Provoke against your target’s Will. If you succeed, 
  that target will not attack you or willingly come near 
  you unless you take action against him first. If you 
  succeed with style, neither will anyone with a lower 
  Will than your target.
  Brow Beat!
  You can use Provoke in place of Empathy to learn 
  a target’s aspects, by bullying them until they reveal 
  one to you. The target defends against this with Will. 
  (If the GM thinks the aspect is particularly vulnerable 
  to your hostile approach, you get a +2 bonus.)
  Provoke Violence 
  When you create an advantage on an opponent using 
  Provoke, you can use your free invocation to become 
  the target of that character’s next relevant action, 
  drawing their attention away from another target.
  Strange Charm
  Your ability to get a rise out of people has somehow 
  caused you to be liked by people— something that 
  is just plain strange to those who know you. You can 
  use Provoke in place of Rapport.
  Unapproachable
  It’s difficult to try to manipulate someone when you’re 
  constantly reminded of how scary they are. A character 
  with this stunt may use his Provoke in lieu of their Will 
  to defend against Rapport, Deceive, and Empathy.
  Unnatural Aura
  You can use Provoke to enter the kinds of contests 
  that you’d normally need Physique for, whenever your 
  ability to psych your opponent out with the force of 
  your presence alone would be a factor.
  Rapport Stunts
  Best Foot Forward 
  Twice per session, you may upgrade a boost you 
  receive with Rapport into a full situation aspect with 
  a free invocation.
  
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  Demagogue 
  You gain a +2 to Rapport when you’re delivering 
  an inspiring speech in front of a crowd. (If there are 
  named NPCs or PCs in the scene, you may target 
  them all simultaneously with one roll rather than 
  dividing up your shifts.)
  Man of Industry
  Gain a +2 bonus to any attempt to overcome 
  obstacles with Rapport when you’re at corporate 
  function, such as a trade show, board meeting, or 
  business related negotiation.
  Popular
  If you’re in an area where you’re popular and well-
  liked, you can use Rapport in place of Contacts. 
  You may be able to establish your popularity by 
  spending a fate point to declare a story detail, or 
  because of prior justification.
  Seducer
  You’re adept at catching the eye of the opposite sex, 
  and keeping it once you’ve got it. Any seduction 
  attempts you make with Rapport receive a +2 
  technique bonus provided the target is someone who 
  could be receptive to it (this is not always a simple 
  case of gender and preference).
  Smooth Over
  You’re adept at stepping into a bad situation and 
  dialing it down to something more reasonable. So 
  long as you are not the direct reason someone is 
  upset, your attempts to calm them down using your 
  Rapport receive a +2 bonus.
  Resources Stunts
  Grease the Wheels
  Rather than go looking for something, one can 
  always just offer a reward. The character may spread 
  some money around and use Resources in lieu of 
  Contacts to attempt to find somebody or something. 
  He doesn’t literally need to offer a reward, but it is 
  necessary that he make an obvious display of wealth 
  in some venue or another, preferably waving crisp 
  money in the face of people in the know (or people 
  who know people in the know). The downside of this 
  approach is that it tends to be highly public, at least 
  within some circles, and anyone interested will know 
  what the character is looking for.
  Long Term Investment 
  You’ve had your money for a while now, and you’ve 
  had a chance to make several strategic investments 
  which you can cash in on when pressed for money. 
  Once per session, you may sell one of these 
  investments to get a +2 to any one Resources roll, as 
  if you had spent a fate point to invoke an aspect.
  Money Is No Object 
  (Requires Long Term Investment)
  Once per session, when called on to roll Resources, 
  you may spend a fate point and simply act as if you 
  had rolled +4 on the dice. You may do this after the 
  fact on a roll, and further may combine this with the 
  effect from Long Term Investment to easily achieve 
  a result of your Resources +6, which is usually good 
  enough to purchase almost anything.
  Money Talks 
  You can use Resources instead of Rapport in any 
  situation where ostentatious displays of material 
  wealth might aid your cause.
  Savvy Investor
  You get an additional free invoke when you create 
  advantages with Resources, provided that they 
  describe a monetary return on an investment you 
  made in a previous session. (In other words, you can’t 
  retroactively declare that you did it, but if it happened 
  in the course of play, you get higher returns.)
  Stealth Stunts
  Face in the Crowd 
  You gain +2 to any Stealth roll to blend into a 
  crowd. What a “crowd” means will depend on the 
  environment—a subway station requires more people 
  to be crowded than a small bar.
  Master of Shadows
  Gain a +2 bonus to create an advantage using Stealth 
  whenever the situation specific has to do with using 
  darkness and shadows.
  
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  Move as One
  Your talent with stealth may be extended to others 
  who are with you close by, provided that you travel 
  as a group. As long as the whole group stays with 
  you and follows your hushed orders, you may make 
  a single Stealth roll for the whole group, using your 
  skill alone. If someone breaks from the group, they 
  immediately lose this benefit, and may risk revealing 
  the rest of you if they don’t manage to pull off a little 
  Stealth of their own. You cannot apply the benefits of 
  other stunts to this roll, though you may bring in your 
  own aspects (and possibly tag the aspects of those 
  you are concealing) in order to improve the result. 
  The maximum number of additional people in the 
  group is equal to your Stealth rating.
  Ninja Vanish
  Once per scene, you can vanish while in plain sight by 
  spending a fate point, using a smoke pellet or other 
  mysterious technique. This places the Vanished 
  boost on you. While you’re vanished, no one can 
  attack or create an advantage on you until after 
  they’ve succeeded at an overcome roll with Notice 
  to determine where you went (basically meaning 
  they have to give up an exchange to try). This goes 
  away as soon as you invoke it, or someone makes 
  that overcome roll.
  Slippery Target
  Provided you’re in darkness or shadow, you can use 
  Stealth to defend against Accuracy attacks from 
  enemies that are at least one zone away.
  Strike from the Shadows
  You can use Stealth to make physical attacks, provided 
  your target isn’t already aware of your presence.
  Technology Stunts
  Master Inventor
  You can create almost anything, even when you 
  don’t have all the best tools or resources on hand. 
  The quality of your device being above the quality of 
  your work area does not increase your Opposition 
  unless the device’s quality is at least +3 steps 
  higher. You still suffer the +3 to the Opposition at 
  that point, but you basically never suffer the +1 or 
  +2 Opposition increase.
  Power Tech
  When using device based powers, you can roll your 
  Technology skill in place of the Power skill.
  Thief Stunts
  No Locks are Safe
  You understand locks of all types as part of your 
  chosen career path. When attempting to pick a 
  lock, hack a security system, or disarm intruder 
  countermeasures, you gain +2 to the roll.
  Professional Thief
  You understand the need to prepare for a heist and 
  case the place out, noting security measures, guard 
  rotations, location of valuables, and so forth. As long 
  as you’ve spent at least a day casing a place, then 
  when you decide to hit it for the theft, you gain +2 to 
  creating situation aspects related to the heist.
  Master Thief
  (Requires Professional Thief)
  In addition to the +2 bonus to placing heist related 
  situation aspects, you also place an additional aspect 
  if you succeed with style.
  Security Expert
  You’ve run into enough traps that you’ve developed 
  an instinct for avoiding them. You may roll Thief 
  instead of Notice or Investigate in order to uncover or 
  otherwise avoid stumbling onto a trap.
  Treatment Stunts
  Doctor
  When treating a patient’s physical consequence, you 
  gain a +2 bonus to your Treatment roll providing you 
  are within a medical facility (such as an infirmary) 
  equal in quality to the consequence being treated.
  Field Medic
  Once per conflict, you can treat someone’s Stress in 
  the middle of a battle, given a little bit of time (typically 
  a few rounds). Make a roll against the total value of 
  the Stress boxes you wish to heal. If successful, those 
  boxes clear. On a success with style, you place a boost 
  on your patient representing their renewed vigor.
  
  78
  Example: A fellow hero has their 1-Stress, 
  2-Stress, and 4-Stress boxes filled in. You 
  decide to heal the 2-Stress and 4-Stress 
  boxes. The Treatment roll is made against 
  Fantastic (+6) Opposition.
  Vehicles Stunts
  Hard to Shake
  You get +2 to Vehicles whenever you’re pursuing 
  another vehicle in a chase scene.
  Pedal to the Metal
  You can coax more speed out of your vehicle than 
  seems possible. Whenever you’re engaged in any 
  contest where speed is the primary factor (such as 
  a chase or race of some kind) and you tie with your 
  Vehicles roll, it’s considered a success.
  Weapons Stunts
  Riposte
  Whenever you are physically attacked by an opponent 
  at melee distance, and you successfully defend 
  yourself using Weapons, you immediately inflict 
  1-Stress on your opponent (in addition to any normal 
  benefits, such as a Boost, from the Defend action). 
  Turnabout
  (Requires Riposte)
  You have a singular ability to turn an opponent’s 
  action into an advantage for yourself.
  Whenever you succeed with style on a Defend 
  action using Weapons, you immediately deal the 
  Shifts from your roll as damage to your opponent 
  (in addition to any normal benefits, such as a boost, 
  from the Defend action).
  Weapon Blur
  Your weapon is a blur of movement, confusing your 
  opponent. You may use Weapons instead of Deceive 
  when performing a feint.
  Will Stunts
  Indomitable
  You gain +2 to defend against Provoke attacks 
  specifically related to intimidation and fear.
  Iron Will
  You can choose to ignore a mild or moderate 
  consequence for the duration of the scene. It 
  can’t be compelled against you or invoked by your 
  enemies. At the end of the scene it comes back 
  worse, though; if it was a mild consequence it 
  becomes a moderate consequence, and if it was 
  already moderate, it becomes severe.
  Strength From 
  Determination
  Use Will instead of Physique on any overcome rolls 
  representing feats of strength.
  Special Stunts
  The following stunts are either agnostic of any 
  particular skill, or can be assigned to several types of 
  skills. In the case of the latter, the stunt must be taken 
  separately for each skill it applies to.
  Arsenal
  You begin the game with a small arsenal to wage 
  your war on crime. You begin play with Kevlar armor 
  and four types of guns or melee weapons. Unlike 
  weapons or armor purchased as part of a power 
  set (see: Devices and Gear), each of these has a 
  gear based Complication that the GM can compel. 
  When compelled, the weapon or armor is lost until 
  the beginning of the next issue. Note that this is not 
  the same as placing a Disarmed aspect on someone, 
  which is covered in the Comic Book Action chapter.
  Backup Weapon
  Whenever someone’s about to hit you with a Disarmed 
  situation aspect or something similar, spend a fate 
  point to declare you have a backup weapon. Instead 
  of a situation aspect, your opponent gets a boost, 
  representing the momentary distraction you suffer for 
  having to switch.
  
  79
  Crimefighting Vehicle
  You have a specially designed ground or air vehicle 
  to assist in fighting for justice. Choose one type of 
  vehicle and add 5-points worth of Device Special 
  Effects to it. Each time this stunt is taken, you can 
  choose another vehicle, or add an additional 5-points 
  to an existing vehicle.
  Defensive Fighter
  You’re adept at fighting defensively. Once per conflict 
  you gain +2 to a Defend action as though you 
  assumed a Full Defense, but can still make an attack.
  Defensive Penetration
  You’re trained in getting through an opponent’s 
  defenses. Once per conflict whenever someone 
  uses a Full Defense against you, they do not receive 
  the +2 bonus.
  Killing Stroke
  Once per issue, when you force an opponent to 
  take a consequence, you can spend a fate point to 
  increase the consequence’s severity (so mild becomes 
  moderate, moderate becomes severe). If your opponent 
  was already going to take a severe consequence, he 
  must either take a severe consequence and a second 
  consequence or be taken out.
  Personal Headquarters
  You have a headquarters or lair of some sort. Each 
  time this stunt is taken, you receive 5 Headquarter 
  Points with which to build your base of operations.
  Work Area
  Instead of a full headquarters, you only have a work 
  area for inventing or research, and the type must be 
  defined when this stunt is taken: Infirmary, Laboratory, 
  Library, Workshop (Mystic or Technology). Each time 
  this stunt is taken, your designated work area gains 
  +1 quality rating, beginning at Average (+1).
  The quality of your work area cannot be higher than 
  your Resources skill, unless you make one of your 
  character aspects represent the organization, person, 
  or some type of benefactor that built it for you. 
  Aspect Stunts
  Aspect stunts are a special type of stunt that are tied 
  to one of your character aspects. You may only have 
  one aspect stunt.
  Aspect stunts follow the normal stunt creation rules, 
  except that they offer the equivalent of a 3-Shift benefit. 
  Aspect stunts should also be limited use (such as once 
  per conflict, scene, or issue), and should always cost a 
  fate point to use. Below are a few examples of how to 
  use Aspect stunts in your series.
  Because I am the Strongest One On Earth, once 
  per conflict I can spend a fate point in combat against 
  any opponent who has hurt me or challenged my 
  strength. My next successful hit against them does 
  an extra 3-shifts of damage.
  If the stunt seems a bit more powerful, consider 
  adding additional restrictions to it, such as the one in 
  the below example on what happens when an extra 
  suit of Power-Armor Concedes a conflict.
  Because I am a Billionaire Technological Genius, 
  once per issue I can spend a fate point to  switch out 
  my current Power-Armor power set for a new version, 
  but the total cost of the power set cannot change. The 
  new version lasts until the end of the current issue, 
  or until Taken Out. Conceding in a conflict with the 
  secondary armor means it is Taken Out and cannot 
  be used again.
  Because This is My City, I have hidden safe houses 
  scattered throughout it. Once per issue, I can spend 
  a fate point to have a nearby safe house to duck into 
  worth 5 Headquarters Points. The safe house lasts 
  until the end of the issue.
  
  80
  Chapter 9:Powers
  Each power entry lists the relevant skill at the top, 
  beneath the name, and further explains any special 
  uses within the power’s description. 
  Power Rolls and Shifts
  Unlike rolls for normal skill rolls and actions in Daring 
  Comics (see Chapter 11: Actions and Outcomes), the 
  specific number of Shifts rolled when using a power 
  sometimes play an important part in how that power 
  functions. Pay attention to the power’s description 
  to determine whether or not the number of Shifts 
  achieved on a roll have a specific mechanical function 
  beyond the basic tie, success, or success with style 
  outcomes.
  Special Effects and Limits
  While each power has a base effect (or few effects) 
  that it can do, special effects are enhancements you 
  can purchase to expand the scope of your power. At 
  its most basic, a Blast power simply does its Weapon 
  Rating in damage. But apply the Demolishing or 
  Concussive special effects, and you’ve just changed 
  the scope and capabilities of your attack.
  Special effects do not always have to be used. You 
  can choose whether or not they are currently active 
  each time you use the power.
  Special effects add to the cost of the power. If the 
  power has variable levels, the special effect is added 
  to the total cost of the power, not the per-level cost.
  Likewise, limits restrict your power in some ways. 
  Perhaps it can’t be used against a common element, 
  or each use causes damage to the character. Limits 
  reduce the cost of a power. Like with special effects, 
  it reduces the total cost of the power, not the cost per-
  level. A power’s cost can never drop below 1-point.
  The Power Set
  Each power you purchase is going to be placed into 
  a power set, which represents a grouping of powers 
  that function under a single theme or source.
  Let’s look at an example. A character that can turn 
  into flame might have a power set called: Human 
  Flame. Within that power set, he’d likely have: Flame 
  Aura, Flame Control, Flame Blast, Flight, plus any 
  appropriate special effects and limits.
  Powers are what separate the heroes from the 
  everyday people. Some can move at super-human 
  speeds or soar through the skies. Others can pass 
  through solid objects as if they were vapor. Some 
  have claws that pop from their hands, or energy 
  beams that fire from their eyes.
  Before getting into the meat of the powers we’ve already 
  built for you, let’s take a look at how powers function 
  and how to purchase those included in the book.
  Understanding Powers
  All powers in Daring Comics follow a basic format. 
  The power is either activated by the Controlling skill 
  (Magic, Mental, or Power), or uses a skill such as 
  Fight, Accuracy, or Athletics.
  Each power entry also lists its effects in play, and 
  sometimes offers special effects or limits specifically 
  designed for that power that can be purchased to 
  further customize it.
  Power Levels
  Some powers come in variable power levels, 
  representing the vertical potency we see in comic 
  books. Powers such as Melee Attack, Blast, and 
  Invulnerability can have different power levels when 
  purchased, whereas powers like Air Control, Mind 
  Control, and Chameleon only have a single power 
  level and rely more strongly upon the controlling skill 
  roll for success.
  Skills and Powers
  There are a wide range of powers, and how they 
  operate alongside the skills will vary. Some powers 
  require one of the controlling skills to function at 
  all. The character need not have the skill in the skill 
  column; it just defaults to Mediocre (+0) as normal. 
  Spending points in the power is enough to possess 
  it, though such a character obviously has no solid 
  training in it yet.
  Other powers will enhance or use a normal skill you’re 
  likely to already have in the column. Blast uses the 
  Accuracy skill to function, while Melee Attack uses 
  Fight. Chameleon not only uses the Deceive skill, but 
  provides a bonus to it as well.
  
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  Any powers that were not part of his Human Flame 
  ability would be placed into a different power set.
  Stunts can also be placed into power sets if they 
  represent something specific about a power in the set, 
  or the set as a whole. For example, a street vigilante 
  highly trained in Martial Arts might have a series of 
  stunts related to fighting under a single power set 
  called: Extreme Martial Training. Likewise, if he was 
  also a master detective, he might have a series of 
  stunts related to finding clues, analyzing evidence, 
  and drawing deductions under a power set called: 
  Master Detective.
  In another example, a speedster might add the 
  Accuracy stunt: Any Object is a Bullet, to his super-
  speed power set to represent being able to throw any 
  small object at a high velocity.
  Whether or not normal stunts are applied to a 
  power set is really a matter of the narrative you’re 
  going for, and in many cases will come down to 
  a character concept choice of placing the stunts 
  directly under normal skills, or making them 
  effects of a power set. If the stunts speak about 
  the core of the character, especially if they are also 
  represented by the character’s Concept aspect, 
  then placing them into a power set should be a 
  definite consideration. Especially since each power 
  set also gets an aspect of its own.
  The Power Set Aspect
  Each power set on your character sheet should have 
  an aspect that represents something about it. It can 
  be a descriptive phrase such as Hot as the Core 
  of the Sun, or one that says something about your 
  character’s use of the powers, such as: No Stone 
  Unturned for a power set comprised of stunts to aid 
  in criminal investigations.
  The power set aspect serves a couple of 
  purposes in play.
  1) Once per scene, the power set aspect can be 
  invoked at no cost to allow a reroll for any action using 
  a power in that set. You cannot take the +2 option for 
  this free invocation, only a reroll of the dice.
  2) The power set aspect can be invoked normally by 
  spending a fate point on any action where it would 
  make sense, even if the action isn’t actually using 
  the power set. 
  You could invoke the aspect for a direct use of the 
  power, such as invoking it when attacking with the 
  power set’s blast power, thereby gaining the +2 bonus 
  or reroll to the action just as you would for any aspect 
  on your sheet.
  Likewise, if you had Claws, you could spend a fate 
  point and invoke the power set aspect on an Athletics 
  based Defend action against a projectile attack. Not 
  only would you gain the normal +2 to the roll (or a 
  reroll), but you would also be saying that your claws 
  are a direct part of your Defend action. What that 
  means is you get to narrate how you’re using the 
  claws and your athletic ability to cut the projectiles 
  out of the air.
  3) The power set aspect can be compelled the same 
  as any other aspect, which is another avenue to 
  earning fate points.
  Power Origins
  Some powers affect an entire power source, 
  such as technological, magic, mutant, and 
  so forth. Although in some cases, such as 
  a spell caster or an power-armored hero, 
  the source of the character’s powers are 
  obvious, in other cases a little explanation 
  might be necessary. Ideally, a power set’s 
  source should be worked into the Power Set 
  aspect. If that doesn’t work out, however, 
  that’s fine. Simply make a note somewhere 
  on the character sheet next to the power set 
  as to what type of power source fuels it.
  Power Stunts
  Power stunts are a staple of comic books. A hero or 
  villain pushes their ability to use the power in a new 
  and unique way. In game terms, power stunts are 
  basically using a different power or special effect as 
  an off-shoot of a power you already possess, when 
  using that effect makes narrative sense. Naturally, the 
  GM has final approval on any uses of power stunts.
  To perform a power stunt, declare what the effect is 
  that you are going for, what power you are using, and 
  what different power or special effect best represents 
  that effect. If the GM approves it, you then must spend 
  a fate point to even make the attempt. Next, you roll 
  the appropriate skill in an Overcome action against 
  a Fair (+2) opposition. If the power stunt uses more 
  than one power or special effect to achieve its goal, 
  the opposition is increased +1 for each additional 
  power or special effect. For each Shift generated on 
  the roll, you get to use the power stunt for one round.
  
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  The power stunt can succeed at a cost, which means 
  something will go wrong and you only get one use (or 
  one round) of the power stunt.
  Aspects can be invoked as normal to assist with the roll.
  Performing a power stunt counts as a free action, so 
  the player can both get the stunt and use it in the 
  same round. Any rolls the new power requires to use, 
  however, counts as a normal action. So, if a character 
  received an Energy Blast as a power stunt, the roll 
  to perform the power stunt was free, but the roll to 
  actually use the Energy Blast is his normal action.
  Example #1:
  Foxtrot is taking on a room 
  full of Typhon soldiers and 
  wants to use his energy blast 
  to create an area wide daze. 
  Although he could go for 
  just the Area Effect special 
  effect and use the Create an 
  Advantage action to make 
  the Dazed situation aspect 
  like normal, he really wants to 
  set these guys up to go down. 
  He decides to apply both the 
  Advantageous (Daze) and 
  Area Effect special effects as 
  the power stunt.
  The GM approves it, so Foxtrot 
  spends a fate point and rolls 
  against Good (+3) opposition 
  (the opposition received a +1 
  since the player is trying to 
  generate two effects with the 
  stunt: 
  Advantageous 
  (Daze) 
  and Area Effect). He generates 
  2-Shifts, so he gains the power 
  stunt for two rounds before he 
  would have to spend a fate point 
  to attempt it again.
  Example #2:
  Cryoborg wants to fire his 
  Ice Blast at the floor beneath 
  the feet of some criminals to 
  make it slippery. The player 
  and 
  GM 
  determine 
  that 
  would constitute a use of the 
  Friction Control power. 
  Cryoborg spends a fate point 
  and rolls against Fair (+2) Opposition. He gets 
  1-Shift, so only gets to use Friction Control 
  for one round before he’ll have to attempt the 
  power stunt all over again.
  Sometimes, a power doesn’t use a controlling skill, or 
  the effect isn’t directly related to a specific power. In 
  that case, the player and GM only need to work out 
  the details, but the mechanics work exactly the same.
  Example #1:
  Mach-1 has Super-Speed, and wants to use 
  his power to vibrate his molecules enough to 
  pass through a solid wall. The GM decides 
  
  83
  that would be similar to the Intangible power, 
  so allows it. Super-Speed doesn’t use a 
  controlling skill, however— it typically applies 
  to Athletics. The GM figures that vibrating 
  his molecules is still the ability to control his 
  body’s movements, so decides that Athletics 
  will also apply to the power stunt. 
  The player spends a fate point and rolls Athletics 
  against Fair (+2) opposition. Unfortunately, he 
  only ties with the opposition and is out of fate 
  points to invoke any aspects. He asks the GM 
  if he can succeed at a minor cost, which the 
  GM approves. He tells the player that Mach-
  1 takes a little extra time to pass through the 
  wall, so he’ll lose his next action.
  Example #2:
  Phalanx has Flight 4 and wants to create 
  a whirlwind to blow some villains around, 
  basically preventing them from attacking 
  anyone this round. The GM decides that it 
  makes sense and is something that’s been 
  done in comics. He rules that it’ll be a form 
  of grapple, and that not only will the Shifts 
  on the roll determine how long he can do it 
  before he has to spend a second fate point to 
  try the Stunt again, but that his Shifts will also 
  serve as the passive opposition for any of the 
  criminals to get beyond the boundaries of his 
  vortex. He also decides that, like with Mach-1 
  and Super-Speed, it’ll use the Athletics skill. 
  The player spends the fate point and rolls 
  Athletics against Fair (+2) opposition and gets 
  3-Shifts. Not only will can he use the whirlwind 
  effect for three rounds, but any attempts to 
  escape it faces Good (+3) passive opposition
  If the power stunt would involve gaining access to 
  a power with multiple power levels, the power stunt 
  has an effective Power Level 1. Shifts generated on 
  the roll can be divided between increasing the power 
  level and the base number of rounds it can be used. 
  When doing so, however, at least 1-Shift must be put 
  into the single round of time.
  Foxtrot is about to be hit by a nasty energy 
  blast. He narrates how he’s quickly recalibrating 
  the energy flow from his Energy Blast to have 
  his gauntlets create a low-yield forcefield to 
  (hopefully) stop the attack.
  The GM agrees, and the player goes for the 
  attempt. He gets 3-Shifts on the roll. Since 
  Forcefield automatically starts with a Power 
  Level 1, and he only expects to use it for one 
  round, he decides to put 2-Shifts into the 
  power level, raising it to Forcefield 3. The 
  final 1-Shift he had to keep aside for the one 
  round of use.
  Finally, if applicable, extra Shifts generated on the roll 
  can be used as a bonus to using the actual power, or 
  as a bonus to the opposition for anyone resisting it, 
  instead of allowing for extra rounds of usage. This is 
  entirely up to the player, as long as 1-Shift is kept put 
  aside for the one round of use.
  When creating the whirlwind and getting 
  3-Shifts on the roll, Phalanx could have 
  decided to use it for only one round, and 
  use the remaining 2-Shifts to increase the 
  opposition to get out of the vortex from Good 
  (+3) to Superb (+5).
  Stacking Damage and 
  Damage Mitigation
  When using powers, regardless of source, which offer 
  their own Weapon Rating or Armor Rating, the ratings 
  do not stack. Take the highest rating and use that.
  Example #1
  Adamantia has Super-Strength 4, and picks up 
  a sword with Weapon Rating 2 and the Potent 
  improvement. Since her Super-Strength also 
  gives her Weapon Rating 4, she uses that 
  instead of the sword’s Weapon Rating. She 
  can, however, still use the Potent improvement 
  that the sword offers.
  Example #2
  Phalanx has Invulnerability 6 and is disguised 
  as one of Typhon’s soldiers, which means 
  he is wearing armor with an Armor 3 rating. 
  Although Phalanx gets any Deceive benefits 
  from the disguise, he’ll use Invulnerability 6 to 
  mitigate any damage. That armor does nothing 
  for him in that regard.
  The GM might rule that the armor is damaged if 
  the absorbed Hits are more than its own Armor 3 
  rating, but that is more of a narrative judgement 
  call as opposed to creating hardwired rules for 
  such things that may not benefit the style of 
  every group. Such damage might even lower 
  the bonus granted to any future Deceive rolls, or 
  the GM might place a suitable situation aspect 
  on Phalanx representing the damaged armor 
  
  84
  that can be invoked, compelled, and might be 
  removed with a successful Technology skill roll 
  to repair it.
  Physical and Mental Damage
  Most attacks will track damage along the target’s 
  normal stress track. Mental and mystical assaults, 
  such as Mental Blast, a Psychic Blade (Melee Attack), 
  Eldritch Bolt or Blade, and so forth, normally track 
  along the Mental Stress track. There’s nothing that 
  says your Mental Blast can’t cause actual, physical 
  damage to the target’s body, though. It’s just a matter 
  of flavor, and taking your power to affect one stress 
  track or the other is not an increase in cost. Just make 
  a note which track it affects when you take the power.
  Purchasing Powers
  To purchase a power, look at the cost next to the 
  name of the power. It will either be a flat cost, such as 
  (2), meaning it costs two points to have the power; or 
  it will have a variable cost, such (1-6), meaning that 
  it costs 1-point per power level, and has a limit of six 
  power levels for a total of 6-points.
  Next, decide what, if any, special effects that you 
  want for the power. The cost of each special effect is 
  added to the total cost of the power, not per power 
  level, if the power has variable levels.
  Then decide what, if any, Limits the power would 
  have. Each Limit reduces the total cost of the power 
  by 1-point, to a minimum cost of 1-point.
  Dylan decides he wants the Invulnerability 
  power at level 4, giving him a cost of 4-points. 
  From there, he decides to add on the Highly 
  Impervious special effect for 2-points, giving 
  the power a 6-point cost. Finally, he decides 
  that although the character is pretty tough, 
  each time he is hit by something that can 
  actually damage him (meaning Weapon Rating 
  5 or higher), he loses one level of Invulnerability 
  until he can rest and recover it. He applies that 
  as Limit for a –1 cost reduction. 
  Since losing Invulnerability levels also means 
  he’s losing access to the Highly Impervious 
  special effect, Dylan and the GM decide to 
  apply an additional –1 cost to the power.
  His final cost for the power is 4-points.
  Powers List
  In the pages ahead, you’ll find a robust list of powers 
  we’ve already made for you—over 100 powers, and 
  nearly as many special effects and limits to customize 
  your powers with. Simply purchase the powers and 
  any special effects or limits, spend your points, and 
  start playing. 
  At the end of the powers section, we also provide 
  you with guidelines on how to create your own unique 
  powers, special effects, and limitations.
  Each power is broken down into the following format:
  • Name (Cost, either flat or per power level)
  • Relevant Skills
  • Description of core effects
  • Unique Special Effects
  • Unique Limits
  Under the Hood: 
  Power Activation and 
  Overcome Actions
  Many power descriptions call for an 
  Overcome action to activate the effect, also 
  noted as a skill roll, a roll against passive 
  opposition, and so forth so we didn’t bore 
  you by repeating the same phrase over and 
  over again between powers. The opposition 
  for such rolls, unless it had to be assigned 
  by design, is left open to the GM. Typically, 
  it should be a Mediocre (+0) opposition, but 
  it’s also important that the GM be able to 
  assign an opposition that factors in all of the 
  relevant situations in a scene, even before 
  any aspects might be invoked to further 
  increase the difficulty.
  As with any Overcome action, unless 
  specifically stated otherwise, the rolls can 
  succeed at a minor or major cost, and a 
  success with style also grants a Boost in 
  addition to whatever other benefits the power 
  might grant.
  
  85
  Absorption (2,4,6)
  Skills: None
  The character can absorb either energy or physical 
  (kinetic) damage from attacks, which is chosen when 
  this power is taken.
  For each level in Absorption, 2-hits worth of damage 
  are negated from incoming attacks of the chosen type. 
  Additionally, for each 2-Hits absorbed (round up), the 
  character gains a +1 to Attack and Overcome actions 
  on his next turn when using the absorbed energy in 
  some way. Energy that is not used dissipates after the 
  character’s next turn.
  Absorption can be purchased up to Power Level 
  3, for 6-hits of negation and +3 to Attack and 
  Overcome actions.
  Special Effects
  Absorption Healing (2): You can use the Hits of 
  absorbed energy to immediately heal an equal number 
  of stress boxes or an equal severity consequence. If 
  you have both Stress and Consequence, you must 
  heal the Stress first.
  Accumulate Energy (2): Instead of having to use 
  the absorbed energy or losing it, the character can 
  accumulate and store it for a number of extra turns 
  equal to his Power Level. Each turn the energy is 
  accumulated adds an additional +1 to his Attack and 
  Overcome actions. So, a character with Absorption 
  3, for example, could store the energy for three 
  additional turns, and unleash it at a whopping +6 to 
  his Attack or Overcome action.
  Energy Sponge (1): The character can make an 
  Overcome action to absorb ambient energy of his 
  chosen type from the environment (if it exists). Treat 
  this as a normal Overcome action, so it can succeed 
  at a cost. If successful, the character absorbs his 
  power’s normal absorption rating. On a success with 
  style, he creates a Boost as normal.
  Power Boost (3): The character can use the absorbed 
  energy to increase the Power Levels of another 
  power, even one he does not normally possess (in 
  essence, using the absorbed energy to activate the 
  power). The exact power that can be boosted must 
  be chosen when this special effect is taken, and 
  multiple applications of this special effect apply to 
  different powers.
  Instead of gaining a bonus to Attack and Overcome 
  actions, the character can use the energy to gain 
  a number of Power Levels in the power, up to the 
  number of Hits he absorbed. 
  So, a character with Absorption 3 that absorbs 6-Hits 
  worth of damage, can forego the +3 bonus he would 
  have received to instead get 6-points to boost a power 
  with. Naturally, a power gained in this way cannot 
  have more Power Levels than it would normally be 
  able to possess. Special Effects can be applied to the 
  power by splitting the bonus between Power Levels 
  and Special Effect’s cost.
  If an existing power is increased through Power 
  Boost, the power still cannot exceed the normal 
  Power Level cap for the power. Likewise, the bonus 
  from Absorption can be used to apply Special Effects 
  to an already existing power.
  (Yes, this special effect also means that the energy 
  can be directed into the Blast power, thereby gaining 
  a Weapon Rating instead of a bonus to the attack roll.)
  The transferred power lasts for a number of rounds 
  equal to Absorption’s Power Level, or until the power 
  is emitted from the character, such as with a blast.
  Vanguardian uses his energy shield to absorb an 
  incoming energy attack. He absorbs 5-Hits, and 
  gets a +3 to his Attack and Overcome actions.
  Since he has Power Boost (Energy Blast) he 
  decides to pump the 5-points into a blast. 
  He makes it Weapon 3 rating, and places 
  two points into the Area Effect and Set-Up 
  special effects.
  Limits
  Living Bomb (–1): The same as Self Damaging, 
  except the exploding energy damages the character 
  and everyone within the same zone.
  Requires Block (–1): The ability to absorb the attack 
  requires you to successfully Defend against the attack. 
  This might be because your power is contained with a 
  shield, sword, or some other type of object that must 
  be positioned between you and the attacker.
  Roll Defend as normal. If you fail, you take the full 
  damage and absorb none of it. If you succeed, 
  you absorb the Weapon Rating of the attack (or 
  the Absorption limit, whichever is lower). You get 
  the normal Boost against your opponent for a 
  success with style.
  Vanguardian must absorb an incoming energy 
  blast using his shield. The attacker rolls a total 
  of Fair (+2) on the attack roll, and Vanguardian 
  
  86
  rolls a Superb (+5), for a success with style. He 
  has Absorption 6, and the attacker had Energy 
  Blast 3. Vanguardian absorbs the Weapon 3 
  rating of the attack, plus gets to place a Boost 
  on his opponent.
  If Vanguardian had failed the Defend action, 
  he would have taken the full damage.
  Self-Damaging (–1): Instead of simply dissipating, 
  the energy explodes within the character if not used, 
  causing Stress equal to the amount of energy absorbed. 
  Because the damage comes from inside the character, 
  Invulnerability does not negate the damage.
  Specific Energy (–1): You can only absorb a specific 
  type of energy, such as fire, ice, radiation, and so 
  forth, chosen when this limit is taken.
  Boosting Powers
  If the hero can boost more than one power 
  through multiple applications of the Power 
  Boost special effect, then in a single round 
  he can only either place the absorbed bonus 
  into a single power or split it between the 
  powers he wishes to temporarily increase.
  Adaptation (2)
  Skills: None
  The hero is able to adapt to hostile environments. 
  Some examples include allowing him to grow gills 
  in water, change his lungs to breathe a poisonous 
  atmosphere, or even gain immunity to fire and heat if 
  in a volcanic environment.
  After one minute in the environment, the hero gains 
  a temporary aspect representing the appropriate 
  situational immunities. 
  After the hero leaves the environment, the 
  changes revert to normal (he loses the aspect) 
  within a few minutes.
  Special Effects
  Rapid Adaptation (1): Your body adapts faster to 
  hostile environments. Each time this applied to the 
  power, your time to adapt is reduced –1 step on the 
  Time Increment table.
  Adoptive Muscle Memory (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You’re able to mimic the movement— such as 
  fighting ability, acrobatics, and so forth— of people 
  you’ve observed.
  To use the power, you must first observe the target in 
  action (such as in combat) for at least a full minute. 
  Then, make an Overcome action. The hero gains 
  one temporary aspect for each Shift generated on 
  the roll, and gets one free invocation (in total, not per 
  aspect). To gain additional free invocations, Shifts 
  can be used to gainadditional invocations instead of 
  new aspects aspects. 
  If you are watching a group of people, your attention 
  is not as focused and your opposition to mimic them 
  increases by +1 per each additional person.
  The aspects last until the end of the scene
  Night Sentinel is watching a battle between 
  Sure-Shot and the villain Carrionette that 
  is going badly for the hero. He spends a 
  minute watching Sure-Shot jump and flip, 
  and use nearby small objects as highly 
  accurate projectiles.
  After the minute, Night Sentinel rolls against 
  the GM determined opposition and gains 
  4-Shifts. He decides to create two temporary 
  aspects called Olympic Level Gymnast and 
  Any Object is a Weapon, representing what 
  he’s seen Sure-Shot do. He gets one free 
  invocation for free, so applies the remaining 
  2-Shifts to two additional free invocations, for 
  three in total.
  Special Effects
  Advanced Muscle Memory (1): You can view and 
  mimic your target faster. Each time this applied to 
  the power, your required time to view the target is 
  reduced –1 step on the Time Increment table. 
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Adrenaline Surge (1)
  Skills: Will
  The hero gains a boost to a particular skill, chosen 
  when this power is taken, once a specific trigger 
  is activated, such as being angered, frightened, 
  stressful, and so forth. 
  
  87
  To activate the trigger, the hero must take a Create 
  an Advantage action using Will. Success or better 
  means an aspect is placed on the hero representing 
  the trigger (with normal free invocations). To eliminate 
  the trigger (such as calming the hero down if Angered 
  was the trigger), those attempting to do so must make 
  an appropriate roll against opposition equal to the 
  Shifts the hero achieved when activating the trigger. 
  The aspect, meanwhile, can be invoked and 
  compelled normally.
  Once the trigger is activated, the hero gains a 
  cumulative +1 to the chosen skill each subsequent 
  round, up to a maximum +4 increase.
  Once the triggering condition is eliminated, the 
  character immediately takes Stress equal to the total 
  increase he received, and the skill loses –1 per round 
  until it returns to normal.
  Special Effects
  Additional Skill (1): For each extra point of cost, the 
  character has an additional skill increased by the 
  activation of the trigger.
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Affliction (7)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  Your character can infect others with disease or 
  poison. To infect the target, make a skill roll opposed 
  by the target’s Physique (or Will for a unique type 
  of mystic or psychic disease). Each Shift generated 
  counts as the attack skill for your disease. If you tie, 
  your disease has Mediocre (+0) skill. 
  Once infected, the target gains a temporary aspect 
  related to the type of illness. As long as the aspect 
  remains, they’re attacked by the disease on the 
  following exchange. Since this is an internal attack, 
  Invulnerability does not negate damage from 
  the disease, but Immunity and Regeneration do 
  work normally. Damage from the disease causes 
  Consequences, not Stress. 
  Each day after the initial attack, the disease attacks the 
  target again, and will continue to do so until it is defeated. 
  If the victim is Taken Out or concedes, he is dead.
  If the disease fails the attack roll, the character takes 
  no damage that day. Once the disease fails two 
  attacks in a row, the character’s immune system has 
  beaten it and he is no longer infected.
  The disease can be cured through the application 
  of the Treatment skill or the Healing power by rolling 
  against opposition equal to the Attack skill rating of 
  disease to remove the aspect. Consequences gained 
  from the disease must be healed separately.
  Air Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  Your character can control air and winds. You gain 
  +2 to the roll when creating situation aspects using 
  your power. 
  You can create zone barriers made of air by making 
  an Overcome action. This represents intense winds 
  that prevent others from passing through. To get 
  through, they must make an Overcome action 
  (typically Physique with any Super-Strength related 
  bonuses) against opposition equal to the number of 
  Shifts you generated.
  Special Effects
  Ultimate Control (1): If you create a situation aspect 
  against a specific target then, for each free invoke 
  you choose to sacrifice, you may instead cause the 
  target 1-Stress as you use your winds to pound into 
  them with near physical force, or even move the air 
  out of their lungs to asphyxiate them. Invulnerability 
  or Immunity (such as to suffocation) negates the 
  damage as normal. The Special Effect can only be 
  used once per scene.
  Summoning and 
  Succeeding at a Cost
  If the summoning based powers (Animal 
  Control, Animate, Duplication, Summon, 
  and Summon Swarm) succeeded at a cost, 
  it means the hero gained 1-Shift on the 
  roll, and should suffer some sort of setback 
  from the strain. For example, succeeding 
  at a minor cost might cause 2-Stress, while 
  succeeding at a major cost might cause a 
  Mild Consequence.
  Animal Control (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can control nearby animals (usually no more 
  than one zone away) by making an Overcome action. 
  Taking control of animals further away causes a +1 to 
  the opposition per additional zone.
  
  88
  If successful, the Shifts gained on the roll are used 
  to control one or more ranks of animal allies, with a 
  single member of each rank costing an equal number 
  of Shifts. For example, if the hero gained 4-Shifts 
  on the roll, he could choose to summon four Rank 
  1 animals, two Rank 2 animals, one Rank 3 and one 
  Rank 1 animal, or any other combination.
  The animals cannot act until the round after they are 
  summoned. All animals operate as Nameless NPCs.
  Rank 1: The animals are Average quality. They have 
  one or two Aspects, one or two Average (+1) skills, 
  and no stress boxes— a one shift hit is enough to 
  take them out.
  Rank 2: The animals are Fair quality. Give them one or 
  two or Aspects, one Fair (+2), and one or two Average 
  (+1) skills, and one stress box each— a two shift hit is 
  enough to take one of them out.
  Rank 3: The animals are Good quality, with one or 
  two Aspects, one Good (+3), one Fair (+2), and one or 
  two Average (+1) skills, and two stress boxes each— 
  a three shift hit is enough to take one of them out.
  The animals automatically have any powers they 
  would normally possess as a species (so, a bird would 
  have Flight and maybe Claws for a talon attack). They 
  are controlled by the player, act on the character’s 
  initiative beginning the round after control is gained, 
  and the control lasts until Taken Out or the end of 
  the scene. Controlling them longer than a single 
  scene without making an additional skill roll requires 
  spending one fate point per additional scene.
  Special Effect
  Ready to Rumble (1): The animals act as soon as 
  they are summoned.
  Swarm: (2): The hero can choose to summon a swarm 
  of small animals or insects, such as Wasps, Rats, and 
  so forth. Multiply the number of Shifts gained on the 
  roll by five to determine the number of animals in the 
  swarm. So, gaining 3-Shifts on the roll summons a 
  swarm of 15 creatures. Divide the swarm into groups 
  of 5 (if possible) for the purpose of actions, and treat 
  them as a mob. The summoned swarm is Rank 1 and 
  cannot be increased. 
  Animal Mimicry (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can mimic the abilities of one animal at a time, up 
  to one zone away, by making an Overcome action. 
  Add +1 to the opposition for each additional zone 
  between the animal and the character. 
  You gain one temporary aspect for each Shift 
  generated on the roll, and get one free invocation 
  (in total, not per aspect). To gain additional free 
  invocations, Shifts can be used to acquire additional 
  free invocations instead of gaining additional aspects. 
  The aspects last until the end of the scene, and should 
  represent something from the particular animal, such 
  as fly like a bird, strike with sharp talons, eyes of 
  an aerial hunter, strength of an elephant, or speed 
  of a horse.
  The aspects are assumed to carry the appropriate 
  narrative context along with them, such as using fly 
  like a bird to fly through the air, or eyes of an aerial 
  hunter to pick out small details at a distance.
  Special Effects
  Menagerie (1): The character can mimic the traits of 
  more than one animal at a time, but each additional 
  animal imposes a cumulative +1 to the opposition.
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Animate (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can cause normally inanimate objects to spring 
  to life and do your bidding, whether drawn images, 
  furniture, plants, or some other inanimate form. The 
  exact type of animation must be chosen when the 
  power is purchased.
  To animate the creatures, make an Overcome action. 
  If successful, the Shifts gained on the roll are used to 
  create one or more ranks of animated allies, with a 
  single member of each rank costing an equal number 
  of Shifts. For example, if the hero gained 5-Shifts 
  on the roll, he could choose to summon five Rank 1 
  animations, two Rank 2 and one Rank 1 animations, 
  one Rank 3 and one Rank 2 animation, or any other 
  combination.
  The animated objects cannot act until the round after 
  they are summoned. All minions operate as Nameless 
  NPCs.
  Rank 1: The animations are Average quality. They 
  have one or two Aspects, one or two Average (+1) 
  skills, and no stress boxes— a one shift hit is enough 
  to take them out.
  
  89
  Rank 2: Your animated objects are Fair quality. Give 
  them one or two or Aspects, one Fair (+2), and one or 
  two Average (+1) skills, and one stress box each— a 
  two shift hit is enough to take one of them out.
  Rank 3: The animations are Good quality minions. 
  They have one or two Aspects, one Good (+3), one 
  Fair (+2), and one or two Average (+1) skills, and two 
  stress boxes each— a three shift hit is enough to take 
  one of them out.
  All animations of the same type of object must possess 
  the same Aspects and skills between them, and all of 
  them act on the controlling character’s initiative.
  The animated objects remain until destroyed or the 
  end of the scene, whichever happens first. To extend 
  their use beyond a single scene, the character must 
  spend one fate point per extra scene.
  Animated objects and super-powers: Animated 
  objects typically possess any powers that a normal, 
  living counterpart would possess (if there is a 
  counterpart). For example, an animated drawing of a 
  bird would possess Flight 1 and maybe Melee Attack 
  (talons) 1. 
  Things get a little trickier when animating machines 
  or heavy objects. If the animated object would have 
  damage resistance, give it Invulnerability based on its 
  Material Strength. This is not a hard rule, but is simply 
  a guideline for narrative context.
  Material 
  Strength
  Invulnerability 
  Power level
  Wood, Aluminum
  1
  Brick
  2
  Concrete
  2
  Stone
  2
  Reinforced Concrete
  3
  Iron
  3
  Steel
  4
  Reinforced Steel
  4
  Super-Alloys
  5
  Diamond
  6
  Special, Animate Dead: Animating the dead uses 
  the same rules as per any other type of animation with 
  the following addition: when animating the corpses of 
  dead super-beings, the minions possess the powers 
  they had in life. Whether or not they are able to use 
  any mental powers (such as Telepathy, Mind Control, 
  and so forth) depends on the context of the campaign 
  and whether or not such living dead retain enough 
  brain function.
  To animate a corpse as a Named NPC, with the full 
  Aspects, Skills, and Powers it possessed in life, the 
  character must make an Overcome action against 
  a Great (+4) opposition. Doing so requires great 
  concentration and power, and only one such corpse 
  can be under the character’s control at a time.
  Although the character still controls the corpse, it acts 
  on its own initiative and begins with zero fate points.
  Animating such beings is not to be taken lightly. If 
  the GM feels the animated dead would seek freedom, 
  the GM can spend a fate point to allow the corpse 
  a chance to break free. Treat this as a Contest, with 
  the two locked in a test of the corpse’s Will versus 
  the controlling power. If the animated corpse wins, 
  the Named NPC is no longer under the character’s 
  control. This means that depending on the context 
  of the Series, the corpse might actually become a full 
  Undead, exist on its own beyond the single scene, 
  and require a separate storyline to find a way to 
  destroy it.
  Special Effect
  Ready to Rumble (1): The animated objects act as 
  soon as they are summoned.
  Armory Summoning (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can summon unique weapons or armor out of 
  thin air by making a skill roll. Each Shift generated 
  on the roll is used to decide the Weapon or Armor 
  Rating and pay for any special effects for the power. 
  Applying Limits to the weapon or armor refunds 
  points, as normal.
  Barrage has the ability to summon various 
  types of guns out of thin air. She makes a roll 
  and gets 4-Shifts, creating a rifle. She decides 
  to give it the Dangerous special effect, which 
  normally costs two points. That gives her rifle a 
  Weapon Rating 2, but once per scene she can 
  spend a fate point to cause the target to take a 
  Moderate Consequence instead of stress.
  
  90
  Later, she rolls to summon some armor. This 
  time she spends a fate point to invoke an 
  appropriate aspect, and gets 5-Shifts. She 
  decides to summon a suit with Armor 3 rating, 
  and uses the remaining 2-Shifts to apply 
  both the Durable and Low Impervious special 
  effects.
  The weapon or armor remains until you dismiss it or 
  you are Taken Out. You can allow other characters to 
  use it, but you cannot summon a new piece until you 
  dismiss the current one.
  To summon more than one type of weapon or armor 
  at a time, you must purchase the power multiple 
  times or divide your Shifts.
  Special Effects
  Dual 
  Weapons 
  (1): 
  You can summon a 
  pair of single-handed 
  weapons, 
  such 
  as 
  two knives, two short 
  swords, or two pistols. 
  Dual wielding grants 
  you +1 to the Attack 
  action or Create an 
  Advantage 
  action 
  when 
  having 
  two 
  weapons would apply 
  to the situation aspect.
  Rapid Power (1): The 
  roll to use the power 
  counts as a free action 
  instead of a normal 
  action.
  Astral 
  Projection 
  (1)
  Skills: None
  The hero can separate 
  his astral form from his 
  body, leaving behind 
  an unconscious shell. 
  The astral form can 
  pass through hostile 
  physical environments 
  and barriers as if they 
  did 
  not 
  exist, 
  and 
  cannot 
  be 
  harmed 
  by 
  physical 
  entities 
  (except with powers 
  derived from a mental or mystical power source), but 
  also cannot affect the physical world. The hero can, 
  however, be attacked and harmed normally by other 
  astral and spiritual entities. Damage taken when in 
  astral form carries over to the physical body, but 
  always affects the mental stress track.
  Astral heroes can make themselves visible and 
  communicate to a corporeal hero at will. Otherwise, 
  corporeal heroes trying to sense an astral form must 
  make an Overcome action, providing they have a 
  sensory power that would allow them to do so. 
  When the astral form is separated from the body, 
  the body can still be attacked and harmed. The 
  astral form will know immediately if the body suffers 
  
  91
  damage. Reentering the body is automatic whenever 
  the character wishes to do so. If something is blocking 
  the hero from reaching his body, he cannot reenter his 
  corporeal form without taking the appropriate action 
  (usually an Overcome action) to get past the obstacle. 
  If the body is destroyed or killed, the hero will remain 
  trapped as a free spirit. 
  Aura (3)
  Skills: None
  The hero is surrounded by some sort of field or aura 
  that damages those who come into contact with it. 
  Whenever the hero successfully defends against a 
  melee attack (typically hand-to-hand), the attacker 
  takes 2-hits of damage. Additionally, if your Defend 
  action succeeded with style, you can spend a fate 
  point to place an aspect on the target instead of a 
  Boost. The aspect must represent your aura. Some 
  examples are: Burning Skin for a fire aura, Shocked 
  for an electrical aura, Cold Sap for an ice aura, or 
  even Distracting Cuts from protruding spines. You 
  get one free invocation of the aspect. Removing the 
  aspect requires your opponent to succeed at an 
  Overcome action against a Fair (+2) opposition.
  Due to the aura surrounding your body, you also 
  receive a +2 to Attack actions when using Fight.
  Special Effects
  Intense Aura (1): Against ranged attacks, your aura 
  provides a +2 bonus to Defend actions, if the attack 
  is something your aura would provide protection 
  against— such as an ice aura against bullets or 
  other physical projectiles, or an energy aura against 
  energy based attacks. 
  Blast (1-6)
  Skills: Accuracy
  You can fire some sort of distance attack, whether 
  plasma beams, concussive force, ice shards, 
  fireballs, or even spikes. Each power level grants 
  you Weapon: 1 rating, up to a maximum of Weapon: 
  6, and has a range of power level +1 zones away 
  from the character.
  Applying special effects to the power customizes it to 
  fit the type of blast your character can fire. Below are 
  examples of how to create various types of Blast with 
  one or two special effects. Use them as examples for 
  building your own, or apply them to your character for 
  a ready-to-play power. Simply purchase your levels of 
  Blast, and then add the cost below to the final total.
  Concussive (2): For each Weapon rating you reduce 
  from your damage, you knock your target back two 
  zones instead of the normal one. You also gain a +2 
  bonus when using your blast to Create an Advantage, 
  such as Stunned, or Weakened Structure.
  Corrosive (2): When destroying objects, your power 
  does double the amount of Material Strength reduction.
  In combat, if the attack succeeds with style, the 
  character can lower the damage and place an Aspect 
  instead of the normal Boost to represent the sticky 
  nature of the corrosive substance.
  Darkness (2): You can attack everyone within the 
  same zone without having to split your result. When 
  you succeed with style on an attack, you do not have 
  to reduce your damage to place a Boost on the target.
  Earth (1): When you succeed with style, you do not have 
  to reduce your damage to place a Boost on the target.
  Electrical (2): When attacking electrical opponents, 
  such as robots, you gain a +4 to the attack roll.
  EMP (1): The weapon automatically shuts down 
  electronic devices, such as smartphones, cars, 
  computers, electrical grids, and NPC robots.
  Energy (1): For each Weapon rating you reduce 
  your damage by, you extend the range of your blast 
  by an additional zone. 
  Fire (3): Once per scene, when your attack causes the 
  target to take a Consequence from your power, you 
  may spend a fate point. Doing so causes the fire to 
  continue to attack the target each consecutive round 
  with a skill rating equal to the Shifts you generated on 
  the attack roll. The target uses Physique or Athletics 
  to Defend. To stop the consecutive attacks, the target 
  must succeed at a Defend action.
  Ice (1): If you succeed with style on the attack, you 
  can lower your damage (both the weapon rating 
  and damage gained from Shifts) and use your ice to 
  automatically encase your target in ice. 
  To break free of the ice, the opponent must roll against 
  passive opposition equal to the amount of damage 
  you transferred to the encasement.
  Light (2): You gain a +2 bonus when using Light Blast 
  to place a situation aspect. When you succeed with 
  style on an attack, you do not have to reduce your 
  damage to place a boost on the target.
  
  92
  Physical Projectile (1): Once per Issue, when you 
  force an opponent to take a consequence (except 
  through the use of the Potent, Deadly, or Lethal special 
  effects), you can spend a fate point to increase the 
  consequence’s severity (so mild becomes moderate, 
  moderate becomes severe). If your opponent was 
  already going to take a severe consequence, he 
  must either take a severe consequence and a second 
  consequence or be taken out.
  Radiation (2): Once per scene, you can spend a fate 
  point on a successful attack action and cause your 
  opponent to take both stress and a consequence of 
  equal value. If the target was already going to take a 
  consequence, he takes two consequences instead.
  Sonic (2): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack and lower your damage to place a boost, 
  you instead gain a situation aspect with a free 
  invocation, representing a Stunned or Lost 
  Equilibrium type of situation. 
  Once per scene you may spend a fate point to 
  force your opponent to take a Mild Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Vibration (1): Your vibration attacks can shatter 
  both people and objects. When destroying objects, 
  your power does double the amount of Material 
  Strength reduction.
  Water (1): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack and lower your damage to place a boost, 
  you instead place an aspect, such as Drowning or 
  Water In Your Lungs. 
  Boost (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  A hero with Boost can temporarily increase the skill 
  level of another person, willing or unwilling.
  To boost a skill, the character must succeed at an 
  Overcome action with opposition equal to the current 
  skill rank. Success increases the skill by +2 levels, 
  and a success with style increases the skill by +4 
  (along with placing the normal Boost). 
  The boosted skill lasts for number of rounds equal 
  to twice the boosted level— so 4 or 8 rounds. After 
  the boosted skill drops back to normal, the character 
  is considered fatigued from the experience. Place an 
  aspect on the character to represent the strain the 
  boost caused. The aspect lasts for one scene, and 
  can be removed during the scene with an Overcome 
  action against Fair (+2) opposition.
  A character can only be under one effect of Boost 
  at a time.
  Limits
  Overload (–1): The hero’s ability to boost another 
  person has the nasty habit of overloading and burning 
  out the ability. Whenever the hero boosts a skill, the 
  target must make an immediate Will roll against an 
  Opposition equal to the amount of the boost. If the 
  roll fails, the target takes a mild consequence related 
  to his body being overloaded by the power.
  Single Skill (–1): The hero can only Boost a single 
  type of skill, chosen when the power is taken.
  Burrowing (2)
  Skills: None
  The character moves by burrowing under the ground, 
  allowing him to ignore ground based situation 
  aspects (such as zone border obstacles). Noticing a 
  burrowing character is an Overcome action, typically 
  against passive opposition equal to the burrower’s 
  Athletics or Stealth.
  If the burrowing character remains unnoticed, they 
  can erupt from the ground and gain a +2 bonus 
  to an immediate Create an Advantage action for 
  placing an aspect, such as Taken by Surprise or 
  Knocked off Balance. 
  Chameleon (2)
   Skills: None
  The hero can alter his appearance and voice to 
  resemble any other living being. The new appearance 
  should be of the same relative size and weight as the 
  hero with this power. Although the hero’s clothing, 
  gear, and equipment change to resemble the target’s 
  items, these items do not become functional. In other 
  words, the hero appears to be wearing a gun when 
  impersonating a police officer, but the gun cannot be 
  drawn or fired. 
  Shifting into another character does not require a roll, 
  but does constitute your action for the exchange. 
  Place a temporary aspect on yourself to represent 
  the new appearance. When in the other form, you 
  do not gain any powers the original person might 
  possess. To be able to do that, you must also have 
  Power Mimicry in your power set (maybe even with 
  the ranged mimic special effect).
  
  93
  To notice that the hero is not actually the simulated 
  person, the viewer must make an opposed roll 
  against the character’s Deceive skill, and the Deceive 
  skill receives +2 bonus.
  Special Effect
  Near Perfect Form(1): The hero’s Deceive skill 
  receives an additional +2 bonus when rolling to avoid 
  being discovered as a shape-shifter.
  Cold Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to control the very forces of cold, 
  allowing him to effectively decrease the temperature 
  within an entire zone. You gain a +2 when creating 
  situation aspects with your power.
  You can create ice constructs to encase your 
  opponents. Doing so requires you to roll your 
  power against the target’s Athletics. If successful, 
  place a temporary aspect on the target to represent 
  being encased. Each Shift you generated on the 
  encasement roll becomes the passive opposition 
  (Material Strength) that must be overcome to break 
  the construct
  Special Effects
  Intense Cold (1): When creating situation aspects 
  with Ice Control against a specific target, the hero 
  can also reduce his number of free invokes to cause 
  those affected to take 1-Stress for each free invoke 
  sacrificed. Invulnerability does not negate this 
  damage, but immunity to cold acts normally.
  Sub-arctic (Requires Intense Cold) (1): Once per 
  scene the hero can also spend a fate point to cause 
  a target to take a cold related Mild Consequence 
  instead of Stress.
  Darkness Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You are able to control the very darkness, allowing 
  you to extinguish light, and gain a +2 when creating 
  darkness related situation aspects.
  You are immune to darkness, and darkness related 
  situation aspects cannot be invoked for any roll made 
  against you.
  Special Effects
  Hungering Darkness (1): As long as you have free 
  invocations of any power created aspect available, 
  you can use your darkness to instill fear in others. 
  Make a power roll opposed by the target’s Will. If 
  successful, the target is overcome with fear, and 
  all rolls while within the darkness suffer a +2 to the 
  passive or active opposition, which includes Attack 
  and Defend rolls.
  To break free of the fear while under the cover of 
  your darkness, the target must make an opposed roll 
  against your controlling skill. Otherwise, it requires 
  a Will roll as an Overcome action once free of the 
  darkness.
  Death Speak (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can see and communicate with the spirits by 
  touching the person’s corpse. To use the power, the 
  hero makes an Overcome action with an opposition 
  equal to the amount of time the person has been 
  dead. The power lasts until the character stops 
  touching the corpse.
  Difficulty
  Time
  -2
  One Round (6 seconds)
  -1
  A few minutes
  +0 
  An Hour
  +1
  A few hours
  +2
  A day
  +3
  A few days
  +4
  A week
  +5
  A few weeks
  +6
  A month
  +7
  Half a year
  +8
  A year
  +9
  Several Years
  +10
  A decade
  +11
  Several decades
  +12
  A century or more
  
  94
  Special Effect
  Haunted (+0): You don’t need a corpse to use the 
  power; the spirits of the dead tend to seek you out and 
  you can attempt to contact them at any time or place.
  Deflection (2)
  Skills: Fight or Weapons
  The hero is able to deflect incoming attacks, either 
  due to metallic skin, a weapon or shield, or whatever 
  creative means you can come up with.
  Whenever you succeed with style on a Defend 
  action against a ranged attack (such as Blast), you 
  reflect the attack back at your attacker causing half 
  the amount of damage (round up). If you lower your 
  damage as normal and choose not to take a Boost for 
  succeeding with style, you instead cause the attack 
  to hit any other target in the same zone as you.
  Special Effects
  Full Deflection (1): By spending a fate point, you 
  deflect the entire damage value back at the attacker, 
  or at another target by not taking a Boost for 
  succeeding with style (as long as you still lower your 
  damage by one).
  Mental Deflect (0): Instead of physical and energy 
  attacks, the hero can only deflect mental and psychic 
  based attacks.
  Density (2,4,6)
  Skills: None
  The hero is able to increase his mass. Each Power Level 
  increases the character’s Physique by +2, and lowers 
  his Athletics by –2, up to a +6 bonus to Physique and 
  a Feeble (–2) minimum rating for Athletics.  
  If the increase in Physique would grant the character 
  additional Stress boxes or Mild Consequence slot as 
  per the normal Physique skill, the character receives 
  all such benefits while his density is increased.
  The character also receives an aspect to represent 
  being heavier and slower, with one free invocation 
  per power level used. 
  Dimensional Pocket (1)
  Skills: None
  The hero possesses his own, private dimensional 
  pocket that is contained within a cloak, backpack, or 
  some other seemingly mundane item. The dimensional 
  pocket contains its own physical laws and physical 
  space as defined when the power is taken.
  The hero can freely travel into his own dimensional 
  pocket, and can allow access to anyone he chooses. 
  Special Effects
  Lord of the Domain: The character receives a +2 
  bonus when creating situation aspects within the 
  pocket dimension.
  Dimensional Travel (1)
  Skills: None
  You can travel between dimensions, visiting any 
  dimension you have been to before without effort.
  Traveling to a new dimension requires an Overcome 
  action, with the passive opposition determined by 
  the GM based upon how difficult access a new 
  dimension might be in the Series. Although you can 
  still succeed at a cost on a failed or tied roll (and the 
  exact details should be worked out with the GM), 
  accepting a failure means that future attempts to 
  access the same dimension cause the opposition to 
  raise by +1 each time.
  Drain (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The opposite of the Boost power, Drain allows you to 
  lower the skill ratings of a target. Make an opposed 
  roll against the skill to be drained. On a success, 
  the skill is lowered by –2 steps on the ladder, and is 
  lowered by –4 steps on a success with style (along 
  with placing a boost on the target). The effect lasts 
  for a number of rounds equal to the amount drained 
  (so 2 or 4 rounds), at which time it returns to normal.
  During that time, the target can attempt an Overcome 
  action with opposition equal to the amount of drain to 
  cancel the effect.
  A character can only be under one Drain effect at a time.
  Special Effects
  Transference (2):  The hero is able to gain the drained 
  skill at a level equal to the target’s lost rating. If the 
  hero already has the skill that is being drained, then he 
  maintains his own skill level or assumes the target’s, 
  whichever is higher. The hero loses the transferred 
  skills when the target recovers from the drain.
  
  95
  Limits
  Single Skill (–1): The hero can only drain a single type 
  of skill, chosen when the Limit is taken.
  Dream Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can enter the dreams of others, exerting your 
  influence over them. 
  To enter another’s dream, make an opposed roll 
  of your controlling skill against Will. Once inside 
  the dream, you can attempt to enter the dreamer’s 
  mind and read their thoughts as though you had 
  the Mind Probe power. 
  If you want your intrusion to affect the dreamer once 
  they awake, you must place a situation aspect on 
  them representing the restless sleep they received. 
  They can attempt to remove the aspect by rolling 
  against Fair (+2) opposition. If you succeed with style 
  and spend a fate point when placing the aspect, then 
  the aspect can only be removed by getting a full night 
  of uninterrupted sleep.
  Duplication (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You are never truly alone, and have the ability to make 
  more of—  you!
  The Duplication power allows you to make a 
  number of exact copies of yourself. To call forth your 
  duplicates, make a skill roll. If successful, the Shifts 
  gained on the roll are used to summon one or more 
  ranks of duplicates, with a single member of each 
  rank costing an equal number of Shifts. For example, 
  if the hero gained 3-Shifts on the roll, he could choose 
  to summon three Rank 1 duplicates, one Rank 2 and 
  one Rank 1 duplicates, or one Rank 3 duplicate.
  The duplicates have all of your aspects, skills, and 
  powers (except the Duplication power). The rank 
  level only determines the quality of your duplicates 
  for damage taking purposes. Duplicates have no 
  Consequence slots. Duplicates act on your initiative.
  Rank 1: They are considered Average quality and 
  have no stress boxes. A single shift will take them out.
  
  96
  Rank 2: They are Fair quality and have one stress 
  box each.
  Rank 3: Your duplicates are Good quality and have 2 
  stress boxes each.
  Duplicates last until Taken Out, or until the end of the 
  scene. To control them longer than a scene without 
  an additional roll, you must spend a fate point at the 
  beginning of the scene.
  Special Effects
  Damage Soaking (3):  Once per issue, the hero 
  can “absorb” a duplicate to automatically heal 
  Consequences. It takes a number of duplicates equal 
  to the Consequence’s severity, so a Mild Consequence 
  would require absorbing two duplicates. 
  Ready to Rumble (1): The duplicates act as soon as 
  they are created.
  Sacrificial Lamb (2):  The hero can spend a fate point 
  to transfer any damage suffered by himself to one or 
  more of his duplicates. Any damage that cannot be 
  applied to a duplicate is taken by the hero.
  Horde (2): Once per issue, the hero can choose to 
  summon a horde of duplicates to assist him when 
  needed. Multiply the number of Shifts gained on roll 
  by five to determine the number of duplicates created. 
  So, gaining 2-Shifts on the roll creates 10 duplicates. 
  Divided the duplicates into groups of 5 for purposes 
  of actions, and treat them as a mob. The duplicates 
  are Rank 1 and cannot be increased. 
  Limits
  Shared Damage (–1):  Any damage suffered by 
  the hero or one of the duplicates is suffered by all 
  duplicates and the hero.
  Psychic Feedback (–1):  Whenever a duplicate is 
  damaged, the hero must make a Will roll against 
  Opposition equal to the number of Hits the damage 
  caused, or fall unconscious for the remainder of 
  the conflict.
  Duplicate Duplication
  We’ll put this Special Effect as a side idea, 
  only because we’ve seen it in comic books. 
  Allowing this option can greatly affect the 
  balance of a game, however, and requires 
  additional paperwork for the player if used. 
  So, include it as a playable option with care.
  Duplicate Duplication (5): Your duplicates 
  possess the Duplicate power the same as 
  you do, and can continue to make copies of 
  themselves ad infinitum. Keep a separate 
  record of which duplicates have also created 
  their own duplicates. If you, the player, have 
  maintained your sanity by the end of the scene, 
  you’ve accomplished an incredible feat.
  Earth Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control and manipulate the very Earth under 
  your feet, whether because you are a mutant, a form 
  of elemental being, or through arcane means. 
  You can use your power to create barriers of earth 
  by making an Overcome action. The Opposition 
  for anyone to get through the barrier is the Shifts 
  you generated, +2.
  You can also encase others in earth by making an 
  attack roll using your power. Instead of damage, each 
  Shift generated is the Opposition for them to break free.
  Electrical Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control the ebb and flow of electrical currents 
  within the zone, and gain +2 to creating electrical 
  based situation aspects.
  Special Effects
  Overcharge (1): You can sacrifice free invocations 
  of your situation aspects to cause Stress against a 
  target on a one-for-one basis, which Invulnerability 
  does not mitigate. Against electrical targets, such 
  as robots and Power Armor, you cause 2-Stress per 
  invocation sacrificed.
  
  97
  Emotion Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can alter the emotional state of others. To 
  use Emotion Control, the hero must place a situation 
  aspect on the character, such as In love with me, 
  Overcome with fear, or You would do anything for 
  me, which is defended against with Will. The emotion 
  controlling hero receives a +2 bonus to the roll when 
  placing the aspect.
  As long as the situation aspect remains on the 
  target, the hero can compel it for minor details (such 
  as preventing someone an attack from someone 
  he’s made fall in love with him), without having to 
  pay a fate point.
  To remove the situation aspect, the target must 
  roll Will against a passive opposition equal to the 
  number of Shifts the power received on the roll 
  when placing the aspect.
  Empower (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to imbue others with a vast array 
  of powers.
  To use Empower, the hero must spend a fate point, 
  and then make an opposed roll against the target’s 
  Physique. If successful, the hero is able to imbue a 
  number of powers and special effects upon the target 
  up to his own Controlling skill rank in hero point cost, 
  plus an additional hero point for each Shift gained on 
  the roll. On a success with style, he also gains a Boost.
  The imbued powers remain until the empowering 
  character chooses to take them back. The character 
  can never have more than his Controlling skill rank in 
  Hero Points spent at any one time.
  The hero can do this every round, but once he imbues 
  power levels, he cannot use them again until they 
  are returned, which can be done automatically by 
  canceling a use of the power on a target. 
  ESP (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  A hero with ESP can remotely sense other locations 
  as though he was physically present by rolling against 
  opposition based on the distance away from the 
  character. The hero can use any of their senses at 
  the remote location, but is completely unaware of the 
  surroundings of his physical body.
  Difficulty
  Distance
  -2
  Nearby, but blocked 
  by line of sight
  -1
  A city block or two away
  +0
  Several city blocks away
  +1
  A mile away
  +3
  Across a large city
  +4
  Roughly 50 miles away
  +5
  Roughly 100 miles away
  +6
  Several hundred 
  miles away
  +7
  Half way across 
  the nation
  +8
  A distance equal to the 
  US coast to coast
  +9
  Into a neighboring 
  country
  +10
  Across the Atlantic 
  or Pacific
  +11
  To the other side 
  of the Earth
  +12
  Beyond the 
  boundaries of Earth
  Extra Limbs (2)
  Skills: None
  This power only needs to be purchased once, and the 
  exact number and nature of the limbs are left to the 
  description. For example, the power is the same cost 
  whether it represents a prehensile tail, two additional 
  arms, or a mane of living hair.
  When the power is taken, the player and GM should 
  decide what one or two types of actions the limb(s) 
  provide a +2 bonus toward. For example, a mane 
  of living hair might offer a +2 bonus to grapples 
  and Defend actions against physical attacks, while 
  a prehensile tail might offer a +2 to Athletic rolls for 
  balance and climbing. 
  
  98
  Extraordinary Intellect (1)
  Skills: None
  You’re Intellect is so vast that in most settings you 
  are known as a Level (or Class) X Intellect, such as 
  Level 10, Class 12, and so forth.
  Your vast intellect grants you incredible knowledge 
  of nearly all known subjects, even fighting arts and 
  defensive forms. Though you may not be able to 
  perform them yourself, you know the foundations 
  of how and why they work. Once per scene, you 
  can declare a story detail related to some type of 
  academic knowledge without spending a fate point.
  Fire Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to control fire and heat. He gains a +2 
  bonus to rolls involving using his power to create fire 
  based situation aspects.
  He can increase or decrease existing flame by making 
  an Overcome action against opposition determined 
  by the GM (typically ranging from Mediocre (+0) for a 
  very small fire, to Fantastic (+6) or more for a raging 
  inferno), with the number of Shifts (minimum of 1 if 
  the hero is allowed to succeed at a cost) adding to or 
  taking away from the fire’s intensity. 
  Special Effects
  Living Flame (3): The hero can bring an otherwise 
  passive opposition fire to life with the same type of 
  Overcome action as mentioned above, granting it an 
  attack skill equal to the number of Shifts gained on 
  the roll. The fire is considered to have 2-stress boxes 
  and 1 Mild Consequence slot, but the hero can divide 
  Shifts from the roll between attack skill and adding 
  additional Stress boxes.
  Flight and Super-Speed
  If the hero has both Flight and Super-Speed, 
  consider only requiring the greater rank of the 
  two powers to be purchased in full, and apply 
  the desired equal or lower speed of second 
  movement mode as a 1-Point Special Effect.
  Power specific Special Effects are still 
  purchased at the listed cost.
  Flight (1-4)
  Skills: None
  Your character soars through the air, ignoring all 
  ground based obstacles and situation aspects. 
  Outside of combat and chases, your movement 
  is based solely upon the narrative context. During 
  combat, you can use the following benefits based on 
  the power level of Flight.
  Power level 1: Your flight is the equivalent of fast 
  gliding, giving you a Speed Rating: 2 when involved in 
  a chase. In combat, you may move up to four zones 
  per turn for free.
  Power level 2: Your flight allows you to match the speed 
  of fast moving sports cars and other ground based 
  vehicles, giving you Speed Rating 3 in chases. You can 
  move up to six zones per turn for free in combat.
  Power level 3: Your flight is at speeds equivalent 
  to most helicopters and small planes, granting you 
  Speed Rating 4 in chases. You can move to any zone 
  of your choosing for free in a turn.
  Power level 4: You move at super-sonic speeds and 
  can even reach escape velocity, giving you Speed 
  Rating 5 in chases. You can move into any zone of 
  your choosing for free in a turn, and by spending a 
  fate point can arrive at any scene of your choosing 
  because you had enough time to get there. 
  Flight and Super-
  Speed in Combat
  Flight and Super-Speed can provide a 
  reason to use the Create an Advantage action 
  to place a scene aspect to help you with 
  Defend or Attack actions. A good example 
  is a Blur of Motion aspect representing your 
  intense speed, which then receives the free 
  invocations for placing it (as well as being able 
  to be invoked with a fate point) for bonuses to 
  your action. Combine that with invoking the 
  Power Set aspect, and you’ll be the streak of 
  color like you see in some comic book panels.
  Force Control (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You are able to generate and shape an energy source 
  such as concussive force or hard light.
  
  99
  You add +2 to grapple attempts when using some 
  sort of force energy to entangle your target, and can 
  grapple any target in the same zone as you. Your 
  controlling skill counts as your strength. 
  You can make an Overcome action to create 
  force barriers and constructs. The opposition for 
  someone to break them is +2 greater than the 
  number of Shifts you generated.
  You can use your controlling skill as though it was 
  Super-Strength, allowing you to knock back an 
  opponent with Force Control, or lift objects up to 
  a zone away.
  Forcefield (1-6)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You surround yourself with some sort of field, whether 
  derived from technology or an innate ability, which 
  makes you harder to hit.
  When the character activates the field, she rolls the 
  controlling skill with a +1 bonus per power level (up 
  to a maximum of +6). The result is the opposition that 
  attackers must roll against for their attack action. If 
  the attack is a success or success with style, the 
  Forcefield failed to stop the attack and the hero takes 
  damage as normal.
  When a forcefield fails to stop an attack, it deactivates 
  and it is considered out of commission until the end of 
  the conflict. To reactivate it during the conflict, the hero 
  can attempt an Overcome action equal to the level of 
  forcefield. Reactivating the field can only be done once 
  per conflict, so if the field is shutdown a second time it 
  is out for the remainder of the conflict. If the Overcome 
  action is successful, the hero rolls a new opposition 
  total that attackers must exceed, as normal.
  The forcefield can be maintained from round to 
  round, meaning that the hero uses her original roll 
  on subsequent rounds as well without having to toss 
  the dice again. Doing so, however, means that she 
  can take no other actions that round (not even a Full 
  Defense). The hero can still invoke Aspects (including 
  on subsequent rounds) too add to the total, as 
  normal. To take another action, the hero will have to 
  drop his forcefield that round. This does not count as 
  though the field was shut down from an attack, and 
  the hero does not have to make an Overcome action 
  to be able to reactivate it. 
  Special Effects
  Battering Ram (1): The hero can shape their 
  forcefield into a battering ram. Doing so provides +2 
  to knock back attempts, and the knock back distance 
  is treated as though they had Super-Strength.
  Expanded Field (1): The hero’s field can cover an area 
  beyond just them— up to an entire zone maximum. 
  The forcefield’s bonus applies to everyone under it 
  when taking Defend actions.
  Ranged Field (0): Instead of being focused on the 
  hero, their forcefield can be fired to anywhere in the 
  zone. It forms at the point of impact, and covers an 
  area enough for no more than a couple of people.
  Friction Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You control the amount of friction between objects, 
  causing them to become extremely slippery or very 
  sticky in relation to each other. Create a situation 
  aspect representing the type of effect you are 
  creating: slippery or sticky. As long as you have free 
  invocations remaining on the situation aspect, you 
  get the following effects.
  Slippery Surface: Before anyone touching the surface 
  can take an action that requires balance, they must 
  make an opposed Athletics roll against your controlling 
  power (this does not count as an action for you). Unless 
  they succeed, they can take no other actions that 
  round as they either fall, struggle to remain upright, or 
  some other narrative effect that applies.
  Sticky Surface: Anyone touching the affected surface 
  that attempts to move must first make a Physique 
  roll against your controlling skill (this does not count 
  as an action for you). If they fail (and choose not to 
  succeed at a cost), then they can take no other action 
  that round as they struggle to get free.
  Gravity Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control and manipulate one of the fundamental 
  forces of the universe, allowing you to reduce or 
  increase the pull of gravity over an area or individual.
  You can lower gravity by creating a situation aspect 
  to represent the gravitational change. As long as 
  the aspect exists, you can use your controlling skill 
  as Super-Strength for lifting objects. To lift another 
  
  100
  person, make an opposed roll against their Physique 
  or Athletics (whichever is greater). 
  When increasing gravity against an opponent, make an 
  opposed roll against Physique. Each Shift generated 
  on the roll causes all physical actions by the target 
  to suffer a +1 to the opposition (this includes most 
  physical Attack and Defend actions). 
  To affect multiple targets without the Area Effect 
  special effect, you must split your result.
  Special Effects
  Intense Gravity (1): When increasing gravity, you 
  can sacrifice the increase in opposition on a one 
  for one basis to instead cause Stress to the target. 
  Invulnerability negates the damage as normal.
  Growth (2,4,6,8,10,12)
  Skills: None
  You can grow to immense size as shown on the table 
  below. Each level of growth increases your movement 
  by 1 zone per Power Level.
  When you increase your size, you gain an equal 
  number of levels in Super-Strength, which does not 
  stack with the normal Super-Strength power if you 
  have it. If you do, always use the highest rating. Every 
  2 levels of Growth also provide you with 1 Power 
  Level of Density.
  You also gain an appropriate situation aspect placed 
  upon you, such as Large, Super-Sized, or Gigantic, 
  with one free invocation. 
  Whether growth is a permanent feature of the 
  character, or is something that can be turned on 
  and off as a free action, is determined when the 
  power is taken.
  Power Level
  Height Bonus
  1
  20”
  Super-Strength 1
  2
  40’
  Super-Strength 2, Density 1
  3
  60’
  Super-Strength 3
  4
  75’
  Super-Strength 4, Density 2
  5
  90’
  Super-Strength 5
  6
  100’+
  Super-Strength6, Density 3
  Special Effects
  Enhanced Lifting (1): You add your Physique to 
  lifting rolls involving Super-Strength.
  Hardiness (1-6)
  Skills: None
  You are difficult to put down, possessing a greater 
  than normal damage threshold before you have to 
  concede a battle or are Taken Out— though you’ll 
  definitely feel the effects afterward.
  For each Power Level, you gain the following benefit:
  Power 
  Level
  Benefit
  1
  Additional Stress Box
  2
  Additional Mild consequence Slot
  3
  Additional Stress Box
  4
  Additional Moderate Consequence Slot
  5
  Additional Stress Box
  6
  Additional Severe Consequence Slot
  Choose whether the additional Stress Boxes are 
  physical or mental when the power is purchased. 
  Likewise, the additional consequence slots must have 
  a (p) or an (m) notation next to them on the character 
  sheet, designating whether they are for physical or 
  mental consequences.
  Healing (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  As a full action, you can heal the Stress and 
  Consequences of others. To do so, make an Overcome 
  action with opposition equal to total amount of Stress 
  to be healed. On a success, you clear all checked 
  boxes on the target.
  To heal Consequences, you must target one 
  Consequence at a time. The opposition to heal it is 
  the severity +1, so a Mild Consequence provides 
  Good (+3) opposition, while a Moderate provides 
  Superb (+5) opposition. 
  If you succeed with style on a Healing roll, you place 
  a Boost on the character being healed, such as I Feel 
  Great! or Energy Surge.
  
  101
  Appropriate effects of succeeding at a cost might be 
  taking the person’s injury or Stress onto yourself at 
  a slightly reduced amount, or even assuming the full 
  measure of their injuries onto your person.
  Special Effects
  Regrowth (1): The character is able to regrow lost limbs.
  Restoration (1): You can counter the effects of powers 
  that have hindered your patient (typically through a 
  situation aspect placed on the character), such as 
  from Confusion, Daze, Mind Control, Paralyze, and 
  Transform. To do so, you must make a roll against 
  Fair (+2) Opposition.
  Resurrection (1):  You can bring others back from 
  the dead!  Make a roll against Great (+4) Opposition. 
  If successful, you can resurrect the target as long as 
  the number of rounds they were dead do not exceed 
  the power’s skill rating. For each Shift gained on the 
  roll, the number of rounds the target can be dead 
  prior to the resurrection attempt is increased by +1. 
  The target revives with all Consequence slots filled in, 
  and can then be further healed.
  Hyper-Action (1)
  Skills: None
  Whether as a result of being a speedster or some 
  other origin, you’re able to complete tasks in far less 
  time than other people. Whenever you are conducting 
  researching, assembling items, or performing some 
  other task where your own mental or physical abilities 
  are the deciding time-factor, you reduce the time on 
  the Time Increment chart by four steps.
  Hyper-Movement (1)
  Skills: None
  The character is able to move in strange or unique 
  ways, whether it is walking on air, climbing walls like 
  an insect, or passing through narrow openings as 
  though made of sand or gas.
  Each 
  time 
  Hyper-Movement 
  is 
  purchased, 
  it 
  represents a different type of movement ability.
  Air Walking: You can walk on air as though it was solid 
  ground, even climbing “air staircases” to increase 
  your elevation. This allows you to ignore most ground 
  based situation aspects and zone obstacles (provided 
  you have enough open air above you to go up), and 
  allows you to safely fall from any height.
  FTL Speed: You can travel at faster-than-light 
  speeds while in outer space. The exact speed-factor 
  is not important, and should be treated as a narrative 
  need. If two ships (or characters) need to determine 
  who reaches a destination first, both sides make an 
  opposed roll using only a flat Mediocre (+0) skill rating. 
  Aspects may be invoked as normal. The winner gets 
  there first. If the winner succeeded with style, he not 
  only gets there first but gets a slight advantage in 
  being able to place a Boost.
  Particulate: You move through extremely small 
  openings, such as the cracks under a door or key 
  holes, as though you were made of sand, water, 
  gas, or some other likely substance. It takes three 
  rounds to move your entire body through the 
  opening. If you are in a rush, you can attempt an 
  Athletics roll as an Overcome action. On a success, 
  you only take a full round to get through. On a 
  success with style, you pass through the opening 
  as part of regular movement.
  Swimming: You can move through water as easily as 
  air, swimming at speeds fast enough to catch even 
  the fastest boats.
  Wall-Crawling: This power allows you to move along 
  vertical and inverted surfaces as though moving 
  across level ground, allowing you to ignore ground 
  based Situation Aspects. The GM may require an 
  appropriate Athletics action to move over slick or 
  slippery surfaces.
  Water Walking: You can walk across water as though 
  it was solid ground. Once per conflict you may spend 
  a fate point to ignore all damage from a single attack 
  that is ground level based, as you turn off the power 
  and drops below the water’s surface. Even if you 
  reactivates the power and returns to the water’s 
  surface, you can only pull that trick once per conflict.
  Hyper-Sense (1)
  Skills: None
  The hero has one or more enhanced or unique senses, 
  granting her the ability to detect things, see things, 
  and perhaps track things that normal people cannot.
  Each time this power is purchased, it applied to a 
  new form of Hyper-Sense.
  Analytical Sense: The hero possesses a sense 
  that can analyze the material an object or person 
  is composed of, such as being able to sense each 
  chemical that composes a steel girder.
  
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  Awareness:  The hero is able to detect something, 
  as determined when Hyper-Sense (Awareness) is 
  purchased. The hero can attempt the detection by 
  making a Notice roll against Mediocre (+0) opposition.
  Danger Sense: The hero is able to sense impending 
  danger. Situation aspects placed that represent an 
  opponent ambushing, taking aim, or using stealth to 
  attack the character do not receive free invocations. 
  Additionally, opponents cannot use Stealth to attack 
  the character, regardless of Stunts.
  Darkvision:  The hero can see in darkness as though it 
  was normal light. Darkness related aspects and Boosts 
  cannot be invoked for bonuses against the character.
  Directional Hearing:  When making Notice rolls to 
  pin-point the exact location of a sound, the hero 
  gains a +4 bonus.
  Full Vision:  The hero is able to see in 360 degrees 
  simultaneously. Situation aspects representing 
  sneaking up on the character or attacking from 
  behind do not receive any free invocations. 
  Additionally, groups do not receive a Teamwork 
  bonus against the character.
  Hyper-Hearing:  The hero can hear sounds inaudible 
  to the normal ear. When detecting heroes that can 
  hide from normal senses (such as stealth, camouflage, 
  invisible, and so forth) heroes with this power receive 
  a +4 to their Notice roll.
  Hyper-Olfactory:  The hero is able to detect a target 
  by scent. When placing a situation aspect to assist in 
  detecting someone using Stealth, Invisibility, or some 
  other sight impairing power, or tracking someone that 
  the hero can normally get a scent from, he places 
  a situation aspect with a free invocation instead 
  of a Boost on a tie, and receives an additional free 
  invocation for a for a success or success with style.
  Hyper-Touch:  The hero is able to sense tremors and 
  acute details (such as fine grains of sand in an object, 
  conversations through glass, sensing tremors along 
  a surface, and so forth) through touch. Although a 
  roll is not usually required, if the GM rules there is 
  opposition, then the hero makes any necessary 
  Notice check with a +4 bonus.
  Microscopic Vision: The hero can see miniscule 
  objects. The opposition to view objects of a certain 
  size is shown on the chart below.
  Opposition
  Size
  Mediocre (+0)
  Dust
  Average (+1)
  Microscopic Insects
  Fair (+2)
  Cellular
  Good (+3)
  Molecular
  Great (+4)
  Atomic
  Sonar: The hero can effectively see (without color) 
  through the emission of high frequency sound 
  pulses. The hero gains a +4 to Notice rolls to detect 
  opponents using Stealth, Invisibility, Camouflage, 
  and other powers that would otherwise hide their 
  presence. Darkness, intense light, and other vision 
  impairing situation aspects cannot be invoked on 
  rolls that oppose the hero. 
  High frequency sounds on the same frequency as 
  sonar can disrupt it. Make a Notice check (with no 
  bonus from this power) against opposition determined 
  by the GM. This is considered a normal Overcome 
  action. If the hero fails instead of succeeding at a 
  cost, then Sonar offers no benefit until the person, 
  situation aspect, or device causing the high frequency 
  interruption is removed.
  Telescopic Vision: The hero can see fine details 
  further away than normal people. The exact number 
  of zones a character can see should be determined 
  on a case by case basis. If using the Create an 
  Advantage action to assist in being able to see 
  far away, the hero places a situation aspect with 
  a free invocation instead of a Boost on a tie, and 
  receives an additional free invocation for a success 
  or success with style.
  Thermal Vision:  The hero can automatically see into 
  the infrared spectrum and detect the thermal patterns 
  emitted by all things. To see thermal patterns through 
  objects (such as the heat patterns of people on the 
  other side of a wall), the hero makes a Notice check 
  with opposition equal to half (round up) of the object’s 
  Material Strength. Additionally, unless characters 
  using Stealth, Invisibility, or other concealing abilities 
  also have a means of masking their heat patterns, the 
  hero can see them normally.
  True Sight:  The hero is able to see through illusions and 
  other mentally-created visual effects. The hero gains a 
  +4 bonus to Notice check against such opposition.
  
  103
  X-Ray Vision: The hero can automatically see 
  through objects of any Material Strength as though 
  the barrier was not there. If the hero places a situation 
  aspect representing his ability to see through objects, 
  the situation aspects involving things like Cover or 
  Concealed cannot be invoked on rolls against the 
  hero as long as he has free invocations of his own 
  situation aspect available.
  Illusion (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can create illusionary objects and people that 
  seem completely real to those viewing them. The 
  illusions can fill any area that makes narrative sense, 
  from the amount of space occupied by a single 
  person up to a single zone. 
  To create an illusion, make a roll to create a situation 
  aspect. On a tie, you create an aspect instead of 
  a Boost, with one free invocation. On a success 
  or success with style, you gain an additional free 
  invocation. For each free invocation you sacrifice, 
  you can expand the illusion by an additional zone.
  The illusions are not real, physical constructs, so 
  anyone stepping onto an illusionary floor that falls 
  through it, steps through an illusionary wall, and so 
  forth, automatically realizes the illusion is not real.
  Otherwise, whenever someone has a reason to 
  believe the illusion is not real, they must make a Will 
  roll against passive opposition equal to your skill 
  rating. You may invoke the illusion’s situation aspect 
  to increase the opposition by +2. 
  As long as someone believes your illusions are real, 
  you can attack them with it using your skill for the 
  attack roll. Because the damage is illusionary, it causes 
  Mental Stress (even if the damage appears physical). 
  Such damage heals normally, even after the illusion is 
  discovered. While the body might not have actually 
  been damaged, the mind still suffered injury.
  Immoveable (2)
  Skills: None
  When it comes to being knocked around or shoved out 
  of the way, you are able to stand your ground, sometimes 
  even against the world’s most powerful opponents.
  You can use Physique instead of Athletics and Fight 
  for Defend actions against attacks. 
  When rolling to provide active opposition to 
  Overcome actions, such as blocking movement 
  between zones, you gain a +2 bonus to the roll. 
  Depending upon the situation, this may or may not 
  also involve any bonus from the Super-Strength 
  power if you possess it, and stacks with Full Defense 
  (i.e. bracing yourself against heavy attacks).
  You do not suffer from knock back— ever— without 
  there being very good narrative reason, such as 
  your opponent sending the ground you are standing 
  on with you.
  Immunity (1,3,5)
  Skills: None
  The hero possesses immunity to a particular 
  environmental effect, power, type of damage, and so 
  forth. Choose from the list below when this power 
  is purchased is taken. Each type of Immunity is 
  purchased separately.
  Situational Immunity (1)
  Each level grants the character immunity to one 
  type of environment based situation aspect. Such 
  situation aspects cannot be invoked on actions 
  against the character. The immunity does not prevent 
  the character from taking damage from associated 
  attacks (such as Fire Blast, Ice Blast, or a radiation 
  based Affliction power), but stops them from being 
  harmed by effects like those generated by the Cold 
  Control special effect since such damage options are 
  based upon placing situation aspects.
  Some examples of situational immunities that have 
  appeared in comic books are listed below, but your 
  group is encouraged to create more as needed.
  • Cold
  • Drowning
  • Emotion (or type of emotion, such as fear)
  • Heat
  • Hunger
  • Lack of Sleep
  • Poison
  • Pressure (such as from the deep ocean)
  • Radiation
  • Stun (such as the stunned situation aspect)
  • Suffocation
  • Thirst
  • Vacuum
  
  104
  Type Immunity (3)
  The hero is immune to the effects of a specific 
  power type, such as Ice, Fire, Radiation, Plasma 
  and so forth. This means that the hero cannot be 
  damaged by attacks from that specific power, and 
  is also immune to any environmental aspects (such 
  as heat, if immune to Fire Blast) associated with 
  the power type.
  Only one type of power immunity can be purchased, 
  unless the GM approves additional purchases.
  Source Immunity (5)
  This immunity level is included because— well— 
  it exists within comic books, but could prove an 
  issue in some campaigns. Before source immunity 
  is available to the heroes, talk it over with the GM 
  and rest of the group. After all, allowing the player-
  characters to have Source Immunity: Magical in 
  a campaign based on the mystic community and 
  supernatural threats might not be a good idea. If 
  the source immunity makes the heroes completely 
  immune to the common type of major threats in 
  a campaign, it’s highly recommended that the 
  particular source immunity option be excluded.
  A special and uncommon type of immunity, the hero 
  is immune to all effects (including damage) from a 
  specific source of power. Examples of power sources 
  include divine, magical, mental, mutant, and so forth. 
  Choosing a broad source that makes the character 
  completely immune to everyday effects, such as 
  physical or technological, is not allowed. While such 
  powers might exist, they are purely within the realm of 
  NPCs who represent a major enemy in the story, and 
  typically a Major Milestone when defeated.
  A character may never have more than one type of 
  source immunity.
  Intangible (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You have the ability to become insubstantial and 
  pass through any object, allowing you to ignore 
  ground based situation aspects or zone obstacles. 
  There is no roll to use the power, unless certain 
  special effects are used.
  Special Effects
  Phase Attack (2): You can also solidify portions of 
  yourself (such as an arm) inside of people and objects, 
  using your phasing ability to damage them. To perform 
  the attack, you must first place a situation aspect on 
  the target for the set-up as a free action. The target 
  can defend against this as normal, which represents 
  them getting out of the way. Since your character is 
  still intangible, the Defend action should typically use 
  Athletics, though any skill or power can be used if the 
  narrative is justified. Once the aspect is placed, your 
  character can then make an Overcome action against 
  the target’s physique, causing 3-hits of damage on 
  a success. Since the attack is literally through the 
  character, Invulnerability doesn’t negate it. 
  Against objects, the attack is automatic.
  Bio-electrical Discharge (Requires Phase Attack) 
  (1): When you attack electrical targets (including 
  Power Armor) using the Phase attack, you cause 
  6-hits worth of damage.
  Phase Others (1): You can extend your phasing to 
  anyone in contact with you, and even to those in 
  contact with that person! To do so, make a roll against 
  Opposition equal to the number of people who are 
  going to phase (excluding yourself). If the people are 
  unwilling, the roll instead becomes Active Opposition 
  against their Will.
  Interface (1)
  Skills: Will or Technology
  You can access computers from a distance. The 
  exact distance is left to the narrative, since nearly any 
  range could be explained thanks to satellites. When 
  accessing or hacking into computer systems, make 
  an Overcome action against a difficulty set by the 
  GM. This power allows you to also use Will in place 
  of Technology (if you so choose) for hacking into 
  computer systems.
  Invisibility (2,4,6)
  Skills: None
  You can make yourself difficult or nearly impossible 
  to see, whether by bending light around you, a mystic 
  spell, or some other origin.
  Each level in this power gives you a +2 bonus to 
  Stealth rolls, up to a +6 maximum. Additionally, you 
  are able to use Stealth for attacks (including the bonus 
  from this power) as long as your exact location has 
  not been discovered. If you succeed with style on the 
  attack, you can maintain invisibility and use Stealth 
  (and the associated bonus) again on the next attack 
  instead of placing a Boost— basically representing 
  that you’ve attacked and moved well enough that 
  
  105
  they still can’t pin-point you. Otherwise, once you 
  attack, you’ve been discovered and lose all Stealth 
  benefits granted by this power for the remainder of 
  the conflict (unless the narrative dictates that it would 
  make sense for you to regain the stealth benefits).
  Anyone can attempt to discover your location 
  even without you attacking (if they have a reason 
  to know you are present) by making an Overcome 
  action against passive opposition equal to your 
  Stealth bonus from the power. The action cannot 
  succeed at a cost.
  Invulnerability (1-6)
  Skills: None
  The hero is resistant to damage, gaining Armor Rating 
  1 per power level, to a maximum of Invulnerability 6.
  Special Effect
  Absorption (1): Your Invulnerability also has the 
  ability to absorb and channel either physical (kinetic) 
  or energy damage as per the Absorption power. For 
  each 2-Hits of the energy type you absorb (round up), 
  you gain +1 to Attack and Overcome actions, but the 
  energy must be used by your next turn or it dissipates.
  To possess expanded absorption abilities, purchase 
  Absorption special effects at the normal cost.
  Unstoppable (2): Once the hero gets moving, he 
  adds his Invulnerability level as a bonus to resist other 
  characters attempting to stop his momentum. The 
  hero can automatically break objects with a Material 
  Strength up to twice his Invulnerability level simply by 
  purposefully ramming into them.
  Absorption and 
  Invulnerability
  Absorption 
  offers 
  a 
  limited 
  form 
  of 
  invulnerability— an armor rating against 
  either physical or energy damage (but not 
  both) that can then be channeled into a bonus 
  for Attack and Overcome actions. However, 
  what if you want your hero to have both full 
  invulnerability, plus the ability to absorb and 
  channel energy from damage?
  Since layers of armor rating do not stack, 
  purchase the Invulnerability power with the 
  Absorption special effect. Yes, that makes 
  being able to absorb energy more expensive, 
  since a 4-Shift absorb under Absorption is 
  2-points, and a 4-Shift under Invulnerability 
  is 5-points with the special effect, but you are 
  also getting the ability to mitigate pretty much 
  all incoming attacks, plus your invulnerability 
  still mitigates damage if your absorption fails..
  Leaping (1-4)
  Skills: None
  You can leap distances greater than even the best 
  human athlete. Unlike some other modes of super-
  movement, Leaping does not provide you with 
  specific bonuses to rolls, though you may still ignore 
  ground based situation aspects as long as you have 
  the overhead clearance to leap over them. As a matter 
  of fact, because a leap of your magnitude causes you 
  to hang in the air a bit, the GM might even be able to 
  invoke your power set aspect against you.
  Outside of combat, how quickly you get from 
  one location to another is based on the narrative 
  context. In combat, however, leaping provides the 
  following movement.
  Power level 1: Providing there are no zone barriers to 
  stop you, you can move four zones per turn for free.
  Power level 2: You can move six zones per turn for 
  free, providing there are no zone barriers in your way.
  Power level 3: You can leap up to eight zones for 
  free. Doing so requires significant overhead clearing, 
  which means you automatically ignore ground based 
  situation aspects.
  Power level 4: You can leap to any nearby zone and 
  ignore all ground based situation aspects while doing so.
  
  106
  Life Support (1)
  Skills: None
  The hero has incredible body chemistry (or may even be 
  a robot or android) does not need to eat, drink, breathe, 
  or sleep. He is unaffected by attacks and situation 
  aspects which require the target to inhale air (such as 
  poisonous gas, smoke inhalation, and so forth). 
  Light Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can generate and control the intensity of light, 
  whether sheer whiteness, fireworks, or some other 
  sort of illumination, gaining a +2 bonus when creating 
  light based situation aspects.
  Living Séance (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is a walking conduit for the spirits of the 
  dead, able to summon them to his location.
  Make a roll as an Overcome action. Each Shift 
  gained on the roll represents a single spirit. The 
  spirits are intangible and cannot be harmed except 
  through appropriate psychic or mystic abilities 
  (such as Psychic or Eldritch Blast). Although they 
  cannot physically harm other characters, their 
  presence and rapid movements are a good way to 
  cause distractions, allowing multiple spirits to act 
  as a team and apply the teamwork bonus to Create 
  an Advantage actions.
  For example, if the hero gained 3-Shifts on the roll and 
  summoned three spirits, they could work together 
  to gain +2 bonus to Create an Advantage actions, 
  perhaps placing a Distracting situation aspect on an 
  opponent and handing off the free invocations to the 
  summoning hero or one of his allies.
  Spirits act on the round after they are summoned, 
  on the summoning hero’s initiative. Unless Taken 
  Out, they last until the end of the scene, and can 
  be extended to a longer duration by paying one fate 
  point per additional scene.
  Each Spirit has one stress box.
  Special Effects
  Phase Attack (2): The spirits have the Phase Attack 
  special effect from the Intangible power.
  Poltergeist (2): The spirits have the Telekinesis power 
  with Mediocre (+0) skill rating. They can use the skill 
  to attack by throwing objects at the opponent. When 
  using Telekinesis to create situation aspects, they 
  gain +2 to the roll in addition to any teamwork bonus.
  Ready to Rumble (1): The spirits can act as soon as 
  they are summoned.
  Limits
  Draining (–1): Summoning spirits is extremely tiring 
  to the hero. At the end of each scene in which the 
  hero had summoned spirits under his command, he 
  takes 1-Stress per spirit. The stress does not clear 
  until the end of a full scene in which no spirits were 
  under his command.
  Luck (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero and those around him are favored by fortune 
  and able to get a lucky break at just the right time, or 
  might get hindered at just the wrong time.
  Good Luck: The hero makes an Overcome action. 
  If successful, the hero may use one of the benefits 
  below. On a success with style, the hero may use two 
  of the effects.
  The effects last until the end of the next exchange, 
  at which time the hero will have to use Luck again to 
  reset the benefits.
  • The hero places two Boosts on a zone or 
  character. The Boosts can be divided between 
  the zone and a specific character, or two 
  different characters, or two different Boosts on 
  the scene— however the hero chooses.
  • The hero gains two temporary fate points 
  and may share them with other characters 
  (including Nameless NPCs).
  • The hero may spend fate points to negate those 
  spent by another character, on a one-for-one 
  basis, but cannot spend more than two fate 
  points on this effect.
  Whether or not the roll can succeed at a cost is up 
  to the GM. If it can, then a minor cost should be 
  something along the lines of a single Boost placed 
  that can only be used against the hero or an ally. For 
  a major cost, see Bad Luck below.
  Bad Luck: This primarily happens when the character 
  fails the power roll or succeeds at a major cost. In 
  
  107
  this case, the player (or GM) must choose one of the 
  following problems. If the roll was failed by 3 or more, 
  the character suffers two problems.
  • The character gets two Boosts placed upon 
  them (or even one or two of their allies instead, 
  GM’s choice), with a single free invocation going 
  to the opposition.
  • The character (or an ally) suffers a Mild 
  Consequence tied into the unlucky break. If the 
  character does not have a Mild Consequence 
  slot open, then it becomes a situation aspect 
  that grants two free invocations to the 
  opposing forces. The Mild Consequence or 
  aspect automatically goes away at the end of 
  the next exchange.
  • One of the character’s aspects, or a Mild 
  Consequence or situation aspect placed by 
  Luck, is compelled against the character or ally, 
  and no fate point is received for the Compel.
  Magnetic Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can manipulate and control ferrous metals, 
  allowing you to move any such objects within the 
  same zone as though you had Super-Strength equal 
  to your controlling skill rank.
  You can use your controlling skill to cause metallic 
  objects to grapple any target within the same zone. 
  Treat the Material Strength of the object as the passive 
  Opposition to break free on subsequent rounds. 
  If you are simply using magnetic forces to grapple 
  them, then your controlling skill acts as your strength 
  on subsequent rounds. 
  Against multiple targets, you must split your 
  results as normal.
  When creating barriers with metallic objects, the 
  opposition to break the construct or barrier is 
  automatically equal to the material strength of the 
  metal being used, such as steel being Legendary 
  (+8) material strength.
  Special Effect
  Blood Flow Manipulation (1): If you succeed at an 
  opposed roll against a target’s Physique, you can 
  cause them to fall asleep by manipulating the flow of 
  oxygen to the brain. The target is asleep for the current 
  exchange, plus one round per Shift you achieved on 
  the roll. Awakening before then requires a Physique 
  roll against passive opposition equal to the number of 
  Shifts you generated.
  Matter Control (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to control and manipulate the very 
  fabric of the physical universe, effectively changing the 
  form of matter or creating matter where none exists.
  To change one material type into another, make as an 
  Overcome action. Use the difference between the two 
  Material Strengths as the opposition. For example, to 
  make a bank vault door disappear (changing the vault 
  door to thin air), the opposition would be Monstrous 
  (+9). On the other hand, changing the Monstrous (+9) 
  bank vault door into a more easily breakable Good 
  (+3) brick, requires Fantastic (+6) opposition. 
  The change lasts for one exchange on a success (or a 
  success at a cost), or few minutes on a success with 
  style. If the hero spends a fate point, the change lasts 
  the entire scene.
  Matter Control does not allow you to create weapons 
  or armor with an actual Rating.
  Special Effects
  Encasement (1): You can use created objects to 
  encase any target within the same zone, rolling your 
  controlling skill in a grapple attempt. The Material 
  Strength of the object is the passive Opposition for 
  them to break free.
  Melee Attack (1-6)
  Skills: Fight or Weapons
  Your hero has some sort of powerful, up close and 
  personal attack, whether claws, flaming hands, ice 
  encased fists, concussive force punches, or even a 
  weapon that’s beyond the scope of the mundane. 
  Each power level grants the character Weapon: 1 
  rating (up to Weapon: 6).
  Applying special effects to the Melee power 
  customizes it to fit the type of attack he uses. Below 
  are some ready-made, low cost examples of how to 
  create some types of Melee Attacks with one or two 
  special effects. Use them as examples for building 
  your own, or apply them to your character for a ready-
  to-play power. Simply purchase your levels of Melee 
  Attack, and then add the cost below to the final total.
  Damage from Melee Attack does not stack with 
  the damage from Super-Strength. Instead, you use 
  
  108
  the greater of the two (though you still purchase a 
  secondary effect from the Melee Attack power).
  Claws/Weapon (1): Once per scene, you can spend 
  a fate point on a successful Attack action and cause 
  your opponent to take both Stress and a Consequence 
  of equal value. If the target was already going to take a 
  Consequence, he takes two Consequences instead.
  Concussive (1): For each Weapon rating you reduce 
  your damage by, you knock your target back two 
  zones instead of the normal one.
  Corrosive (2): When destroying objects, your power 
  does double the amount of Material Strength reduction.
  In combat, if the attack succeeds with style, the 
  character can lower the damage and place an Aspect 
  instead of the normal Boost to represent the sticky 
  nature of the corrosive substance. 
  Electrical (2): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack, you do not have to reduce your damage to 
  place a Boost on the target. You may also use your 
  power’s skill, instead of Thief or Technology, when 
  attempting to short out or bypass electronic locks. 
  Energy (2): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack, you may spend a fate point to ignore a 
  target’s Imperviousness, as well as bypass 2 levels 
  of Invulnerability. If the target is not Impervious, you 
  ignore 3 levels of Invulnerability.
  Fire (1): When touching any object or person, you 
  gain a +2 bonus to creating Aspects representing 
  some type of fire or burning effect. 
  Ice (1): Once per Issue, when you force an opponent 
  to take a consequence, you can spend a fate point to 
  increase the consequence’s severity (so mild becomes 
  moderate, moderate becomes severe). If your opponent 
  was already going to take a severe consequence, he 
  must either take a severe consequence and a second 
  consequence or be taken out.
  Memory Augmentation (2)
  Skills: Magic or Mental
  The character is able to transform the memories of 
  the target, either erasing some completely or altering 
  the way the character remembers facts and events.
  Make an opposed roll of your Magic or Mental 
  skill against the target’s Will. If successful, place a 
  temporary aspect on them to represent the changed 
  memory.
  To remove the aspect and regain the lost memories, 
  the target must succeed at a Will roll against 
  opposition equal to the skill rating of the power user.
  Permanent Memory 
  Alteration
  Some extremely powerful NPCs might 
  have a permanent version of the Memory 
  Augmentation power. When using it against 
  the player-characters or Named NPCs, 
  attempting to recover the true memories 
  requires a fate point to make the roll.
  Mental Blast (1-6)
  The power functions the same as the Blast power, 
  except it causes Mental Stress to the target.
  Mental Invulnerability (1-6)
  This power works the same as Invulnerability, except 
  it only negates mental based damage.
  Mind Control (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can enter and control the minds of 
  others, effectively controlling their actions and 
  overriding their willpower.
  To Mind Control Nameless and Supporting NPCs, roll 
  your skill against passive opposition equal to their 
  Will. If successful, you place a temporary aspect on 
  the target that can be compelled to force them to 
  follow your orders. Compelling the aspect does not 
  cost a fate point.
  To take over a Named NPC’s or another player-
  character’s mind requires confronting them on the 
  psychic plane. Treat this as a Contest using your 
  controlling skill against their Will. If you win, you 
  place a temporary aspect on the target that can be 
  compelled for free to force them to follow your orders.
  Breaking free of the mind control requires removing 
  the aspect. Make an Overcome action against passive 
  opposition equal to controller’s controlling skill. 
  Special Effects
  Master of Puppets (1): The controller can force his thrall 
  to spend fate points and invoke aspects, but the actual 
  fate points are spent by the controller, not the thrall.
  
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  Subtle (1): Once free, the target is unaware of the 
  Mind Control and suffers a memory loss (a blackout) 
  for the time he was under the influence of the power. If 
  there is a question as to whether or not he was under 
  someone’s influence, anyone with an appropriate skill 
  or power (such as Mind probe) can make a roll against 
  opposition equal to the Mind Controller’s controlling 
  skill rating to discover the truth.
  Mind Probe (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to delve into another person’s mind 
  and read their thoughts and memories.
  To do so, make an opposed roll versus the person’s 
  Will. If the hero rolls a success, he can read memories 
  easily recalled by the target. On a success with style, 
  the hero can read distant or deeply buried memories.
  Mind Switch (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You are able to switch your mind with another living 
  being that you can touch.
  For a willing target or a mindless victim (such as a 
  blank clone) the mind switch is automatic. 
  Otherwise, you’re going to roll for it.
  Against Nameless and Supporting NPCs, roll your 
  skill against passive opposition equal to their Will. 
  If successful, you and the target switch bodies, 
  and both bodies receive a temporary aspect 
  representing the change.
  Against Named NPCs and player-characters, the 
  two of you must oppose each other on the psychic 
  plane in a Contest of the your Mental skill versus the 
  victim’s Will. On a victory, you switch bodies and both 
  people receive a temporary aspect related to the fact.
  During the Shift, each personality retains its own 
  skills and mental powers, which are now possessed 
  by the other body.
  If either body dies during the switch, the two must 
  make an immediate opposed Will roll. The one who 
  gained the most Shifts enters (or remains inside 
  of) the surviving body and the other personality is 
  considered deceased — though whether it can 
  remain as a ghost and plague the other (or even 
  struggle to get it’s body back) is up to the GM and 
  could provide a series of adventures.
  You can revert back to your new body at any time 
  by making a Will roll against passive opposition. The 
  victim must succeed at an opposed Will roll against 
  you, but you can invoke the victim’s temporary aspect 
  as normal to assist in your own roll.
  Molecular Chameleon (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to restructure his molecules into any 
  material he can touch, in effect gaining abilities based 
  on the substance.
  Make an Overcome action. The hero gains one 
  temporary aspect related to the substance for 
  each Shift generated on the roll, and gets one free 
  invocation (in total, not per aspect). 
  The hero should also choose one effect that can be 
  invoked for each aspect (see: Invoking for Effect in 
  the Aspects and Fate Points chapter). For example, 
  a hero who mimicked steel might choose an effect 
  such as being able to ignore 3-Shifts of damage 
  due to the reinforced skin. He might assume a 
  concrete substance and choose an effect similar to 
  the Immovable power. If assuming a rubber material, 
  his effect might give him +3 to grapple rolls. Since 
  the power was purchased with Hero Points, the GM 
  should allow some leeway on the effect types that 
  can be applied, but should still make sure the player 
  isn’t going overboard. Generally speaking, up to a 
  3-Shift effect is plenty.
  If the hero can only mimic one specific substance by 
  touching it (such as only steel), purchasing individual 
  powers like Invulnerability, Immoveable, and Melee 
  Attack, with the power set limit of must touch a 
  steel object to activate, would be the better option. 
  Molecular Chameleon is designed for those characters 
  who can shift from substance to substance quickly.
  Special Effects
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Paralyze (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to render a target immobile through 
  touch.
  To paralyze the target, the hero must first touch the 
  individual. Then, they make an opposed roll against 
  their Physique or Will, depending upon the nature 
  
  110
  of the power. If successful, the victim receives a 
  temporary aspect related to the paralysis, and cannot 
  move or take action while it is attached.
  If the target tries to get free early, she must remove 
  the aspect by rolling the appropriate skill roll against 
  opposition equal to the number of Shifts gained on 
  the original activation roll.
  Special Effects such a Gaseous can be applied to 
  the power to mimic the effects of a paralyzing gas, 
  or Triggered to represent a paralyzing drug that has 
  a delayed activation.
  Plant Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control existing plants 
  within a zone, manipulating them 
  to do your bidding. 
  You can use your plants to 
  encase anyone within the same 
  zone (providing the plants have 
  vines or some other means of 
  grappling a target), using your 
  controlling skill with a +2 bonus. 
  The Shifts generated act as the 
  opposition for them to break free.
  If you spend a fate point and 
  succeed in an Overcome action, 
  you can cause the plants to grow 
  in area to cover one additional 
  zone per Shift gained on the 
  roll. If you fail or tie and choose 
  to succeed at a cost, the plants 
  only fill one additional zone.
  Postcognition (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can touch an object 
  and see into the past, viewing 
  events that took place within the 
  immediate vicinity. The exact 
  details of what the hero views 
  are determined by the GM.
  The 
  hero 
  must 
  make 
  a 
  Mediocre (+0) action. They 
  can see a few minutes into the 
  past on a tie, and an additional 
  step on the Time Increment 
  table for each Shift.
  Power Mimicry (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can mimic the powers of another character by 
  touching them. First, there is no roll if you’re touching 
  a willing character or one that doesn’t know you are 
  about to touch them. Otherwise, you must first make 
  an opposed roll using whatever skills are appropriate 
  to force contact.
  Once you touch the target, make an Overcome 
  action with passive opposition equal to Fair (+2). If 
  
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  successful, you mimic their powers until the end of 
  the scene. If the target has a power you already have, 
  you mimic the power at the higher of the two rankings 
  if the power has a variable level.
  Only NPCs can maintain a mimicked power 
  indefinitely, and such characters should prove to be 
  major opposition. If the GM has such an NPC keep 
  a player-character’s power template, he must give 
  the player a fate point at the end of the scene the 
  powers were mimicked— the scene where they are 
  first mimicked, not future scenes where the powers 
  are used again.
  Special Effects
  Multi-Mimic (1): You can hold the mimicked the 
  powers of more than one target at once, but each extra 
  character you mimic increases the opposition by an 
  additional +2. Power Levels do not stack if you mimic 
  the same power more than once between different 
  targets— you only receive the higher power level.
  Power Potency Mimic (1): In addition to the target’s 
  powers, you also mimic their controlling skill. If you 
  both have the same controlling skill, you mimic it at 
  the higher of the two ranks.
  Leach (2): Instead of simply mimicking the powers, 
  you actually steal them from the target. To steal 
  another’s powers, you must roll against passive 
  opposition equal to the number of powers being 
  stolen, +2. Due to the nature of this power, the 
  target can only defend by invoking aspects to 
  increase the opposition.
  If successful, you place a temporary Power Loss aspect 
  on the target, which lasts until the end of the scene. 
  The target can attempt to regain their powers early by 
  removing the aspect. Doing so requires spending a fate 
  point and making an appropriate roll against the number 
  of Shifts you gained on the original roll. Which skill is 
  used for the roll is determined by the narrative. It might 
  be a controlling skill, Will, or even Physique.
  This Special Effect can also be applied to the Skill 
  Mimic and Stunt Mimic abilities listed below. Each 
  instance must be purchased separately.
  Ranged Mimic/Theft (1): You do not have to 
  touch the target, and can mimic or steal powers of 
  a character anywhere within the same zone. The 
  opposition increases by +1. Add an additional +1 to 
  the opposition for each additional zone between you 
  and the target.
  Skill Mimic (4): In addition to the target’s powers (or 
  even in place of it), you can mimic all of the skills of 
  a target. For skills both of you have, you maintain the 
  higher of the two ranks.
  Stunt Mimic (4): You can mimic all of the Stunts 
  possessed by the target.
  Different Types of Mimic
  Instead of being able to mimic an opponent’s 
  powers, characters can be created to mimic 
  only the skills, or the stunts, or the skills and 
  stunts, of an opponent. Building such a power 
  is simply a matter of taking what is currently 
  listed as a Special Effect under Power 
  Mimicry as a core power. In other words, 
  Skill Mimicry would cost 4-Points, while Skill 
  & Stunt Mimicry would cost 8-points.
  Power Nullify (1,3,5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to nullify a single power, a type of 
  power, or the source of a power, chosen when this 
  power is taken.
  To nullify a power, make a Create an Advantage roll 
  with +2 bonus against the opponent.
  Success means you place a temporary aspect on the 
  target representing how their powers are shut down, 
  such as EMP Strike, Mystic Vortex, or Nullification 
  Collar. The powers are shut down until the aspect is 
  removed. Removing the aspect requires a roll against 
  Opposition equal to the number of Shifts gained on 
  the original roll. Which skill is rolled will be determined 
  by the narrative. It might be Physique (breaking 
  the collar), or a controlling skill, or Will (psychic 
  suppression), and so forth.
  Single Power Nullification (1)
  The hero is able to nullify a single power at a time, 
  and cannot nullify another power unless the current 
  nullification is ended.
  Type Nullification (3)
  The hero can nullify all powers of a specific type, such 
  as Ice, Fire, Light, Darkness and so forth
  
  112
  Source Nullification (5)
  An extremely powerful form of nullification, the hero 
  can cancel powers of a specific source, such as 
  mental, mystic, or mutant.
  A character may never have more than one type of 
  source nullification.
  Long Term Nullification
  The ability to turn off powers for entire scenes 
  or longer are plot devices for the GM, and 
  are meant to be obstacles the heroes must 
  somehow overcome as part of the story. 
  If the GM allows it, player-characters can 
  attempt to create source nullification “fields” 
  as part of a protective measure (such as 
  an anti-magic field), but must spend a fate 
  point and roll against Great (+4) opposition. 
  The field last for an entire scene, unless a 
  narrative reason is agreed upon for it to last 
  longer.
  Precognition (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can view events that have yet to transpired, 
  though whether those events are set in stone or 
  can be altered are never known at the time (though 
  he may have his own philosophy on the matter). 
  To get a glimpse of the future, roll against passive 
  opposition. The exact details of what is seen is 
  determined by the GM, and might be confusing 
  glimpses or detailed images, depending upon the 
  needs of the story.
  The hero can create a single situation aspect related 
  to the portents with a +2 bonus to the roll. How long 
  the aspect remains depends on the narrative context. 
  It could be one scene, one issue, or the length of the 
  story arc.
  Psychic Blades (1-6)
  The power functions the same as the Melee Attack 
  power, except it causes Mental Stress to the target.
  Psychic Forcefield (1-6)
  See the Forcefield power, except it functions 
  against psychic and mental assaults instead of 
  physical and energy.
  Radiation Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can generate and control radiation, giving you 
  the power to cause others to become sick and weak 
  around you.
  You gain +2 bonus to the roll when creating situation 
  aspects related to radiation.
  
  113
  Regeneration (4)
  Skills: None
  You possess the ability to heal at an accelerated rate, 
  literally recovering from injury in a fraction of the time.
  When not in combat, you heal up to 2-Stress per 
  minute. For Consequences, take the severity as the 
  number of minutes; so a Mild Consequence takes 2 
  minutes, a Moderate Consequence takes 4 minutes, 
  and so forth. Stress is always healed first, and then 
  each Consequence is recovered in order of lowest to 
  highest severity.
  Healing an Extreme Consequence takes an entire 
  issue of rest (your character is basically out of action), 
  requires you to spend a fate point, and to succeed at 
  a roll against Fantastic (+6) opposition.
  During combat, you can take an action to do nothing 
  except attempt to heal. Doing so requires a Physique 
  roll against opposition equal to the amount being 
  healed, so Fair (+2) for Stress or Mild Consequence 
  recovery, Great (+4) for Moderate Consequence 
  recovery, and so on. You must still recover Stress, 
  then Consequences in order of lowest severity, but 
  can combine efforts into a greater opposition, such 
  as healing 2-Stress and a Mild Consequence in one 
  round for a Great (+4) opposition (or even 4-Stress 
  for the same opposition). You can succeed at a cost.
  If you want to heal and do something else (such as 
  attack) in the same round, you must spend a fate 
  point to use Regeneration.
  Special Effects
  Enhanced Regeneration (1): The hero regenerates 
  in half the normal time. 
  Immortality (1): The hero heals even if dead. The 
  hero’s body must be relatively intact in order for the 
  hero to come back to life.
  Reconstruction (1): The hero can regenerate even if 
  disintegrated or blown to pieces, returning to life after 
  1 month has passed. The time for reconstruction can 
  be decreased by a –1 step on the Time Increment 
  table for each additional +1 cost.
  Regrowth (1): You can regrow lost limbs within 
  a matter of hours, which can be decreased by 
  a –1 step on the Time Increment table for each 
  additional +1 cost.
  Self-Destruct (2,4,6)
  Skills: None
  You can literally explode yourself, causing 2-hits of 
  damage per Power Level (up to 6-Hits maximum) 
  across one zone per power level. Unfortunately, you 
  cannot filter targets, so you cannot apply the multi-
  target special effect to this power. Anyone within 
  the zone can make an Athletics roll to somehow 
  avoid the explosion.
  You automatically reform within an hour, but can 
  do so sooner by making a roll against passive 
  opposition equal to each step on the Time Increment 
  table you wish to reduce the time by. So, reforming 
  one round later is a five step reduction on the chart 
  for a Superb (+5) opposition.
  If you want to reform in a location other than where 
  you detonated (no more than a few zones or city 
  blocks away), add +1 to the opposition.
  Special Effects
  Massive Explosion (1): Your self-destruction explodes 
  across two zones per power level.
  Sensory Shield (1)
   Skills: None
  You have a power suit or some other method (even inborn) 
  of protecting your various senses against overload.
  When you defend against your opponent attempting 
  to place situation aspects on you that target your 
  senses, such as by using intense sounds (sonic 
  attack), flashes of light (light control), and other effects 
  that can cause you to become dazed, off-balance, 
  staggered, stunned, and so forth due to sensory 
  overload, you gain +2 to the Defend action.
  Serial Reincarnation (2)
  Skills: None
  Whenever the hero dies, he reincarnates as a new 
  person after a few hours. The hero maintains his 
  memories and Skill Column, but can create new 
  Aspects (except his Concept Aspect), and purchase 
  new powers and stunts using the same number of 
  Hero Points he was originally created with (meaning 
  he has lost any increases he received through 
  Milestones in his previous form).
  
  114
  Special Effects
  Rapid Reincarnation (1): Each time this special 
  effect is applied, the time to reincarnate is reduced 
  by 1 step on the Time Increment table.
  Shapeshift (5)
  Skills: Magic or Power
  You can shapeshift into any animal or inanimate 
  object. For the ability to shapeshift into other people, 
  add Chameleon to your power set.
  To shapeshift, make an Overcome action. Each Shift 
  generated on the roll provides you with a power level 
  with which to build your new form. You maintain your 
  own Skill Column.
  The points are spent on a one-for-one basis to gain 
  power levels in appropriate powers (so, no, you don’t 
  have to flip through the book during play to calculate 
  costs as though buying the powers normally).
  When shapeshifting into inanimate forms, anyone 
  trying to recognize that you’re not actually the object 
  must make an opposed roll against your Deceive skill, 
  and you get a +2 bonus to the roll.
  You can maintain the form until the end of the scene 
  or until Taken Out.
  While in a shapeshifted form, you lose access to your 
  normal powers, except the Shapeshift ability.
  A hero with Shapeshift transforms into a 
  panther and gets 4 Shifts on the roll. The 
  character has 4 points with which to build the 
  abilities. He might gain Claws 2, Super-Speed 
  1, and Invisibility 2 (Limit: darkness only).
  At a later time, he shapeshifts into a rhino and 
  gains 5-Shifts. He spends the Shifts on: super-
  speed 1, Melee Attack (horn) 2, and Density 2.
  Special Effects
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Shrinking (2)
  Skills: None
  The hero may decrease his size at will, allowing him 
  to get into areas impossible for a normal sized person 
  to navigate. Shrinking takes an entire round and it 
  takes another entire round to return to normal size. 
  A hero may choose to shrink to a size less than that 
  allowed by his power level. Whether or not the hero 
  retains his normal density while reduced in size is up 
  to them, but they retain their normal Physique.
  At Power Level 5 and above, normal sized people 
  cannot target the hero unless the individual 
  possesses some way of seeing them, such as 
  microscopic vision. They also cannot interact with 
  normal sized people (such as a direct attack). 
  Additionally, at Power Level 6 the hero can enter an 
  alternate dimension such as a “microverse,” if such 
  a place exists within the campaign.
  The hero also gains an appropriate character 
  aspect placed upon them, such as size of a bug, 
  with one free invocation. 
  Whether or not the power is permanent or can be 
  turned on and off as a free action is determined when 
  Shrinking is purchased.
  Power Level
  Height
  1
  6”
  2
  4”
  3
  2”
  4
  Small Insect
  5
  Dust Particle
  6
  Microscopic
  Special Effects
  Blindside (2): The hero can revert to normal size 
  and attack as a single action, gaining a bonus to the 
  attack roll equal to the Power Level that was active.
  Sicken (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to make those he touches 
  nauseated or ill.
  To do this, take a Create an Advantage action to first 
  place a situation aspect on the target representing 
  what type of illness you are hitting them with. They can 
  defend against this normally, usually with Physique.
  If the aspect is placed, you get the normal number of 
  free invocations.
  
  115
  You can either use the aspect for the normal 
  invocations, or sacrifice your free invocations on a 
  one-for-one basis to cause Stress to the target.
  Sleep (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to cause another living target to enter 
  a deep sleep. Doing so requires an opposed power 
  roll against the target’s Physique for a physical attack 
  (such as a gas), or Will for a mental attack or mystical 
  attack. If successful and the target is a Nameless or 
  Supporting NPC, they fall asleep and remain that way 
  for the rest of the scene. Against a Named NPC or 
  player-character, the target falls asleep for a number 
  of rounds equal to the Shifts generated by the roll.
  Sorcery (3)
  Skills: Magic
  The hero can channel and direct the raw arcane 
  energies of the cosmos, making him a member of the 
  mystic community whether he wants to be one or not.
  He can use the Magic skill instead of Arcanum for 
  rolls involving knowing details (common or long 
  forgotten) of mystic elements, such as spells, demons, 
  dimensions, legends, and beings of power. 
  The Magic skill can be used to Attack or Defend in 
  place of another skill where appropriate, such as 
  using Magic instead of Accuracy to fire a mystic 
  themed Blast power.
  The sorcerer also gains +2 to Create an Advantage 
  rolls using his magic skill.
  Sound Wave Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control sound waves across an entire 
  zone. When you create situation aspects based 
  on increasing or decreasing sound, you can 
  sacrifice free invocations on a one-for-one basis 
  to increase sound waves against a target and 
  cause immediate Stress.
  Against characters with Hyper-Senses (Hyper-Hearing), 
  each free invocation sacrificed causes 2-Stress.
  Spatial Control (1)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You possess the ability to twist and bend the very 
  fabric of space, altering distances between two 
  points with ease.
  By making a controlling skill roll against as an 
  Overcome action, you can decrease or increase the 
  distance between two points for each Shift achieved 
  on the roll. For example, if you gained 2 Shifts on the 
  roll, you could warp space so that you now occupy an 
  area that was two zones away. Likewise, you could 
  extend the distance so that now the area was an 
  extra two zones away, thereby forcing a movement 
  roll (or multiple rounds) to get there.
  By applying the Area Effect and Multi-Target 
  special effects to the power, you can achieve 
  some wild effects.
  Spinning (1)
  Skills: None
   You can spin like a top, making yourself harder to hit. 
  When taking a Defend action while spinning, you gain 
  a +1 to Fight and Athletics.
  Additionally, the hero can purchase enhancements 
  from the selection below, representing special abilities 
  he’s gained through his spinning ability.
  • Projectile Attack (1): The hero can make 
  an attack up to one zone away by launching 
  a projectile at a target. The projectile does 
  Weapon: 2 damage.
  • Area Attack (2): The hero can release held 
  objects, attacking everyone within the same 
  zone with a Weapon: 2 damage.
  • Burrowing (2): The hero gains the Burrowing power.
  • Full Vision (1): While spinning, you can easily 
  see in all directions. The hero gains the Full 
  Vision ability from Hyper-Senses.
  • Any Surface (2): While spinning, you can move 
  across walls and water as though on solid 
  ground, gaining both the Wall-Crawling and 
  Water Walking modes of Hyper-Movement.
  
  116
  Stretching (3)
  Skills: None
  The hero is able to stretch his limbs up to four 
  zones zone away, allowing him to make attacks and 
  manipulate objects at a distance. 
  The hero also gains a +1 to Defend actions due to 
  his malleable body, basically allowing him to absorb 
  most attacks, and a +1 to grapple attempts. 
  The hero can also seep through any non-airtight 
  opening as a full round action.
  Summon (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can summon minions to your side, whether they 
  are human thugs, demons, or some other form. The 
  exact type of animation must be chosen when the 
  power is purchased.
  To summon your minions, make a skill roll. If 
  successful, the Shifts gained on the roll are used to 
  summon one or more ranks of minions, with a single 
  member of each rank costing an equal number of 
  Shifts. For example, if the hero gained 5-Shifts on the 
  roll, he could choose to summon five Rank 1 minions, 
  two Rank 2 and one Rank 1 minions, one Rank 3 and 
  one Rank 2 minions, or any other combination.
  The minions cannot act until the round after they are 
  summoned. All minions operate as Nameless NPCs, 
  and last until the end of the scene unless Taken Out. 
  Keeping them around longer without making an 
  additional skill roll requires spending one fate point 
  per additional scene.
  Rank 1: The minions are Average quality. They have 
  one or two Aspects, one or two Average (+1) skills, 
  and no stress boxes— a one shift hit is enough to 
  take them out.
  Rank 2: Your minions are Fair quality. Give them 
  one or two or Aspects, one Fair (+2), and one or two 
  Average (+1) skills, and one stress box each— a two 
  shift hit is enough to take one of them out.
  Rank 3: The minions are Good quality minions. They 
  have one or two Aspects, one Good (+3), one Fair 
  (+2), and one or two Average (+1) skills, and two 
  stress boxes each— a three shift hit is enough to take 
  one of them out.
  Special Effects
  Ready to Rumble (1): The minions act as soon as 
  they are summoned.
  Super-Powered (1): Your minions are powered. You 
  gain a number of Power Levels equal to the half the 
  opposition (rounded up) you rolled against to summon 
  them. Divide the Power Levels between powers as 
  desired. Because these are minions, you do not have 
  to calculate costs for the powers, you simply spend 
  Power Levels on a one-for-one basis, but all minions 
  must have the same powers.
  Summon Swarm (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can summon a large swarm of nearby small 
  creatures, such as insects, bats, or birds. 
   Make an Overcome action. The Shifts gained on the 
  roll are used to determine the rank of the swarm, as 
  well as any Special Effects that might be attached to 
  its attack. The swarm should be no more than one 
  zone away. To summon a swarm from further, the 
  Opposition increases by +1 per additional zone.
  For example, if the hero achieved 4-Shifts on the roll, 
  he might choose to summon a Rank 2 swarm, and 
  apply both the Area Effect and Potent Special Effects 
  to the swarm’s attacks.
  The swarm cannot act until the round after it is 
  summoned. It operates as a Nameless NPC, and lasts 
  until the end of the scene unless Taken Out. Controlling 
  the swarm longer than a single scene without making 
  an additional skill roll requires spending one fate point 
  per additional scene.
  Rank 1: The swarm is Average quality. It has one or 
  two Aspects, one or two Average (+1) skills, and no 
  stress boxes— a one shift hit is enough to take it out.
  Rank 2: Your swarm is Fair quality. Give it one or two 
  or Aspects, one Fair (+2), and one or two Average 
  (+1) skills, and one stress box each— a two shift hit is 
  enough to take it out.
  Rank 3: The swarm is Good quality. It has one or two 
  Aspects, one Good (+3), one Fair (+2), and one or two 
  Average (+1) skills, and two stress boxes each— a 
  three shift hit is enough to take one of it out.
  Special Effects
  Ready to Rumble (1): The swarm acts as soon as it 
  is summoned.
  
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  Super-Speed (1-4)
  Skills: None
  You can move at greater than human speeds, giving 
  you a faster reaction time than most others and making 
  you harder to hit when you’re in motion.  Outside of 
  combat and chases, your movement is based solely 
  upon the narrative context. During combat, you can 
  gain the following benefits based on the power level 
  of Super-Speed.
  Power level 1: You move at a speed equivalent to 
  running horse. Providing there are no zone barriers to 
  stop you, you can move four zones per turn for free. 
  You have Speed Rating 2 in chases.
  Power level 2: You can run a couple of hundred miles 
  per hour, roughly the equivalent of a top-end sports 
  car. At this power level, you can run up walls and 
  across water, and can move into any zone for free. 
  You can move six zones per turn for free, providing 
  there are no zone barriers in your way, and have 
  Speed Rating 3 in chases.
  Power level 3: Although not super-sonic, your speed 
  can match that of small planes and any helicopter. In 
  chases, you have Speed Rating 4.
  Power level 4: You are amongst the fastest beings 
  on Earth and can move at super-sonic (or greater) 
  speeds. You can avoid ground-based zone barriers 
  and move into any zone for free. By spending a 
  fate point, you can arrive at any scene you want to, 
  because you always have enough time to get there. 
  You have Speed Rating 5 in chases.
  Special Effects
  Hyper-Reflexes (1/2): Your super-speed gives you 
  hyper-fast reaction, granting you a +2 bonus to 
  initiative each round. If purchased twice, you gain +4 
  bonus.
  React in a Flash (1): You may spend a fate point to 
  go first in an exchange, regardless of your initiative. 
  If multiple people with this special effect (or a similar 
  stunt) exercise this ability, they go in turn of their 
  normal initiative, before those who don’t have the 
  stunt get a chance to act. If the exchange has already 
  started, and you have not yet acted, you may instead 
  spend a fate point to act next, effectively acting out of 
  the usual turn order.
  Super-Strength (1-6)
  Skills: None
  You are stronger than mere mortals, able to 
  achieve feats of strength and hit with a force 
  others usually only imagine.
  Each level in Super-Strength provides you with 
  Weapon: 1 for melee attacks, and a +1 to Physique 
  rolls that involve a raw application of strength, such 
  as breaking things or making or breaking grapples, 
  but not to lifting things. 
  The general lifting ability of super-strength is shown 
  on the Super-Strength Lifting Benchmark table 
  below. To lift a weight, make a roll using Mediocre 
  (+0) skill rating plus your Super-Strength bonus in an 
  Overcome action against the indicated opposition. 
  When lifting weight limits found on the normal Lifting 
  Benchmark table, no roll is necessary.
  Super-
  Strength
  Lifting 
  Benchmark
  Mediocre (+0)
  Lifting a car is no problem
  Average (+1)
  Semi trucks are weapons 
  in your grasp
  Fair (+2)
  You could lift a fully 
  loaded jet fighter
  Good (+3)
  Modern tanks are not a 
  weight problem for you
  Great (+4)
  You can heft a small building
  Superb (+5)
  You can move large buildings
  Fantastic (+6)
  With your strength, 
  Battleships  can be carried
  Epic (+7)
  You are strong enough to 
  rais an aircraft carrier
  Legendary (+8)
  At this levelm your strength 
  can lift a sky scraper
  Monstrous (+9)
  You could lift the Great 
  Pyramid of Giza
  Colossal (+10)
   You can move mountains
  Unearthly (+11)
  You could lift an island
  inconveivable (+12)
  Your strength is a plot 
  device, congrats!
  
  118
  Special Effects
  Enhanced Lifting (1): You add your Physique to 
  lifting rolls involving Super-Strength.
  Ground Slam (2): The hero can strike the ground and 
  hit everyone in the zone. Doing so means using a 
  Create an Advantage action with +2 bonus to place an 
  Off-Balanced, Staggered, or similar situation aspect 
  on them. They can Defend against the attempt.
  Swinging (2)
  Skills: None
  The hero has a swing line that allows him to avoid 
  ground based obstacles and situation aspects. The 
  swing line also provides a +2 bonus to grapples, 
  which you can make with your Accuracy skill, and 
  grants you Speed Rating 2 for chases. Providing 
  there are no zone barriers in your way, you can move 
  four zones per turn for free.
  If you use your Swing line to grapple an opponent, 
  they must succeed against opposition equal to the 
  number of Shifts you gained on your grapple roll 
  to break free.
  Telekinesis (1)
   Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero is able to move and manipulate objects that 
  he can see, without physically touching them, from 
  up to a zone away. Use your controlling skill as your 
  Strength for determining how much you can lift.
  Special Effects
  Omega Telekinesis (1): When lifting objects with your 
  mind, you can lift weight from the Super-Strength 
  Lifting Benchmark table.
  Telepathy (1)
   Skills: Magic or Mental
  The hero can facilitate mental communication with 
  another greater than animal intellect at a distance 
  determined by the controlling skill. When attempting 
  to contact more than one person at a time (such as 
  coordinating a team), the hero can automatically 
  contact a number of people equal to his skill rating, 
  to a minimum of one, as a free action. For each 
  additional person he wishes to simultaneously 
  contact or coordinate, he must make a roll against 
  passive opposition equal to the number of additional 
  people. So, a telepath with Mental at Good (+3) can 
  automatically contact up to three people at once as a 
  free action. To coordinate a team of seven people (an 
  additional four individuals), however, he must succeed 
  at an Overcome action with Great (+4) opposition.
  Once the link is established, it is maintained freely 
  until the telepath ends it, or someone involved is 
  rendered unconscious.
  Skill Rating
  Telepathic 
  Range
  Mediocre (+0)
  Several hundred feet
  Average (+1)
  A few miles
  Fair (+2)
  Several hundred miles
  Good (+3)
  Several thousand miles
  Great (+4)
  Anywhere on the planet
  Superb (+5)
  Easily from the Earth 
  to the moon
  Fantastic (+6)
  Anywhere within the 
  same star system
  Epic (+7) or greater
  Anywhere in the universe
  Special Effect
  Omega Telepath (1): The character uses the 
  Overcome action to link more people than his rating 
  in the controlling skill as a free action.
  Teleportation (1-6)
  Skills: Magic or Power
  The hero can travel a distance from one point to 
  another instantaneously without traversing through 
  the intervening space.
  The hero can automatically teleport a distance equal 
  to the Power Level as shown on the Teleportation 
  Range table. At the GM’s option, a character can 
  teleport a greater distance, but doing so requires 
  an Overcome action against Fair (+2) opposition 
  for a single Power Level range increase, and an 
  additional +2 to the opposition for each additional 
  level of range increase.
  If the hero wishes to teleport an unwilling subject, the 
  hero must first make a grapple against the target. On 
  the next round, if the grapple is maintained, the target 
  can be teleported.
  
  119
  Power Level
  Teleportation 
  Range
  Power level 1
  A few miles
  Power level 2
  Several hundred milss
  Power level 3
  Several thousand miles
  Power level 4
  Anywhere on the planet
  Power level 5
  Easily from the Earth 
  to the moon
  Power level 6
  Anywhere within the 
  same star system
  Special Effects
  Gateway (1):  The hero opens a portal that allows 
  others to teleport through it.
  Limits
  Must See Destination (–1):  The hero must see the 
  location to which they are Teleporting. If the hero cannot 
  see the destination, he must make a roll against Fair 
  (+2) Opposition (increased as appropriate if attempting 
  to also teleport a greater than normal distance). Failure 
  indicates the hero has collided with an object and 
  takes Stress equal to the Material Strength. 
  Time Control (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You have rudimentary control over the flow of time, 
  allowing you to manipulate the time stream for 
  minor effects.
  When you succeed with style on a Defend action, 
  you may take +2 on your next action in addition to 
  creating a Boost on the attacker. You also do not 
  have to reduce your damage to place a Boost on the 
  target when succeeding with style on an attack.
  Special Effect
  Time Freeze (3): Once per scene, when you succeed 
  with style while creating an aspect representing the 
  slowing of time, instead of gaining free invokes, you can 
  spend a fate point to cause everyone you choose within 
  the zone to time-freeze. They can take no actions, and 
  are considered to be in a form of suspended animation. 
  The time-freeze lasts for a number of rounds equal to 
  your controlling skill rating +1.
  Time Travel (1-6)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The hero can travel to any point in time within a range 
  determined by the Power Level. At the GM’s option, a 
  character can travel through a greater length of time, 
  but doing so requires an Overcome action against Fair 
  (+2) opposition for a single Power Level increase, and 
  an additional +2 to the opposition for each additional 
  level of range increase.
  If the hero wishes to time travel an unwilling subject, 
  the hero must first make a grapple against the target. 
  On the next round, if the grapple is maintained, the 
  target can be time shifted. The time change lasts for 
  one scene, at which time the target’s anchor to his 
  own time returns him to the exact point he was taken 
  from. By spending a fate point and rolling against 
  opposition equal to the time traveler’s Power Level, 
  the target can attempt to return to his home time 
  period within the same scene.
  Power Level
  Time Range
  Power level 1
  A few minutes
  Power level 2
  Several hours
  Power level 3
  Several months
  Power level 4
  Several years
  Power level 5
  Several Decades
  Power level 6
  The timestream is 
  your playground
  Limits
  Limited Travel (–1): The hero can travel into the past 
  or future, but not both. As a result, he can’t return to 
  his home time period.
  The Laws of Time Travel
  The exact laws of moving throughout the 
  time stream are left to the GM to decide, and 
  may or may not be completely understood 
  by time travelling characters. For example, 
  can the time stream be altered by travelling 
  into the past, or do time travelers enter an 
  alternate time stream where their actions 
  create new branches that will never affect 
  their home phase?
  
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  Two-Dimensional (2)
  Skills: None
  You have the ability to turn your body in a flat, two-
  dimensional form.
  You can automatically bypass any zone obstacle 
  that a single sheet of paper could slide through, and 
  gain +1 to Defend actions against attacks unless the 
  opponent is facing you directly from the front or back.
  If someone is viewing you at an angle or from the 
  side, you gain +2 to Stealth.
  Vampirism (2)
   Skills: Mental or Power
  The hero has the ability to take the life force or psychic 
  energy of others, and use it to heal himself.
  You must first successfully grapple your opponent. 
  Once the target is grappled, make a roll as an Attack 
  action versus their Physique or Will as a Defend 
  action, depending upon whether you are a blood 
  or psychic vampire. Deal damage as normal for an 
  Attack action. 
  Additionally, for each Stress and Consequence 
  you cause, you heal an equal amount of Stress, 
  then Consequences (Stress must be healed first). 
  Consequences you cause the target heal damage 
  you’ve sustained for an amount equal to their 
  severity— so a Mild Consequence heals 2-Stress, a 
  Moderate heals 4-Stress, and so forth.
  Creating Undead
  Usually within the realm of NPCs, if the 
  character is a member of the Undead (such 
  as an actual vampire), then anyone Taken 
  Out by the vampiric attack rises within three 
  days as one of the Undead, usually under the 
  domination of the one who created them.
  If the GM wishes to allow such an option 
  to a player-character, increase the cost of 
  Vampirism by 4-points. Anyone transformed 
  into an Undead rises as an Average 
  quality Nameless NPC under their mental 
  domination. If it is another player-character 
  or Named NPC, the victim remains a full 
  character, and may or may not remain under 
  the thrall of their master depending upon the 
  needs of the story.
  Water Control (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can control the flow of water, causing it to move 
  at your command. 
  Anyone caught within the zone must make an 
  opposed against your Controlling skill each round. If 
  they fail or tie, they can take no other actions that 
  round as they struggle not to drown. If they choose to 
  succeed at a cost, then they can act as though they 
  only succeeded, but suffer 2-Stress. Invulnerability 
  doesn’t negate this damage, but a resistance to 
  drowning does. 
  If they succeed, they take no Stress, but all actions 
  suffer a +1 to the opposition. If they succeed with 
  style, they act normally that round.
  Water Control already has Area Effect included in 
  the cost.
  Weather Control (5)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can command the very forces of nature, allowing 
  you to create storms or diminish existing storms. 
  The hero can command the winds as though he 
  possessed the Air Control power, and can bring about 
  arctic storm conditions as though he possessed the 
  Cold Control power. Additionally, he can lightning 
  strike a target up to one zone away as an Attack 
  
  121
  action using the controlling skill, causing an extra 
  2-hits of damage.
  Although the character can automatically cancel any 
  condition he has created, diminishing a storm he 
  did not create requires an Overcome action against 
  opposition based on the intensity of the weather. 
  Generally speaking, the opposition should range from 
  Average (+1) for a normal thunderstorm, to Fantastic 
  (+6) for an F5 tornado or Category 5 hurricane.
  Special Effects
  Below is a list of special effects that can be applied 
  to a wide range of powers, along with the cost for 
  applying each to a power. The cost for a special effect 
  is always flat, regardless of how many Power Levels 
  the power might possess. It only adds to the total 
  cost of the power.
  Advantageous (1)
  You gain +2 to rolls to create situation aspects against 
  specific targets. The exact nature of the aspects that 
  can be created must be chosen when this special 
  effect is applied to the power, such as Confusion, 
  Dazed, Stunned, and so forth.
  Each time this special effect is taken, it can apply to a 
  different type of situation aspect.
  Area Effect (1)
  You can attack everyone within the same zone without 
  having to split your result. Each additional time this 
  special effect is applied to the power, it increases the 
  area effect by an additional zone.
  Charge Object (1)
  The hero can touch an object, charging it with his blast 
  power. Whatever comes into contact with the object 
  after it is charged triggers the power’s release. This 
  effectively allows him to create a Blast attack with 
  a time delay on when it goes off. Avoiding the blast 
  once the charge is triggered requires an Overcome 
  action.
  Charging and throwing a small object functions the 
  same as the normal Blast power for damage, but can 
  only hit targets in the same zone as the attacker, and 
  uses the Accuracy skill.
  Concussive (1)
  For each Weapon rating you reduce your damage, 
  you knock your target back two zones instead of the 
  normal one zone.
  Countering/Nullify 
  Resistance (1)
  The power is particularly resistant to being countered or 
  nullified and increases the Opposition to do so by +2.
  Dangerous (2)
  Once per scene you may spend a fate point to force 
  your opponent to take a Moderate Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Deadly (1)
  Once per issue, you can spend a fate point on a 
  successful attack action and cause your opponent 
  to take both Stress and a Consequence of equal 
  value. If the target was already going to take a 
  Consequence, he takes two Consequences instead. 
  This cannot be combined with the Potent, Deadly, or 
  Lethal special effects.
  Demolishing (1)
  When destroying objects, your power does double 
  the amount of Material Strength reduction.
  Durable (1)
  You can spend a fate point once per scene to 
  absorb a Mild Consequence. If the Consequence 
  was caused due to an attack that used the Potent, 
  Deadly, or Lethal special effects, the fate point goes 
  to the attacker.
  Encasing (1)
  If you succeed with style on the attack, you can 
  lower your damage (including damage gained from 
  Shifts) and use your ice to automatically encase 
  your target. To break free, they must roll against 
  passive opposition equal to the amount of damage 
  you transferred to the encasement
  If you purchase this Special Effect twice, you 
  instead have Hardened Encasement. The passive 
  opposition to break free of your encasement is 
  increased by an additional +2.
  
  122
  Entangling (1)
  You gain a +2 bonus when using the weapon to 
  grapple an opponent. To break free, the target must 
  succeed at an Overcome action with opposition equal 
  the Shifts you achieved on the grapple roll. Breaking 
  free cannot succeed at a cost.
  Extended Range (1)
  For each Weapon Rating that you reduce your damage, 
  you extend the range of your attack by an additional zone.
  Follow-Up (1)
  When you succeed with style on an attack, you do 
  not have to reduce your damage to place a Boost 
  on the target.
  Gaseous (1)
  Your damaging attack power is no longer instant, but 
  takes on a life of its own as it slowly fills the zone. It 
  takes three rounds to fill an entire zone. Any area it 
  covers is attacked each round by a skill rating equal to 
  the Weapon Rating of the power. If the power did not 
  have a Weapon Rating (such as the Emotion Control 
  power), then the gas attacks with Mediocre (+0) skill.
  The gas cloud has 2-Stress boxes, and can only be 
  attacked by methods that make sense, such as using 
  Air Control to dissipate the gas.
  Ghostly (1)
  The power is able to normally affect astral and 
  intangible targets.
  Hard Hitting (1)
  Once per Issue, when you force an opponent to 
  take a consequence (except through the use of the 
  Potent, Deadly, or Lethal special effects), you can 
  spend a fate point to increase the consequence’s 
  severity (so mild becomes moderate, moderate 
  becomes severe). If your opponent was already 
  going to take a severe consequence, he must 
  either take a severe consequence and a second 
  consequence or be Taken Out.
  Homing (2)
  Whenever a Blast power with this enhancement 
  misses its target, it continues to make a new attack 
  each consecutive round, up to a maximum number of 
  rounds equal to the Power Level of Blast. Basically, 
  the power continues to attack on its own, and 
  subsequent attempts to hit the target do not count 
  toward the character’s normal actions.
  The extra attacks are at an Average (+1) skill rating, 
  and can be increased to Fantastic (+6) by taking 
  this special effect multiple times. If a Defend action 
  succeeds with style against the attack, the power is 
  considered to have been defeated (such as missiles 
  striking a different target), and the homing attack 
  ends.
  Impervious (1/2)
  This special effect is optional and requires GM and 
  group consensus before being added to a campaign. 
  It applies to the Invulnerability power.
  Although Daring Comics allows any character to risk 
  injury if the opponent can generate enough Shifts 
  on an attack, sometimes in comic books certain 
  characters are just completely immune to a type of 
  damage up to a certain threshold.
  A character with the Impervious special effect is 
  immune to all damage of a particular type. It could 
  be applied to energy damage, physical damage (such 
  as blades, bullets, and low-yield explosives), mental 
  damage, or even damage from arcane spells (such as 
  a mystic themed blast). In order for a character to have 
  this Special Effect, his Invulnerability level must be at 
  least equal to the Weapon Rating he is immune to.
  At the Low Impervious level, the character is immune 
  to damage from attacks rated at Weapon 3 or lower, 
  and must have at least Invulnerability 3. At Highly 
  Impervious, he is immune to damage from Weapon 4 
  or lower conventional attacks, and must have at least 
  Invulnerability 4. The character cannot be harmed by 
  the attack, regardless of how many Shifts are gained 
  on the attack roll.
  Sometimes, an attack will fall between the cracks 
  and will have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. 
  A Concussive Force blast could be argued to be a 
  physical attack against a character Impervious to 
  Weapon Rating in energy attacks, but as shown in 
  comics it might sometimes affect the character as 
  though it were an energy based attack.
  Regardless of whether or not a character is 
  Impervious, they can still suffer knockback from an 
  attack as normal, even if they can’t be damaged by it.
  Indirect (1)
  The attack power originates from a source other 
  than where the hero is physically located. The power 
  
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  ignores obstacles and cover when hitting the target 
  (in other words, targets can’t invoke aspects such 
  as Cover against this power), but does not ignore 
  Forcefields.
  Lethal (3)
  Once per scene you may spend a fate point to 
  force your opponent to take a Severe Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Mega-Attack (1/2)
  Typically, this special effect is found in power-armor 
  themed powers, but can be applied to just about any 
  type of character with the right explanation.
  Once per issue, you can double the Weapon Rating 
  of an attack power. The increase lasts for one attack 
  only. There are two levels to this special effect.
  Basic: The power immediately shuts down after 
  the attack. Additionally, you take Stress, and then 
  Consequences if you don’t have enough Stress 
  boxes, equal to the number of levels the power was 
  enhanced. The Consequences must be repaired or 
  recovered as normal.
  For example, let’s say you had Energy Beam 4, and 
  used the special effect to do a single attack at Energy 
  Beam 8. After the attack, Energy Beam is shutdown. 
  Additionally, since Energy Beam was enhanced by 4 
  levels, you take 4-Stress. If you can’t cover the Stress, 
  you take any overflow as Consequences.
  Energy Beam is automatically recovered at the end 
  of the scene. To recover it during the scene requires 
  spending a round on an Overcome action against an 
  opposition equal to the power’s level. In the above 
  example, that would be a Great (+4) Opposition. Of 
  course, you could decide to recover only a portion of 
  it, say Energy Beam 2, against a Fair (+2) Opposition.
  The recovery action, though, can only be attempted 
  once during the scene.
  To recover during a scene, roll whichever skill would 
  make narrative sense (such as a Controlling skill, 
  Physique Technology, or Will).
  Advanced: The power still shuts down after the 
  attack, but this version allows you to first apply 
  those levels to reduce your other powers, before you 
  have to consider Stress or Consequences. These 
  changes last until the end of the scene in which 
  the special effect was used, then your power levels 
  return to normal.
  If you don’t have enough overall power levels to 
  absorb the required reduction, then all your powers 
  are completely shut down and you take any overflow 
  as either Stress or Consequences.
  If a power does not have Power Levels (such as 
  Shrinking, Teleportation, and so forth), the power can 
  take 1 point of reduction and is shut down.
  Just as in the basic version, you can attempt to 
  recover the lowered powers during the scene. Doing 
  so requires an Overcome action with opposition equal 
  to the total number of reduced levels to be recovered. 
  So, if Energy Beam 4 had been shut down, plus you 
  had spread the reduction to lower Super-Strength by 
  2 and Flight by 2, the Overcome action would be at a 
  Legendary (+8) Opposition. 
  Of course, you could attempt to recover less power. 
  For example, Energy Beam 2 and Flight 2 for only a 
  Great (+4) Opposition.
  However you decide to handle it, the recovery action 
  can only be attempted once during the scene. 
  Otherwise, all reduced power levels are automatically 
  recovered at the end of the scene.
  Americannon has Energy Blast 4, Flight 
  3, Forcefield 3, and Hyper-sense 3 (Dark 
  Vision, Full Vision, Hyper-Hearing). He 
  doubles Energy Blast for 1 action, making it 
  a Weapon Rating 8.
  Afterward, he can either take 4-Stress, or 
  reduce some of his other powers by a total of 
  4 levels. He reduces Hyper-Sense by 3, and 
  Flight by 1. 
  Multi-Targeting (2)
  When you make an area attack, you do not split your 
  results between targets, and can filter out targets you 
  do not want to be affected. (Note that the cost of this 
  Special Effect already includes Area Attack.)
  Penetrating (2)
  When you succeed with style on an attack, 
  you may spend a fate point to ignore a target’s 
  imperviousness, as well as bypass 2 levels of 
  Invulnerability. If the target is not Impervious, you 
  ignore 3 levels of Invulnerability.
  Persistent (3)
  Once per scene, when your attack causes the target to 
  take a Consequence from your power, you may spend 
  
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  a fate point. Doing so causes the original attack to 
  continue to attack the target each consecutive round 
  with a skill rating equal to the Shifts you generated on 
  the attack roll. To stop the consecutive attacks, the 
  target must succeed at a Defend action.
  Potent (1)
  Once per scene you may spend a fate point to 
  force your opponent to take a Mild Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Power Stress (1)
  Typically, this special effect is found in power-armor 
  themed powers, but can be applied to just about any 
  type of character with the right explanation.
  You may spend a fate point once per scene to lower 
  your powers instead of taking Stress (including if 
  your Stress boxes are full and it would have been a 
  Consequence). The total stress can be applied to one 
  power or multiple powers. For example, if your hero 
  took a 5-stress hit, he could instead spend the fate 
  point and, for his single use of the effect this scene, 
  lower one power by 2 levels, a second power by 2 
  levels, and a third power by 1 level.
  Like Stress, the power levels recover at the end 
  of the scene.
  Reinforced (3)
  You can spend a fate point once per scene to absorb a 
  Severe Consequence. If the Consequence was caused 
  due to an attack that used the Potent, Deadly, or Lethal 
  special effects, the fate point goes to that character.
  Reroute Power (1)
  Typically, this special effect is found in power-armor 
  themed powers, but can be applied to just about any 
  type of character with the right explanation.
  Once per scene, you can spend a fate point to 
  reroute power. For example, lowering one power by 
  2 to increase another power by 2, or two powers by 
  +1 level each. 
  You can revert the power levels back to normal at 
  any time during the scene, but cannot reroute power 
  again until the next scene. In other words, if you 
  spent the fate point to reroute 4 levels of Force Field 
  into 2 levels of Energy Beam and 2 levels of Energy 
  Absorption, you can automatically revert any portion 
  of those levels back into Force Field if you really 
  need to, even across multiple rounds. Just remember 
  that you cannot reroute any powers again for the 
  remainder of the scene, so be sure you want to revert 
  levels back before you do so.
  There is a limit, however. You still can’t go above 
  a power’s normal power level limit (such as Power 
  Level 4 for Flight, or Power Level 6 for Blast).
  Set-Up (1)
  When you succeed with style on an attack and lower 
  your damage to place a boost, you instead gain a 
  situation aspect with a free invocation.
  Tough (2)
  You can spend a fate point once per scene to absorb 
  a Moderate Consequence. If the Consequence 
  was caused due to an attack that used the Potent, 
  Deadly, or Lethal special effects, the fate point goes 
  to that character.
  Trans-Dimensional (1)
  The power can affect targets in other dimensions as 
  if the wielder were actually in that dimension. The 
  power affects one other dimension (chosen by the 
  player) each time this special effect is taken.
  Unnoticeable (1)
  The power, whether it is a physical blast or some 
  other sort of obvious attack, is completely invisible 
  to the naked eye, making it almost impossible to tell 
  where it came from simply by sight.
  Useable on Others (1)
  When applied to a power that normally only affects 
  the person who has it (such as Invulnerability), it can 
  now affect others through touch. To do so, make a roll 
  against Fair (+2) Opposition. 
  Volley (1)
  When added to an attack power, the power fires a 
  rapid volley of shots at the target. Using a volley adds 
  +1 to the attack roll. 
  Limits
  The following list covers some of the more common 
  forms of Limits that powers can take, along with the 
  overall power set cost reduction for applying them to 
  the power. The cost reduction is a flat rate subtracted 
  
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  from the power’s total cost. No power can be reduced 
  below a 1-point cost.
  Always On (–1)
  The power is always on and cannot be turned off, 
  though it can be negated. If the power is negated, 
  it automatically reactivates when the source of the 
  nullification is removed.
  Cannot Use Power 
  Stunts (–1) 
  The power cannot be modified using Power Stunts.
  Damaging (–1) 
  Each round the hero uses the power, he takes 
  2-Stress. Invulnerability does not reduce the damage.
  Distracting (–1) 
  Using the power takes concentration and causes 
  the hero to not be able to properly defend himself. 
  Attacks against the hero gain a +2 bonus.
  Fatiguing (–1) 
  Each use of the power’ causes the hero 2-Stress. The 
  hero can resist the fatigue by spending a fate point, 
  but Invulnerability does not mitigate the Stress.
  Grappling Attack (–1)
  The power requires the hero to grapple the target 
  successfully before he can attack him with the power. 
  After a successful grapple, the hero may attempt to 
  damage his target on subsequent rounds by making 
  an opposed roll versus the target. 
  Longer Activation (–1)
  The power takes longer to activate and the hero can 
  only use it every other round, instead of every round.
  Reduced Range (–1)
  Each time this limit is taken, a ranged power has its 
  range reduced by two zones.
  Restricted (–1) 
  The power is restricted in some way. Perhaps it’s not 
  effective against a certain substance, usable only on 
  objects or only on living beings, the hero must chant 
  or perform gestures, or so forth.
  Sense Reliant (–1)
  The power requires that the target be able to sense 
  you in some manner, such as be able to see you, hear 
  you, touch you, and so forth. The type of sense is 
  determined when this Limit is taken.
  Unstable (–3)
  The power is unstable and doesn’t always work when 
  the hero desires. Whenever the hero wants to use this 
  power, roll the dice. If the dice roll zero to +4, the 
  power works normally. On a roll of –1 to –3, the power 
  fails to activate. On a roll of –4, the power burns out 
  and can’t be used for the rest of the scene.
  Wild Power (–3)
  The power’s functionality and magnitude are outside 
  of the hero’s control. Such powers are under the 
  GMs control as to when they activate and in what 
  way. (Note: This is a Limit instead of a Complication 
  due to the fact that its constant use at the GM’s 
  discretion is too broad to net a fate point each time 
  it comes into play.)
  Building Your Own Powers 
  In Daring Comics, we give you plenty of powers to 
  choose from and modify through special effects 
  and limits, but powers in comic books are extremely 
  far ranging. It would be impossible to cover every 
  conceivable possibility.
  Although you have plenty of ready-made powers 
  to choose from, we’re also going to give you the 
  guidelines for creating your own powers. Just as with 
  stunts, creating powers uses a couple of guidelines. 
  Unlike stunts, it’s a little less of a semi-exact science. 
  The powers we see in comic books are extremely 
  wide and varied, and some of them just don’t cleanly 
  fit into an exact build system. When you hit those 
  powers, the guidelines will help in determining a cost 
  and achieving some balance at the table.
  When a power just won’t fit as cleanly into a 
  mechanical build system as we would like, such as 
  when it uses an effect or two that are a bit more broad 
  or unique, that’s okay. It’s actually hard to break any 
  Fate system game, and Daring Comics is the same. 
  For such powers, either break it down further into a 
  basic effect for taking the power, and then put the 
  rest into some special effects that can be purchased, 
  or modify the cost as feels best. A perfect example of 
  such powers are Immunity and Power Nullify. Both 
  
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  the upper two tiers of the power offer effects that are 
  extremely hard to gauge. Do your best to determine 
  how many 2-Shift benefits the overall effect is worth, 
  and apply a 1-cost per 2-Shift.
  Unlike with normal stunts, many effects of a power 
  will have a broader use instead of being tied only 
  to certain circumstances.
  The main rule to the entire process is to build powers 
  and associated special effects that are fun to play and 
  emulate what you’ve seen in comic books. As long as 
  the cost falls somewhere within the guidelines, you’ll 
  be all right. Although building them can be fun, don’t 
  get too boggled down with the minutiae. You can 
  always adjust the power later. Just build the power 
  and have fun!
  Determining Effect Costs
  For the most part, you’ll notice that most of the pre-
  built powers combined multiple 1-Point Effects in 
  order to offer a broad range of power effects. This is 
  the same principle as building stunts, and is really the 
  core basis of creating powers as well. Many of the 
  example powers stack multiple 1-Point effects.
  In some cases, however, powers offer a very broad 
  base effect that doesn’t fall neatly into the 2-Shifts of 
  effect, or 1-Point of broad effect. For those situations, 
  we’ve given guidelines on how to determine cost via 
  the 2-Point through 5-Point effects examples below.
  It is rather hard to break a power in Daring Comics 
  by being off by a point of cost, so there’s no need to 
  sweat every minor detail. Simply create the power’s 
  effects, and use the guidelines below to determine 
  a rough cost. The goal is to have fun and create the 
  super-hero you want to play in an ongoing series.
  Keep in mind that although we give only up to a 5-Point 
  effect, the final cost for your power can actually cost 
  more if it combines multiple broad effects, such as 
  the Affliction power.
  1-Point Effects
  Every single power in Daring Comics automatically 
  costs at least 1-point and offers a base effect. The 
  base effect should be similar to what a stunt offers: a 
  +2 to a roll, or a 2-Shift effect. 
  If the power offers a broad bonus to an Attack or 
  Defend action, such as a Weapon Rating or Armor 
  Rating, then the cost is 1-point for a 1-Shift base 
  effect. Blast, Invulnerability, and Melee Attack are 
  examples of that kind of power. Likewise, if it offers 
  a more restricted Weapon or Armor rating, then using 
  the 2-Shift guideline is better. The Absorption power 
  is such an example.
  After you determine the base effect for the mandatory 
  1-point cost, you can apply additional effects for an 
  additional 1-point cost using the guidelines below.
  A +2 effect to the power (best for 
  Create an Advantage), or a +1 Attack, 
  Defend, or Damage Mitigation effect
  You can add a secondary effect to the power that 
  grants an additional +2 bonus to a certain type of 
  action (like being able to Create an Advantage with 
  the power where appropriate), or that grants a broad 
  +1 bonus to any attack or Defend action.
  Add an Action to the Power 
  or Associated Skill
  This grants the power another type of action (though 
  you’re still only allowed one particular action per 
  round), such as creating solid barriers with the power; 
  or it creates a rule exemption as part of the action: 
  examples include a power allowing you to grapple 
  opponents at a distance, causing limited damage 
  without having to make an attack roll, and so forth. 
  For simple effects that don’t directly harm another 
  character, or where certain powers would allow 
  the character to automatically bypass your effect, 
  requiring a roll against Mediocre (+0) Opposition is 
  usually good enough. If the effect harms another 
  character or is more difficult to bypass, the Opposition 
  to use the effect should be at least Fair (+2).
  Use one Skill in Place of Another
  This type of effect is identical to one of the stunt 
  creation effects— it allows you to use one skill in 
  place of another for particular types of rolls. One 
  example of this is the Electrical option under Melee 
  Attack, which allows you to use your power’s skill, 
  instead of Thief or Technology, when attempting to 
  short out or bypass electronic locks
  2-Point Effect
  A 2-Point effect is a little broader, but still limited. 
  Generally speaking, this type of effect somehow alters 
  a character in a limited way, such as increasing or 
  decreasing a skill or power, adding temporary aspects 
  to yourself with extra free invocations, and so forth.
  
  127
  3-Point Effect
  The three point effect powers are what are generally 
  categorized as the mid-level broad powers. They 
  allow you to at least partially restrict the actions of 
  another character (such as the Paralysis power), allow 
  the power to continue attacking on its own, or might 
  even allow you to bypass Stress and go directly to 
  causing consequences.
  4-Point & 5-Point Effects
  Now we get into the truly broad effects. These point 
  level powers greatly expand a character’s capabilities 
  in an exchange or scene. Examples include being able 
  to assume all new powers or power sets, gaining extra 
  actions due to having duplicates or minions appear 
  at your side, and even being able to completely take 
  over the actions (or even body) of another character. 
  The difference between a 4-Point and a 5-Point power 
  is that the 4-Point power has a built in limitation that 
  can cause the power to not work. Examples of such 
  powers are Animal Control and Empower.
  Inherent Limitations
  Sometimes, a power will have inherent limitations 
  that just make sense with what we’ve seen in comic 
  books. For example, the Absorption power requires 
  that you use the absorbed energy by your next turn 
  or you lose it. Adaptation takes a minute or more to 
  automatically activate. Adrenaline Boost requires 
  an emotional trigger first be met, and requires a roll 
  to activate the trigger. Animal Control and Animal 
  Mimicry both require animals to first be present 
  nearby.
  When creating built-in limitations, look at how much 
  the limitation affects the power’s usage. If it limits the 
  power enough where it can cause it to not function 
  for a time in play, subtract –1 point from the power’s 
  cost for each limitation. Keep in mind, though, that a 
  power’s cost can never drop below 1-point, so such 
  limitations are best when built into more expensive, 
  versatile powers.
  Sometimes, you will have to use your best judgement. 
  For example, a power with a 3-Point effect that lets 
  the power continue to attack on its own each round 
  that is limited to one attack per day instead (such as 
  the Affliction power), might warrant a –2 point cost 
  reduction.
  Determining the 
  Opposition’s Roll to 
  Break the Power
  Some powers will last more than a single exchange 
  and require the target to make a roll to escape the 
  effects. There are several ways to handle the roll’s 
  difficulty, and which one is used is really dependent 
  upon the narrative nature you chose for the power.
  Passive Opposition Equal to Shifts: With this 
  method, the opposition for the target is equal to the 
  number of Shifts the user gained on the original roll. 
  This method is a good choice when how well the user 
  did on activating the power has a direct impact on the 
  target being able to break free from the effects.
  Opposed Roll: The target must make an opposed 
  roll against the user to break free from the power. 
  This method is idea when the user must keep putting 
  effort into the power (even though the opposed roll 
  doesn’t count as an action for the user), and a bad roll 
  could end the effects, or force the user to spend fate 
  points and invoke aspects.
  Passive Opposition Equal to User’s Skill Rating: 
  This method can be used when the general potency 
  of the user’s ability with the power is what the target 
  must fight against to break the effects, but the user 
  isn’t actually involved in keeping the power going.
  
  128
  Under the Hood: 
  Determining 
  Opposition Type
  You’ll notice that choosing one type of 
  opposition style over another doesn’t affect 
  the power’s point cost. This is because 
  as we learned in testing the concept, it 
  became a bit impossible to find a central 
  weight to determine cost. 
  On the one hand, you could make it an 
  opposed roll, which now factors in whether a 
  side has fate points to spend on the roll and 
  how the dice work out.
  When considering using the Shifts generated 
  verses the Skill rating, that too wasn’t 
  consistent. We saw low skilled characters 
  get a high number of shifts, and highly skilled 
  characters do the opposite. Then it came 
  down to: should the power work simply on 
  the character’s inherent skill with the power, 
  or should how well they did when using the 
  power be the opposition? We’ve seen it go 
  either way in comic books.
  At the end of the day, none of the three options 
  provided a consistent enough benefit or 
  drawback to allow for a solid point build cost to 
  the power. But not affecting the power’s cost 
  also means that if a pre-built power doesn’t 
  work the way you envision it, you can switch 
  out one difficulty option for another without 
  affecting the power’s listed cost.
  For those who would prefer one option cost 
  more than another, make one opposition 
  style your base default at a 0-point cost, 
  make another a 1-point cost, and the final 
  a 2-point cost. How you set-up those costs 
  should be determined by how the powers 
  play out in your game.
   
  Write It Up
  And from there, it’s just a matter of describing the 
  power and how each of the effects work. If you want 
  to have scaling effects for your powers, then allow it 
  to be purchased in multiple levels. Typically, multiple 
  level powers should range from Power Level 3 to 
  Power Level 6. There’s no hard and fast rule on how 
  high to go, as it’ll honestly depend on what effects 
  the power possesses, and in many cases how great a 
  bonus to particular actions you might want the power 
  to give to a skill use.
  Let’s take a look at the build for the Affliction 
  power, which to be honest was easy to 
  design, and a complete pain in the patootie 
  to do a cost for.
  Your character can infect others with disease 
  or poison. To infect the target, make a skill roll 
  opposed by the target’s Physique (or Will for 
  a unique type of mystic or psychic disease). 
  Each Shift generated counts as the attack skill 
  for your disease. If you tie, your disease has 
  Mediocre (+0) skill.
  We’ll call this a 2-Point effect, since the Shifts 
  have a somewhat broad effect. 
  Once infected, the target gains a temporary 
  aspect related to the type of illness. As long 
  as the aspect remains, they’re attacked by the 
  disease on the following exchange. Since this is 
  an internal attack, Invulnerability does not negate 
  damage from the disease, but Immunity and 
  Regeneration do work normally. Damage from 
  the disease causes Consequences, not Stress.
  Each day after the initial attack, the disease 
  attacks the target again, and will continue to 
  do so until it is defeated. If the victim is Taken 
  Out or concedes, he is dead.
  We’ll call this a 6-Point effect, because it 
  basically combines two 3-Points effects. The 
  disease attacks on its own, and it bypasses 
  Stress. But, since the disease only attacks 
  once per day instead of each exchange, we’ll 
  also call that a 3-Point inherent limit. After all, 
  an entire day gives him plenty of time to get 
  cured. So, the total effect is 3-Points
  If the disease fails the attack roll, the character 
  takes no damage that day. Once the disease 
  fails two attacks in a row, the character’s 
  immune system has beaten it and he is no 
  longer infected.
  We’ll call this a 1-Point effect since it requires 
  two failed attacks instead of one.
  Curing the disease through the application 
  of the Treatment skill or the Healing power is 
  rolled against opposition equal to the Attack 
  skill rating of disease to remove the aspect. 
  Consequences gained from the disease must 
  be healed separately.
  
  129
  We’ll consider this another 1-Point effect.
  So the total cost for the Affliction power 
  is 7-Points.
  Building Your Own 
  Special Effects
  Okay, so you can create your own stunts, you can 
  create your own powers, so how do you create your 
  own special effects?
  Special Effects are nothing more than stunts for your 
  powers, and use similar guidelines.
  Add a New Effect 
  to a Power
  The most basic option for a stunt is to allow a power 
  have another effect to it that is not a basic form of 
  the power, but something that can be added on as 
  fits a character concept.
  Immortality (Regeneration): The hero heals even 
  if dead. The hero’s body must be relatively intact in 
  order for the hero to come back to life.
  Subtle (Mind Control): Once free, the target is 
  unaware of the Mind Control and suffers a memory 
  loss (a blackout) for the time he was under the 
  influence of the power. 
  Increase the Primary 
  Effect in Some Way
  A special effect can also increase the primary effect in 
  some way, either by making it slightly more potent or 
  by taking away one of its inherent limitations.
  Omega Telekinesis (Telekinesis): When lifting 
  objects with your mind, you can lift weight from the 
  Super-Strength Lifting Benchmark table.
  Rapid Shapeshift (Shapeshift): Your skill with the 
  power is so advanced that you can shapeshift as a 
  free action in any given round.
  Create a secondary 
  effect at the cost of 
  the primary effect
  Sometimes, a special effect might grant the power a 
  secondary effect or boost to an effect, but at some 
  type of cost to the primary effect.
  Concussive: For each Weapon rating you reduce 
  your damage, you knock your target back two zones 
  instead of the normal one.
  Extended Range: For each Weapon Rating that you 
  reduce your damage, you extend the range of your 
  blast by an additional zone.
  Create a Rules Exception
  The special effect can allow a power to make a 
  single exception for any other game rule that doesn’t 
  precisely fit into the category of an action. 
  Demolishing: When destroying objects, your 
  power does double the amount of Material 
  Strength reduction.
  Indirect: The attack power originates from a 
  source other than where the hero is physically 
  located. The power ignores obstacles and cover 
  when hitting the target (in other words, targets 
  can’t invoke aspects such as Cover against this 
  power), but does not ignore Forcefields.
  Penetrating: When you succeed with style on 
  an attack, you may spend a fate point to ignore a 
  target’s imperviousness, as well as bypass 2 levels 
  of Invulnerability. If the target is not Impervious, you 
  ignore 3 levels of Invulnerability.
  Add a Bonus to an 
  Action under Specific 
  Circumstances
  The special effect can add a +2 bonus to using the 
  power’s skill in certain situations, or a +1 when using 
  a power under very broad circumstances. 
  You can also use this to establish any effect worth two 
  shifts as an additional benefit of succeeding at the skill 
  roll. This might be Fair (+2) passive opposition, the 
  equivalent of a 2-point hit, a mild consequence, or an 
  advantage that takes Fair (+2) opposition to remove.
  Entangling: You gain a +2 bonus when using a 
  specific power to grapple or encase an opponent.
  Volley: When added to an attack power, the power 
  fires a rapid volley of shots at the target. Using a 
  volley adds +1 to the attack roll.
  Triggered Special Effects
  Some special effects require the hero to achieve a 
  certain degree of success when using the power 
  in order for the bonus to activate. Typically, it 
  
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  means the associated skill roll must achieve a 
  success with style.
  Follow-Up: When you succeed with style on an 
  attack, you do not have to reduce your damage to 
  place a Boost on the target.
  Set-Up: When you succeed with style on an attack 
  and lower your damage to place a boost, you instead 
  gain a situation aspect with a free invocation.
  Limited Use Special Effects
  For some powerful special effects, instead of 
  increasing the cost to buy them, consider applying a 
  limited use to them. They might be usable once per 
  conflict, scene, or issue, requires a fate point, requires 
  a specific trigger to activate, or even all three.
  Persistent: Once per scene, when your attack 
  causes the target to take a Consequence from your 
  power, you may spend a fate point. Doing so causes 
  the energy type to continue to attack the target 
  each consecutive round with a skill rating equal to 
  the power level (this does not count as your action), 
  with the target using Physique to Defend. To stop 
  the consecutive attacks, the target must roll against 
  opposition equal to your power level.
  Potent: Once per scene you may spend a fate 
  point to force your opponent to take a Moderate 
  Consequence instead of stress.
  Special Effect Families
  Like with Stunts, sometimes it makes sense for 
  special effects to create tier effects, where the special 
  effect has a basic version, and then a more powerful 
  version that either costs more and can be taken alone 
  (such as with Mega-Attack), or requires you to first 
  purchase the basic form.
  For special effects that require the ascending tiers 
  all be purchased, usually the higher tiers will just 
  increase whatever bonus the lower tiers offered.
  The special effects under Intangible are one such 
  stacking family.
  Building Limits
  Limits are simply things that limit a power’s ability 
  to function or limit how broad a power can be, and 
  always provide a 1-point cost reduction to the overall 
  power’s total cost. No power can be reduced below 
  a 1-point cost.
  Keep in mind, this is per effect that is limited. So, 
  if a power comes with three core features, and the 
  character can only use one of them, the total cost for 
  the limits is –2, because it takes away two features.
  Force Control allow the following core effects:
  Add +2 to grapple attempts when using some 
  sort of force energy to entangle your target, and 
  can grapple any target in the same zone as you. 
  Your controlling skill counts as your strength. 
  When creating constructs and barriers, the 
  opposition for someone to break them is +1 
  greater than the number of Shifts you generated.
  Use your controlling skill as though it was 
  Super-Strength, allowing you to knock back 
  an opponent with Force Control, or lift heavy 
  objects up to a zone away.
  If the player decided that his Force Control was 
  more restricted and could only create barriers, 
  then he would be taking away the grapple and 
  pseudo-telekinesis effects. That would lower 
  of the power set by 2 points.
  If the limit is particularly potent and its effects takes the 
  power out of the player’s control, such as the Unstable 
  and Wild Power limits, they are worth three points.
  
  131
  Chapter 10: Devices and Gear
  and armors. That means your average handguns, 
  semiautomatic and automatic rifles, grenades, 
  flamethrowers, and things of that nature. A device, by 
  comparison, is something not found in your everyday 
  world. That includes things like artificially intelligent 
  robots, freeze-ray weapons, fear gas, electricity firing 
  pistols, and so forth.
  Everyday Stuff & Armaments: 
  The Crunch Option
  Now, before we talk about all those wonderful toys, 
  let’s take a look at everyday gear, which is different 
  than the devices you’re looking to build. We call this 
  method The Crunch Option because you’ll see a less 
  crunchy way to handle normal gear and weapons in 
  Appendix: Turning the Dials.
  Smartphones, GPS, cars, motorcycles, even the 
  mundane automatic weapons and Kevlar of some 
  more lethal street vigilantes, exist in comic books the 
  same as in the real world. When creating your hero, 
  getting an inventory of weapons and armor is handled 
  by taking the arsenal stunt, or maybe by creating your 
  own stunt under the Contact or Resources skill.
  Of course, stunts aren’t the only way to get items. 
  During play, you can make a Resource roll to get your 
  hands on it. The item doesn’t automatically come 
  back to you like it would if obtained by purchasing a 
  stunt, but you can always try to buy more as long as 
  it makes narrative sense that you have the resources 
  available to do so.
  The Available Funds section under the Resource skill 
  gives a guideline on opposition to making purchases. 
  Typically, a Mediocre (+0) Resource rating gives a 
  character at least some chance of affording most 
  street level weaponry.
  Gear Complication
  Although you don’t necessarily have to list it on your 
  sheet, all gear, regardless of the type, automatically 
  possesses a Complication that allows it to somehow 
  be shut down for the remainder of the scene. Whether 
  it is a Kevlar vest, a laptop, a set of lock picks, or 
  a firearm, the GM can give you a fate point to shut 
  Super-science is as much a staple of comic books 
  as colorful costumes and extraordinary powers. 
  From a villain’s freeze gun or fear inducing gas, to 
  dimensional portals that allow travel and exploration 
  into foreign realms, to highly advanced power-armor, 
  the inventions and technologies of comic books 
  have been a sense of wonder since the debut of the 
  super-hero genre.
  But science and technology don’t hold a monopoly 
  on the extraordinary in comic books. Dark rituals 
  bring forth demonic servants, and mystic artifacts— 
  both good and evil— are the tools of the trade for the 
  supreme sorcerers.
  This chapter gives you the means of creating your 
  own super-science inventions or arcane rituals and 
  artifacts. It also provides you with guidelines for 
  exactly how much your Resource skill can afford, 
  and provides basic Material Strength for busting 
  through objects. Finally, for those of you who have 
  the Personal Headquarters or Team Base stunts, 
  this is the chapter where you get to spend those 
  points to build your secret base of operations, be it 
  a remodeled cave, volcanic fortress, orbital satellite, 
  mansion, flying aircraft carrier, or even a city-sized 
  trans-dimensional organic vessel.
  Gear, Devices, and Stress
  Now is a good place to talk about the possibility 
  of damaging someone’s device or gear. All devices 
  and gear can take 2-Stress before being destroyed, 
  unless increased through special effects. 
  When attacking an item, make an attack roll against 
  the character holding it, but they get +2 to Defend. 
  If you hit, Stress is dealt to the item instead of the 
  character. If the item is not being held (such as an 
  automated turret or a computer array), it defends 
  with Mediocre (+0) skill— if it makes sense for the 
  stationary device to roll Defend at all.
  Gear vs. Devices
  We’re tossing around the gear and devices terms, 
  but what do they mean? In the context of playing the 
  game, gear refers to your everyday types of weapons 
  
  132
  it down. Note that this is not the same as placing a 
  Disarmed aspect on someone, which is covered in 
  Chapter 12: Comic Book Action.
  Everyday Items
  Below is a small listing of some everyday items, 
  what special effects they bring with them, and their 
  associated costs. It would be impossible to list every 
  possible item that could be owned, so feel free to 
  expand the list as needed for your series. 
  Item
  Special Effects
  Binoculars
  Telescopic Vision
  Comm-Link
  Signal based Telepathy
  Flashlight
  Ignores 1 point of 
  darkness based situation 
  aspect opposition
  Laptop
  Internet access
  Lockpicks
  +2 to rolls to 
  overcome locks
  Medkit
  +1 to medical 
  treatment rolls
  Night Vision Goggles
  Darkvision
  Smartphone
  Internet access, GPS
  Weapons
  Mundane weapons range from a pocket knife, to 
  firearms and explosives, to vehicle mounted and 
  anti-vehicle weaponry. Each weapon is assigned a 
  Weapon Rating to represent its damaging capabilities, 
  as shown below.
  Since this game is designed to emulate comic books, 
  where super-powers and super-science are typically 
  the focus of combat scenes, you’ll discover that most 
  weapons fall into the same Weapon Rating category. 
  A few will have some effects listed, but for the most 
  part damage is kept abstract between most weapons 
  available on the streets.
  Weapon 1: Pocket weapons, knives, and saps.
  Weapon 2: Swords, bats, and most pistols.
  Weapon 3: High-caliber pistols, automatic rifles, 
  and shotguns.
  Weapon 4: Personal level anti-armor weapons 
  (such as LAW Rockets) landmines, grenades, and 
  vehicle level guns.
  Weapon 5: Tank canon, aircraft missiles, and most 
  starfighter weapons.
  Weapon 6: space cruiser weaponry, or most weapons 
  capable of levelling a city block.
  Extreme Weaponry: For those interested in the 
  use of truly devastating weapons as a threat 
  the heroes must defeat, use Weapon 8 for a low 
  yield nuclear warhead, and Weapon 10+ for the 
  mountain-buster nuclear missiles.
  Common Weapon 
  Special Effects
  Area Effect (1): You can attack everyone within 
  the same zone without having to split your result. 
  Each additional time this special effect is applied, it 
  increases the area effect by an additional zone.
  Armor Penetrating (1-2): The weapon ignores Armor 
  1 when calculating damage. If taken twice, it ignores 
  up to Armor 2 (this includes the Invulnerability power).
  Aspect (1): Successfully damaging the target also 
  creates a Situation Aspect on them.
  Concealed Weapon (1): The weapon is either very 
  small, or collapses to be smaller than its normal size. 
  When hiding the weapon, you gain +2 to Deceit.
  Continuous (3): A normal special effect applied 
  to flamethrowers, this represents the target being 
  more than set On Fire by means of an aspect. When 
  you succeed with style on an attack action, you 
  can lower your damage by one to place an aspect 
  instead of a boost. As long as the aspect remains 
  on the target, they continue to be attacked by the 
  flames each subsequent round, with Mediocre (+0) 
  attack skill. Removing the aspect to stop the attacks 
  requires putting out the flames. The opposition to 
  remove the aspect is equal to the number of Shifts 
  you gained on the attack roll.
  Dangerous (2): Once per scene you may spend a 
  fate point to force your opponent to take a Moderate 
  Consequence instead of stress.
  Delay (1): Usually applied to explosives. Instead of 
  detonating on impact, the explosion occurs after a 
  set time. Each time this special effect is applied, the 
  explosion occurs one step later on the Time Increment 
  
  133
  table, beginning at one round. So, if applied once, the 
  explosive detonates the next round. If applied twice, 
  it detonates a half minute later, and so forth.
  Demolishing (1): When destroying objects, the 
  weapon does double the amount of Material Strength 
  reduction.
  EMP (1): The weapon automatically shuts down 
  electronic devices, such as smartphones, cars, 
  computers, electrical grids, and NPC robots. Against 
  player-character and Named NPC robots, it gain a +4 
  bonus to the Attack roll.
  The exact range of the EMP depends on the device. A 
  simple bomb might be an entire zone, while a nuclear 
  warhead would be many miles in diameter.
  Entangling (1): You gain a +2 bonus when using the 
  weapon to grapple an opponent. To break free, the 
  target must succeed at an Overcome action with 
  opposition equal the Shifts you achieved on the 
  grapple roll. Breaking free cannot succeed at a cost.
  Expert Wiring (1): Typical of explosives, your 
  Technology rolls to disarm the weapon suffers a +2 
  to the opposition.
  Full or Semi Auto (1): The weapon is capable of firing 
  a lot of bullets in a very short time. Whenever you 
  use the weapon to create a situation aspect, such as 
  Cover Fire or Hail of Lead, you get +2 to the roll.
  Hardiness (1-6): The weapon is slightly harder to 
  break. This special effect works the same as the 
  power, and can be applied up to six times.
  Independent Attack (1): The weapon is capable of 
  attacking on its own, such as an automated turret. 
  The skill is Mediocre (+0) for a single application of 
  this Special Effect, and increases by +1 for each 
  additional application, up to a maximum of Fair (+2).
  Lethal (3): Once per scene you may spend a fate point 
  to force your opponent to take a Severe Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Long Range (1): The weapon is able to hit things 
  more than two zones away, giving you a +2 zone 
  range each time it is added to a weapon. 
  Non-Lethal (0): The weapon fires non-lethal rounds. 
  When an opponent is Taken Out, the defeat never 
  results in death from this weapon (though whether 
  or not they die from other means is a different 
  story). Adding this special effect does not affect the 
  weapon’s cost.
  Potent (1): Once per scene you may spend a fate point 
  to force your opponent to take a Mild Consequence 
  instead of stress.
  Remote (1): Usually a special effect for explosive 
  devices, you can detonate the bomb from a distance. 
  When applied once, the range is roughly a half-mile. 
  When applied twice, you can remote detonate from 
  up to a mile away.
  Targeting (1): Whether through special stabilizers, 
  a target scope, or some other method, the weapon 
  provides a +1 bonus to your Accuracy roll when you 
  take the time to aim.
  Armor
  From your basic leather jacket to law enforcement 
  and military-grade Kevlar, armor ranges in scope from 
  Armor 1 to Armor 6, though personal armor usually 
  tends to stay within the Armor 1 and Armor 2 ranges, 
  with Armor 3 being the best experimental army used 
  by the military.
  Armor 1: Leather, layered clothing
  Armor 2: Bullet Proof Vest (i.e. Kevlar)
  Armor 3: Equivalent to an armored vehicle or 
  bulletproof glass
  Melee Weapons
  Rating
  Range
  Special Effects
  Baton
  1
  0
  N/A
  Knife
  1
  0
  N/A
  Rapier
  1
  0
  N/A
  Short Sword
  2
  0
  N/A
  Long Sword
  2
  0
  N/A
  
  134
  Armor 4: Equivalent to a heavily armored vehicle 
  (such as an armored truck or tank)
  Armor 5: Extremely invulnerable 
  Armor 6: Capital Starship level of invulnerability
  Common Armor 
  Special Effects
  Camouflage (1): The suit is able to blend into a 
  specific environment, such as jungle, urban, desert, 
  arctic, and so forth. It grants a +2 bonus to Stealth 
  rolls when in the appropriate environment.
  Durable (1): You can spend a fate point once per 
  scene to absorb a Mild Consequence.
  Environmental (1): The armor grants +2 to Physique 
  for resisting hostile environments
  Tough (2): You can spend a fate point once per scene 
  to absorb a Moderate Consequence.
  Reinforced (3): You can spend a fate point once per 
  scene to absorb a Severe Consequence.
  Ranged 
  Weapons
  Rating
  Range
  Special Effects
  Grenade
  4
  Thrown or 2
  Area Effect, Dangerous
  Flashbang
  3
  Thrown or 2
  Area Effect, Aspect: 
  Blinded and Deafened
  Smoke Grenade
  3
  Thrown or 2
  Area Effect, Successful 
  hit places Aspect: 
  chocking and Blinded
  Net Gun
  4
  1
  Entangling
  Flamethrower
  3
  1
  Continuous, Potent
  Crossbow
  2
  2
  N/A
  9mm Pistol
  2
  2
  N/A
  .50 Caliber Pistol
  3
  2
  N/A
  Shotgun
  3
  1
  N/A
  Submachine Gun
  3
  2
  +2 to create cover fire
  Sniper Rifle
  4
  4
  +1 toAiming, Long Range (3)
  Assault Rifle
  3
  2
  +2 to create cover fire
  Rocket Launcher
  4
  8
  Area Effect, Dangerous, 
  Demolishing, Long Range (3)
  Vehicle Mounted Gun
  4
  3
  Armor Penetrating, 
  Dangerous, Long Range (1)
  Tank Cannon
  5
  A lot
  Are Effect, Armor 
  Penetrating(2), Demolishing, 
  Potent, Long Range (A lot)
  Aircraft Missile
  5
  A lot
  Area Effect, Armor Penetrating 
  (2), Demolishing, Lethal, 
  Long Range (a lot)
  
  135
  Armor
  Rating
  Special 
  Effects
  Leather
  1
  N/A
  Kevlar
  2
  N/A
  Reinforced Kevlar
  3
  Camouflage, 
  Durable
  Experimental Kevlar
  3
  Tough
  Platemail
  2
  Durable
  Vehicles
  Common Vehicle Special Effects
  Armed (1 per Weapon Rating): The vehicle is 
  armed with one weapon each time this special 
  effect is applied.
  Armored (1-6): The vehicle has Armor 1 rating for a 
  single application, with an additional rating per extra 
  application. Armor cannot go above Armor 6.
  Auto-Pilot (1): Typically applied to vehicles, it can 
  now fly or drive itself with Mediocre (+0) skill. This 
  special effect can be applied two more times, up to a 
  maximum Fair (+2) skill rating.
  Hardiness (1-6): The vehicle is tougher and 
  stronger than a typical civilian car. This special 
  effect works the same as the power, and can be 
  applied up to six times.
  Vehicle
  Speed 
  Rating
  Special 
  Effects
  Motorcycle
  3
  N/A
  Basic Car
  3
  N/A
  Sports Car
  3
  N/A
  Luxury Car
  3
  N/A
  Limousine
  3
  N/A
  Armored Truck
  3
  Armor 2, 
  Hardened (2)
  Semi-Truck
  3
  Hardened
  Military Truck
  2
  Armor 4, 
  Hardened (2)
  Military Helicoptor
  4
  Armed (Weapon: 
  4 guns, Weapon: 
  5 missiles, 
  Area Effect), 
  Hardened (2)
  Fighter Jet
  5
  Armed, (Weapon: 
  4 guns, Weapon: 
  5 missiles, Area 
  Effect), Auto-pilot, 
  Hardened (2)
  
  136
  What is a Device?
  Whether you want that weather manipulating weapon 
  for your super-villain, or that gravity controlling gun 
  for your hero, devices are the super-science of comic 
  books. They’re weapons, armor, computers, robotic 
  servants, and even deathtraps— all designed using 
  the Daring Comics powers system and the special 
  effects found in this section.
  NPCs, Gear, and Devices
  For all your GMs out there— no, you 
  don’t have to build your NPC’s devices or 
  purchase their gear. They are the opposition 
  to the heroes, and get whatever they need 
  to provide sufficient threat and drama. 
  Need them to have an army of robots? Give 
  it to them. Need that mass mind control 
  device that targets citizens through their 
  smartphones? The mastermind has it.
  Even in comic books, the villains usually 
  have far greater devices and weapons than 
  the heroes. That’s the whole story equals 
  obstacle need of fiction.
  Devices and Character 
  Creation
  Later in this section you’ll learn the rules for creating 
  devices after the campaign has started. Those 
  devices, however, are temporary items, capable of 
  being used for an entire issue before they become 
  inoperative, are lost, or are removed from play through 
  whatever narrative detail makes sense.
  For those of you who want to have one or more 
  devices as a permanent part of your character, you’ll 
  make them at character creation. There’s no invention 
  roll to do so, you simply spend your Hero Points for 
  the device’s costs as you would for any other power 
  set in the game. The difference is that the device is 
  a core part of your character, always with him and 
  always recovered at least by the end of the scene if 
  disarmed or shutdown.
  For the most part, any device uses the same rules. 
  Choose the powers and any special effects or limits, 
  select any specific special effects from this section 
  that make sense and pay the total cost in Hero Points. 
  The powers then work the same as they would if part 
  of any other character power set, and should possess 
  a Power Set Aspect the same as any other power set.
  Things get a little different (and sometimes dangerous) 
  when you’re creating devices in play, as part of the 
  drama.
  Building A Device During Play
  With the Artificing and Technology skills, you can make 
  your own specialized devices— chemical formulas, 
  weapons, and armors, capable of extraordinary 
  feats thanks to super-science or sorcery. In essence, 
  such devices are created as temporary power sets 
  (including a Power Set Aspect), just as you would 
  create a normal power set for your character, with a 
  few extra features.
  Design the Device
  To create a new device during the series, first 
  determine what powers it possess (and determine 
  how the powers are arranged into Power Sets with 
  their own Power Set Aspects). The difficulty to create 
  the device is equal to half the total cost of all the 
  device’s powers (round up). Any limits refund points 
  as normal, and any Complications will affect the 
  amount of time it takes to create. The difficulty cannot 
  go below Average (+1).
  You must also have a suitable laboratory or workshop 
  of a quality rating at least equal to the difficulty. If the 
  quality rating is lower, that means the device is going 
  to be a bit more difficult to construct. You just don’t 
  have the necessary resources or tools on hand to do 
  it easily. The difficulty is increased by +1 for every 
  step on the ladder that the quality rating is lower than 
  the device you want to create.
  Dragonfly wants to create a device that will 
  allow him to shrink his entire team down 
  to the size of a small insect all at once. He 
  decides it will have Shrinking 4 with an Area 
  Effect. It doesn’t have any limits, but has a 
  Complication that might overload itself and 
  shutdown, thereby risking leaving everyone 
  at miniature stature.
  The base cost for the device is 3 Hero Points, 
  two for Shrinking and one for area effect. That 
  means his opposition is half of that, rounded 
  up, or Fair (+2). 
  
  137
  The workshop is Great (+4) quality, so he 
  doesn’t suffer an increase to the opposition.
  There’s no Resource roll necessary to create the 
  device. It’s assumed that since you have the work 
  area, you also have tools and components on hand. 
  It might also be that you’ve gathered the needed 
  components through a series of heists (if you’re 
  a villain), or that you have the necessary contacts, 
  maybe through the underworld or an organization, to 
  have gotten a hold of what you need.
  The time to create is determined by the GM. Yeah, we 
  could have given you a concrete time of X-hours per 
  opposition rating, but to be honest the time it takes 
  inventors in comic books is really dependent upon 
  the needs of the story, and we felt allowing that in 
  Daring Comics was the right way to go. Once the GM 
  determines the base time, however, each Complication 
  reduces that time by –1 step on the Time Increment 
  table. Sometimes, creating a device that can go 
  horribly wrong means you can make it faster.
  If you succeed, great! You’ve created the device. If 
  you succeed with style, you get to add an aspect to 
  the device for free.
  Like a normal Overcome action, you can succeed 
  at a cost. 
  If you tie and have to take a minor cost, you must 
  create a Flaw aspect— something that shows a weak 
  point or imperfection in the design. 
  If you fail and decide to succeed at a major cost, the 
  GM creates a Complication. You don’t get to know 
  what it is, and you’ll find out what it’s brought into play.
  Dragonfly rolls his Great (+4) Technology 
  skill against a Fair (+2) passive opposition. 
  Unfortunately, he’s out of fate points and really 
  just wants to get the device built, so he doesn’t 
  spend an action to first create an aspect that 
  might assist him.
   He rolls –2 on the dice, for a Fair (+2) result. 
  Yep. It figures.
  That ties with the opposition, which means 
  for an Overcome action he either failed, or 
  can succeed at a minor cost. He decides to 
  succeed at a minor cost. 
  The GM nods and smiles.
  Now the player has to create a Flaw aspect. 
  He decides on: The Wiring Was Rushed. 
  The GM accepts that as a decent flaw. 
  Not only does the device run the risk of 
  overloading and becoming inoperative (the 
  Complication), but it might also short out 
  when it comes time to return everyone to 
  normal and instead make them one additional 
  size smaller (a compel on the Flaw aspect). 
  And then it might also overload.
  Meanwhile, the GM has decided it would 
  take him a few days to create the device, so 
  thanks to his original Complication, that time 
  is reduced to a single day.
  The device lasts for one issue of use. Keep in mind, 
  it’s one issue of use. That means you can carry 
  the device for a few issues before using it, but the 
  moment you use it even once, it lasts until that issue 
  is over. When the issue concludes, it is assumed to 
  be lost, deconstructed, or whatever reasoning makes 
  sense to remove it from play.
  You can only have one device in active use at a time.
  Device Controlling Skill
  For powers which require a Controlling skill, the device 
  has the skill at Mediocre (+0) unless purchased at a 
  greater level through device special effects.
  Jury Rigging
  When time is of the essence and you absolutely must 
  construct that device Now!, you can attempt a jury-
  rig. You’re basically rushing the job and risking failure 
  in exchange for getting that emergency device built 
  and in the field as quickly as possible.
  You build the device using the same rules as 
  building a device, but it takes only one minute per 
  final opposition. Your opposition, after it is halved, is 
  increased by +1 due to the rushed job. Complications 
  reduce the time by –1 minute each, to a minimum of 1 
  minute building time.
  If you succeed, you get the device built. If you 
  succeed with style, you get to add a boost to it. 
  Since you are rushing the work, you cannot succeed 
  at a cost if you fail the roll.
  Jury-Rigged devices last for a single scene of use, 
  though they can last longer if you spend a fate point 
  for each additional scene.
  Dragonfly’s teammates have been captured 
  by The Anarchitect, and he needs to get in 
  
  138
  there to save them. They’ve battled the super-
  villain many times in the past, and he knows 
  each of their abilities. He’ll be on the lookout 
  for Dragonfly’s shrinking powers.
  He needs a device to make him invisible and 
  allow him to pass through solid objects, and 
  he needs it now! He rushes to his workshop to 
  cobble something together on the spot.
  Intangible is a 1-point power, and he doesn’t 
  want to risk the device not working, so he 
  gives it basic Invisibility 1. He can bend the 
  light around himself, but anyone looking 
  closely enough is probably going to notice 
  something. The two powers combined have a 
  cost of 2 points. His opposition would have 
  only been Average (+1), but because it is a 
  jury-rig, that increases to Fair (+2).
  He isn’t going to apply any limits or 
  Complications. The workshop has Great (+4) 
  quality, so his opposition is not increased 
  further. His skill rating is Great (+4) and the 
  opposition is Fair (+2).
  He rolls the dice and gets a –2, again! 
  That makes his result Fair (+2), which ties 
  with the opposition.
  He doesn’t want to take a minor cost and 
  create a Flaw aspect, so he spends a fate point 
  and invokes his I’m a Whiz With Engineering 
  aspect for a +2 bonus, making his result Great 
  (+4). He succeeded, and the device is created 
  two minutes later.
  Buying a Device During Play
  Sometimes, a villain— or even a hero— needs to get 
  his hands on a particular device and doesn’t have the 
  means of making it himself. Doing so requires two 
  things: finding someone who has the device to sell, 
  and then being able to afford it.
  The opposition for finding someone with the device to 
  sell is equal to the opposition of the device (the total 
  cost of powers, halved and rounded up). However, 
  you roll your Contacts skill instead of your Artificing 
  or Technology skill. On a success, it takes roughly 
  one day per opposition level. On a success with style, 
  lower the time by two steps on the Time Increment 
  table to a few hours per quality level.
  Kill-Joy hears rumors about a new weapon 
  that’s been developed by a fellow super-
  villain. It’s basically the Blast power with a 
  unique special effect that can send the target 
  into an alternate dimension instead of doing 
  damage. It has Blast 2 with a special effect 
  worth 2 points, for a total cost of 4 points, or a 
  Fair (+2) opposition.
  Kill-Joy rolls his Good (+3) Contacts skill 
  against Fair (+2) passive opposition. He rolls 
  zero on the dice, for a Good (+3) total. That’s 
  enough to get him a success, but he has plans 
  for the thing, and doesn’t want to risk someone 
  else getting to the inventor first.
  He invokes his Fear is My Greatest Weapon 
  aspect, narrating that his reputation and the 
  fact that even criminals are afraid of him gets 
  people answering his questions. He adds +2 
  to the roll, for a new total of Superb (+5)— a 
  success with style. 
  The GM decides that each point of opposition 
  is now worth 3 hours instead of 1 day, and 6 
  hours later Kill-Joy finds the inventor.
  Once you find a seller, you must succeed at a 
  Resources roll with opposition equal to the device’s 
  opposition rating +1. If you succeed and get the 
  device, it lasts for a single issue.
  Kill-Joy has amassed a decent amount of 
  money through his crimes, and rolls his 
  Great (+4) Resources skill against Good 
  (+3) opposition. He gets 1 on the dice, for a 
  Superb (+5) total, a success. He purchases 
  the weapon from the inventor, and gets to use 
  it against his enemies for an entire issue.
  Had he failed, the GM might have allowed a 
  success at a major cost, and Kill-Joy would 
  have likely faced some sort of Complication 
  later on. For example, since he was unable 
  to purchase the weapon, perhaps he injured 
  (or killed) the inventor to get it, and the guy’s 
  associates will be seeking revenge.
  
  139
  But, I’m personal friends 
  with an inventor!
  Okay, let’s face it: usually the super-hero 
  community is a close-knit bunch. Oh sure, 
  they have their occasional throw downs when 
  things get too dramatic, but they’re also not 
  bashful about hitting up the neighboring 
  super-genius when the going gets tough.
  When you need to borrow a device from an 
  inventor friend, make a Contacts roll with 
  opposition equal to the normal opposition to 
  create the device. If you succeed, your friend 
  has what you need; and you can borrow it 
  for a single scene of use. On a success with 
  style, you get to borrow it for an entire issue.
  This 
  does 
  not 
  mean 
  your 
  friendly 
  neighborhood inventor is your private rent-
  a-device store. The GM has every right to 
  simply declare an item unavailable, especially 
  if you’re constantly pestering the poor fellow.
  Common Device 
  Special Effects
  Generally speaking, devices are constructed using the 
  powers system for abilities. However, the following 
  special effects are examples of what we’ve seen 
  in comic books, and represent things not normally 
  covered by the powers system. If a device special 
  effect would make sense, however, it can be applied 
  to any type of power set. Each special effect (or rank 
  of special effect) costs 1 Hero Point.
  Artificial Intelligence
  Your device is an artificial intelligence capable of 
  acting on its own. Each application gives the device a 
  specific quality rating and skill column.
  • Basic Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills and 
  two Fair (+2) skills
  • Improved Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills, 
  two Fair (+2) skills, and two Good (+3) Skills
  • Advanced Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills, 
  two Fair (+2) skills, two Good (+3) Skills, and two 
  Great (+4) skills.
  Aspect
  Your device has an additional aspect attached to it.
  Auto-Pilot
  Typically applied to vehicles, it can now fly or drive 
  itself with Mediocre (+0) skill. This special effect 
  can be applied two more times, up to a maximum 
  Fair (+2) skill rating.
  Concealable
  The device is either very small, or collapses to be 
  smaller than its normal size. When hiding the weapon, 
  you gain +2 to Deceit.
  Database
  The device is either a walking library or has remote 
  access to one. Each time this is applied, the device has 
  the two of the following skills at Average (+1) rating: 
  Arcanum, Artificing, Knowledge, or Technology. You 
  can take this multiple times, and either apply it to two 
  additional skills, or increase the skill bonus by +1, up 
  to a maximum of Fantastic (+6).
  You can also apply a +2 bonus to a single skill instead 
  of taking a pair of skills, up to a maximum Fantastic (+6).
  Expert Wiring
  Typical of explosives, your Technology rolls to disarm 
  the weapon suffer a +2 to the opposition.
  Independent Attack
  The weapon is capable of attacking on its own, such 
  as an automated turret. The skill is Mediocre (+0) 
  for a single application of this special effect, and 
  increases by +1 for each additional application, up to 
  a maximum of Fantastic (+6).
  Power Ability
  Each time this special effect is taken, your device’s 
  Power skill improves +1 step on the ladder from 
  Mediocre (+0) to a maximum of Fantastic (+6).
  Restricted
  The device is restricted from just anyone using 
  it, whether it is through a DNA scan, a mystic 
  enchantment for worthiness, or some other high 
  security means that typically cannot be overcome.
  
  140
  Remote
  Usually a special effect for explosive devices, you can 
  detonate the bomb from a distance. When applied 
  once, the range is roughly a half-mile. When applied 
  twice, you can remote detonate from up to a mile away.
  Targeting
  Whether through special stabilizers, a target 
  scope, or some other method, the weapon 
  provides a +1 bonus to your Accuracy roll when 
  you take the time to aim.
  Unbreakable
  Your 
  device 
  has 
  an 
  extra 
  aspect indicating that it is 
  near impossible to break (very 
  few things in comic books are 
  truly unbreakable). Whenever 
  something would break your 
  device, you can spend a fate 
  point to create the story detail 
  “My _________ is unbreakable,” 
  to prevent the device from being 
  broken. (Note: For those of you 
  who want to mimic a specific 
  Claw power from comic books, 
  you can also apply this special 
  effect to normal power sets 
  where it would make sense.)
  Device Limits
  Your device can have limits built 
  into it the same as any power set. 
  When determining final difficulty 
  to build the device, subtract the 
  cost of any Limits.
  Sample Devices
  Let’s take a look at some sample 
  devices. You can plug-and-
  play these items during play or 
  character creation, use them as 
  inspiration to create your own, or 
  use them as a basis from which 
  to further modify your unique 
  invention.
  Armor
  Street Vigilante 
  Body Armor
  Effect: Reinforced yet highly flexible body armor
  Powers: Invulnerability 2, Hardiness 2
  Special Effects: None
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Fair (+2)
  
  141
  Electrical Armor
  Effect: Body armor that can surround itself with 
  electricity
  Powers: Electricity Aura, Invulnerability 3
  Special Effects: None
  Limits: None
  Complications: Liquid based attacks do Weapon 2 
  damage
  Difficulty: Good (+3)
  Fire Generating Armor
  Effect: Body armor with a built in Flame Blast
  Powers: Flame Blast 3, Invulnerability 3
  Special Effects: Deadly
  Limits: None
  Complications: Liquid based attacks do Weapon 
  2 damage
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Robots
  Family Assistant
  Effect: Robot designed for home maintenance
  Powers: Flight 1, Super-Strength 1
  Special Effects: Basic Artificial Intelligence, Database
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Good (+2)
  Cape-Killer Robot
  Effect: A 20’ tall robot designed to hunt down super-
  beings
  Powers: Density 1, Growth 1, Invulnerability 4, Energy 
  Blast 3, Flight 3
  Special Effects: Basic Artificial Intelligence, Aspect (1)
  Limits: None
  Complications: Must recharge every 12 hours
  Difficulty: Epic (+7)
  Power Duplicating Android
  Effect: An android capable of duplicating the powers 
  of super-being it faces
  Aspects: I Can Adapt to You
  Powers: Invulnerability 4, Power Mimicry 
  Special Effects: Advanced Artificial Intelligence, 
  Aspect (1), Multi-mimic, Ranged mimic 
  Limits: Cannot mimic technology based powers
  Complications: Limited thinking ability, Sonic attacks 
  do +2 damage
  Difficulty: Superb (+5)
  Vehicles
  Vigilante’s Car
  Effect: Armored car for prowling the streets
  Powers: Invulnerability 3, Super-Speed 2
  Special Effects: Auto-pilot, Database
  Limits: None
  Complications: Must refuel every 6 hours
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Disappearing Jet
  Effect: Jet that can turn invisible
  Powers: Flight 4, Invisibility 3, Invulnerability 3
  Special Effects: Auto-Pilot
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Fantastic (+6)
  Team Aircraft
  Effect: Aircraft designed to carry a super-team
  Powers: Flight 4, Blast 4
  Special Effects: Auto-Pilot, Database, Hardiness 2
  Limits: None
  
  142
  Complications: Requires two people to pilot
  Difficulty: Fantastic (+6)
  Weapons
  Fear Gas
  Effect: Causes hallucinations and intense fear
  Aspects: Face Your Worse Fears
  Powers: Emotion Control, Illusion
  Special Effects: Aspect (1), Gaseous, Power skill 
  Great (+4)
  Limits: Both powers limited to Fear based emotions 
  and illusions only (–2), only victim can see the illusion.
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Mind Control Ray
  Effect: A beam designed to enthrall the target
  Powers: Mind Control
  Special Effects: Area Effect, Power skill Great (+4)
  Limits: Must first hit the target with an Accuracy 
  attack
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Ice Gun
  Effect: Ray gun capable of freezing people and entire 
  areas
  Powers: Ice Blast 3, Cold Control
  Special Effects: Confining, Power skill (Fair +2) 
  Limits: None
  Complications: Overload: Shutdown for the scene
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Arcane Artifacts
  Arcane artifacts are created using the same 
  rules as for creating devices. The only difference 
  is that you use the Artificing skill instead of 
  Knowledge or Technology.
  Sample Artifacts
  Ring of Eldritch Shielding
  Effect: A mystic ring from ancient Babylon capable of 
  creating an eldritch forcefield
  Powers: Forcefield 4
  Special Effects: None
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Fair (+2)
  Orb of All-Seeing
  Effect: An orb worn on a chain around the neck, 
  which allows the user to astral travel to distant places 
  and see things far away.
  Powers: Astral Projection, ESP 
  Special Effects: Magic Great (+4)
  Limits: None
  Complications: Causes the user 2-Stress at 
  random times
  Difficulty: Good (+3)
  Cloak of Demonic Hide
  Effect: A cloak of demonic skin capable of resisting 
  most firearms, and of granting the wearer flight.
  Powers: Flight 2, Invulnerability 3
  Special Effects: None
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Good (+3)
  Arcane Rituals
  Creating arcane rituals uses the same mechanics 
  as creating devices and artifacts, with a couple of 
  minor differences. You decide which powers the 
  ritual will duplicate and halve the cost (round up) 
  to determine your opposition. However, because 
  
  143
  rituals are typically cast to effect remote targets, you 
  add +1 to the opposition after you halve it. You then 
  roll your Arcanum skill.
  Like with devices, the actual time to case the ritual is 
  determined by the GM, and represents not only the 
  actual casting, but also drawing the circle, invoking 
  the correct powers, reading from the necessary 
  ancient texts, and so forth.
  The main difference, however, is that if you fail to cast 
  the ritual by one or two Shifts, you take Stress equal to 
  the number of Shifts you failed the roll by. If you failed 
  by three or more Shifts, you take the Stress and the 
  GM is going to create a very bad effect on you or the 
  game world in the form of a new aspect. For example, 
  maybe that demon you were summoning is not only 
  loose and beyond your ability to control, but it’s now 
  a Named NPC. In that case, the GM might create an 
  aspect such as: Primal Demon on the Loose!
  The ritual’s effect lasts a length of time that makes 
  sense. For example, a ritual meant to curse your 
  enemy with the Affliction power might last until it 
  is overcome, the same as with the normal power. 
  Meanwhile, a summoned demon might last until the 
  end of the issue, until another sorcerer somehow 
  counters the spell with a ritual of his own, or maybe 
  even longer if the demon must be Taken Out to get it 
  off the earthly plane.
  In the case of minion powers, such as Animal Control, 
  Animate, Duplication, and Summon, determine the 
  opposition for the number and quality of minions the 
  ritual is creating, and add that to the opposition for 
  invoking the power itself when casting the ritual. So, if 
  you used the Summon power (5-point cost) to create 
  a Good (+3) quality demonic minion, that means 
  your cost is Legendary (+8), halved to a Great (+4) 
  opposition. With the +1 modifier for being a ritual, it 
  has a final Superb (+5) opposition.
  That’s right, summoning that demon lord from the 
  Hell dimension is a dangerous proposition.
  Unlike the normal use of powers, casting spells during 
  a ritual does not require the use of a Controlling skill 
  to fuel powers that require it. Instead, you use your 
  Arcanum skill during the actual casting.
  Sample Rituals
  Tentacles of the 
  Darkened Mind
  Effect: A ritual capable of causing the average citizen 
  to commit extreme acts of violence
  Powers: Emotion Control, Mind Control
  Special Effects: Area Effect
  Limits: Emotion Control limited to anger only, Mind 
  Control limited to acts of violence
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Breath of the Rotting Lord
  Effect: Creates an Affliction of rotting flesh on the target
  Powers: Affliction
  Special Effects: Area Effect
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Great (+4)
  Servant of the 
  Rending Master
  Effect: Summons a powerful demon
  Powers: Summon (Good quality demon)
  Special Effects: None
  Limits: None
  Complications: None
  Difficulty: Superb (+5)
  Headquarters
  By taking the Headquarters stunt, you received a 
  number of points to use for building your secret lair, 
  whether a personal lair or a team base of operations. 
  The sections below give you the means to spend 
  those points, choosing the headquarters quality, 
  facilities, and defenses.
  
  144
  Headquarters Aspect
  Your headquarters starts with one aspect for 
  free, which should represent the size and scope 
  of your base. Some suitable aspects would be: 
  Outfitted Cave, Skyscraper Upper Levels, 
  Stately Mansion, Hidden Apartment Rooms, or 
  even Nondescript Brownstone.
  Headquarters Quality
  Next, purchase the Quality of your base. The base’s 
  quality determines the Quality of any automated 
  defenses you might have, as well as the Quality 
  Rating of any laboratories, workshops, and libraries 
  the base contains. 
  Your base begins at Mediocre (+0) quality, and every 
  point you spend increases the quality +1 step on the 
  ladder to a maximum Fantastic (+6) quality. Yes, the 
  quality can be raised above Fantastic (+6), but only 
  when the skill cap for the series is increased. Chapter 
  15: Advancing the Series explains when a series skill 
  cap is increased.
  Headquarters Features
  Finally, with any points you have remaining after 
  purchasing the Quality Rating, you can purchase 
  any of the following features for your headquarters. 
  Each feature (or level of a feature) costs 1 
  Headquarters Point.
  Artificial Intelligence: Your headquarters is an 
  artificial intelligence capable of acting on its own. 
  Each level gives the device a specific quality rating 
  and skill column.
  • Basic Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills and 
  two Fair (+2) skills
  • Improved Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills, 
  two Fair (+2) skills, and two Good (+3) Skills
  • Advanced Intelligence: Two Average (+1) skills, 
  two Fair (+2) skills, two Good (+3) Skills, and two 
  Great (+4) skills.
  Aspect: Each time this feature is taken, your base 
  gains an additional aspect.
  Command Center: A central room to monitor 
  happenings around the city or planet, each time this 
  feature is purchased your base receives a rating in a 
  new skill called Communications, which begins at 
  Average (+1) for the first application of this feature, 
  and can go to Fantastic (+6).
  Communications cannot attack or Defend (unless 
  posing as active opposition to an Overcome action, 
  such as a hacking attempt against the base), and is 
  used for being able to hack into and monitor a wide-
  array of bands, ranging from local law enforcement 
  to encrypted government channels. The GM sets the 
  opposition for monitoring attempts.
  Database: Your base has an extensive database 
  covering one or more areas of knowledge. Each 
  time this is applied, the device has two of the 
  following skills at Average (+1) rating: Arcanum, 
  Artificing, Knowledge, or Technology. You can 
  take this multiple times, and either apply it to two 
  additional skills, or increase the skill bonus by +1, 
  up to a maximum of Fantastic (+6).
  You can also apply a +2 bonus to a single skill instead 
  of taking a pair of skills, up to a maximum Fantastic (+6).
  Defense Systems: Your base is equipped with one or 
  more defense systems. The systems have a skill rating 
  and damage rating equal to the quality of the base.
  Dock/Garage/Hangar: The base contains a place to 
  repair vehicles, equal to the headquarters quality rating.
  Dimensional Pocket: Your base occupies a 
  dimensional pocket, making it much large (or smaller) 
  on the inside than it appears from the outside.
  Dimensional Portal: The headquarters contains a 
  portal to a particular dimension, chosen when this 
  feature is purchased. Additional dimensions require 
  this feature to be taken more than once.
  Dimensional Travel: Your headquarters is not 
  stationary, and travels through the dimensions as 
  easily as flying through the air.
  Infirmary: The base is equipped with a place to 
  treat injuries. Whenever rolling to Overcome physical 
  consequences, apply half the base quality (round up) 
  as a bonus to the roll.
  Laboratory: Your headquarters has a laboratory so 
  you can use Knowledge to create devices (see: the 
  Mad Scientist stunt under Knowledge).
  Library: The headquarters contains a library, either 
  print or digital, which allows you to conduct research 
  and grants a +2 bonus to relevant rolls.
  Living Quarters: The base has enough sleeping 
  quarters for each core member of the team. If purchased 
  twice, it can house up to 6 additional guests.
  
  145
  Movement: The headquarters is capable of either 
  ground movement or flight under its own power. Each 
  time this feature is taken, the HQ gains one power 
  level in either Super-Speed or Flight.
  Personnel: Your base has some sort of living or 
  robot attendants that deal with general maintenance, 
  security, or possibly help in the laboratory or 
  workshop. Each time this feature is purchased, 
  you either gain three Average (+1) quality nameless 
  NPCs, two Fair (+2) nameless NPCs, or one Good 
  (+3) quality nameless NPC.
  Power Supply: The headquarters has an independent 
  power supply that keeps things operating and online 
  in the case of an area-wide blackout.
  Secure Access: Access to the base is highly restricted 
  and limited, requiring the use of a hard to get item, 
  such as a team identification card, DNA recognition, 
  or some other method designed when you purchase 
  this feature. Attempting to bypass the security 
  requires an action against Good (+4) opposition.
  Security Cells: The base is equipped with four 
  Legendary (+8) Material Strength holding cells. 
  Additional applications of this feature increase the 
  number of holding cells by four, or increases the 
  Material Strength by +1.
  Self-Repairing: Whether through advanced nanites, 
  dimensional energies, or because it is a living entity, 
  the headquarters heals from damage as though it had 
  the Regeneration power.
  Teleportals: The base contains teleportation technology, 
  capable of teleporting people anywhere on the planet. 
  If purchased twice, it can teleport roughly the distance 
  from earth to the moon. If purchased three times, it can 
  teleport across the universe.
  Temporal Anomaly: The headquarters exists outside 
  of the normal space-time continuum. Time either 
  flows faster or slower within the base than on Earth 
  (decide when the feature is purchased). Each time 
  this feature is taken, the time needed to complete 
  tasks within the base is either reduced two steps on 
  the Time Increment table (for a faster time flow), or 
  increased by two steps on the table.
  Training Room: The base is equipped with a combat 
  simulator, typically of some sort of advanced high 
  technology, or even holographic environment. When 
  using the training room to practice taking on particular 
  situations or villains as it pertains to the current 
  session, every participating member receives a +2 
  bonus to Create an Advantage actions during the next 
  scene (and only the next scene) in which they confront 
  the villain or situation. Basically, it means your team is 
  preparing for a conflict they know is about to happen, 
  this doesn’t allow you to prepare for just any type of 
  situation and get the bonus. The GM has final say on 
  whether or not your team is actually practicing for a 
  dramatic encounter, or simply attempting to abuse the 
  bonus to Create an Advantage actions. If the latter, you 
  don’t get the bonus.
  Unique Ability: Your base has some sort of ability not 
  otherwise covered in the features list. Typically, this 
  will be a power with a cost in Headquarters Points 
  equal to the total cost of the power. It could also be 
  a special feature created by you and the GM, such 
  as a flying aircraft carrier having a few fighter jets as 
  Nameless NPCs.
  Workshop: Your base has a workshop for creating 
  devices with the Technology skill.
  Special Storage: Story 
  Factor Devices
  Sometimes in comic books, a hero’s secret base will 
  also have a device that plays a part in the story, but 
  does so in a very limited scope and then disappears 
  from future use. Once per mini-arc, your hero can 
  have a story device, such as Warsuit or Submersible, 
  by spending a fate point.  The item lasts for one issue 
  of use, at which time it is considered to be destroyed 
  or back in storage.
  Sample Headquarters
  Below are five different types of headquarters, each 
  one representing a specific type of base seen in 
  comic books at one time or another.
  Vigilante Base
  Aspects: Hidden Urban Bunker
  Quality: Fair (+2)
  Features: Command Center, Secured Access, 
  Workshop
  Cost: 5
  
  146
  Mystic Brownstone
  Aspects: Sanctum of Power
  Quality: Great (+4)
  Features: 
  Defense 
  System 
  (mystic 
  themed), 
  Dimensional 
  Pocket, 
  Library, 
  Living 
  Quarters, 
  Personnel (one Good Quality), Workshop
  Cost: 10
  Mansion
  Aspects: High-end team headquarters
  Quality: Superb (+5)
  Features: Command Center, Defense Systems, 
  Dock/Hangar/Garage, Infirmary, Laboratory, Library, 
  Living Quarters, Personnel (one Good Quality), Power 
  Supply, Workshop
  Cost: 15
  Orbital Station
  Aspects: Monitoring the Earth from Above
  Quality: Fantastic (+6)
  Features: Command Center, Dock/Hangar/Garage, 
  Infirmary, Laboratory, Library, Living Quarters, (2), 
  Power Supply, Secure Access, Security Cells, 
  Teleportals (2), Training Room, Workshop
  Cost: 20
  Trans-Dimensional Ship
  Aspects: Living Alien Vessel 
  Quality: Fantastic (+6)
  Features: Artificial Intelligence, Command Center, 
  Dimensional pocket, Dimensional Travel, Flight 3, 
  Infirmary, Laboratory, Library, Living Quarters, (4), 
  Personnel (six Average (+1) quality staff), Power 
  Supply, Secure Access, Security Cells, Teleportals 
  (3), Training Room, Workshop
  Cost: 30
  Object Material Strength
  When it comes down to how hard or tough a 
  particular object is, such as bank vault or a 
  concrete bunker, Daring Comics uses a Material 
  Strength ladder as shown below. The Material 
  Strength acts as the passive opposition to rolls to 
  break through the object.
  Material 
  Strength
  Example
  Mediocre (+0)
  Paper
  Average (+1)
  Glass
  Fair (+2)
  Wood, Aluminum
  Good (+3)
  Brick
  Great (+4)
  Concrete
  Superb (+5)
  Stone
  Fantastic (+6)
  Reinforced Concrete
  Epic (+7)
  Iron
  Legendary (+8)
  Steel
  Monstrous (+9)
  Reinforced Steel
  Colossal (+10)
  Super-Alloys
  Unearthly (+11)
  Diamond
  inconveivable (+12)
  Magical or Unique Metal
  To break through objects, roll based on the type of 
  action you’re using. If you are physically trying to break 
  the object, make a Physique roll (including any Super-
  Strength bonuses). If you are attempting to blast 
  through the object, then roll Accuracy. The passive 
  opposition is equal to the material strength of the 
  object. The material strength is reduced by 1 for each 
  Shift you get on the roll. Once the material strength is 
  reduced to zero, the object is either destroyed or has 
  a hole large enough to pass through.
  Unlike a normal Overcome action, the character 
  cannot succeed at a cost or on a tie, at least 1-Shift 
  must be generated. If it makes sense with the action, 
  then Weapon Rating adds to the Shifts.
  Special Considerations
  There are a few comic book staples that should really 
  be covered in a chapter dedicated to gear and super-
  science inventions. They require slightly modified 
  rules to maintain their feel and effectiveness in play, 
  
  147
  and to mimic what’s seen in comic books as closely 
  as game rules will allow.
  They are: the Gear Heavy Street Vigilante, Power-
  Armor, Trick Arrows, and the world-famous Utility Belt.
  The Gear Heavy 
  Street Vigilante
  For the most part in comic books, your average gear 
  heavy character is going to be the street vigilante. Of 
  course, that isn’t always the case, but as we all know, 
  one of the most popular vigilantes (whether he’s a 
  hero or not is open to your interpretation), doesn’t 
  have any super-powers, 
  nor does he rely on super-
  science devices. Instead, 
  he relies upon his military 
  special forces training— 
  and a lot of guns, knives, 
  and grenades.
  And he’s gone toe-to-toe 
  with some powerful enemies. 
  It’s important in the Daring 
  Comics Roleplaying Game 
  that such characters not be 
  inferior to those wielding 
  a few super-powers or 
  carrying 
  around 
  more 
  super-science 
  oriented 
  tech. Comics have shown 
  that gear heavy vigilante 
  is as much of a threat as 
  any other comparable hero 
  or villain, and sometimes 
  even more so.
  Creating 
  the Gear
  The gear used by such a 
  character is a part of who 
  and what they are, what 
  they do, and how they do 
  it. Sometimes, a simple 
  handgun in their hands is 
  seemingly more powerful 
  than the one used by the 
  thug they were just staring 
  down— and have since 
  left for dead. Even super-
  powered foes often times 
  bite off more than they can chew against the character.
  When creating your gear heavy street vigilante for his 
  one-man war on the criminal underworld, create the 
  gear as a single Power Set. 
  Give the power set a name (usually something like 
  Arsenal, or Heavy Arsenal) and a power set aspect. 
  Then, build your weapons.
  Because your power set must not only have a 
  Complication, but can also be disarmed, you get a 
  reduction to the cost of your gear: each weapon or 
  armor has its cost reduced by 50%, rounded-up.
  
  148
  Vengeance is a vigilante known for her guns 
  and knives. When creating the character, the 
  player names the power set Heavy Arsenal 
  and gives it the There’s No Criminal my 
  Weapons Don’t Like aspect.
  Next, she starts building her weapons.
  First she decides to give Vengeance a hard-
  hitting pistol. She takes Blast 3 (physical 
  projectile). Normally this would cost her for 4 
  hero points, but thanks to the cost reduction, 
  it only costs her 2 hero points.
  Next she makes an automatic rifle. She again 
  takes Blast 3 (physical projectile), and this 
  time adds in Area Effect and full-auto special 
  effects. Normally 5 hero points, she instead 
  pays 3 hero points
  For a third weapon, she creates a specialized 
  knife. She gives it Melee Attack 2 (weapon), 
  and the Follow-Up special effect. The knife 
  costs her 2 hero points instead of 3 hero points.
  Next, she creates a grenade with Blast 4 
  (physical projectile), and the Area Effect special 
  effect. She also gives it a limit: Reduced Range.  
  That’s 5 hero points, reduced to 3 hero points.
  Finally, she creates a Flash Bang grenade. 
  She gives it Blast 3 (sonic), along with Area 
  Effect and reduced Range, for 3 hero points 
  instead of five. 
  Finally, she decides to wear an experimental 
  Kevlar costume, and purchases Invulnerability 
  3. Its cost is reduced to 2 hero points.
  Vengeance paid 15 hero points for her 
  power set.
  Gear Complications
  Each weapon in your Gear Power Set is understood 
  to have a Complication that the GM can compel to 
  somehow shut it down. Unlike a normal power, the 
  weapon or armor is shut down until it makes narrative 
  sense that you’ve somehow accounted for it, such 
  as getting extra ammo clips, taking time to repair the 
  jam, or even returning to your armory for a new copy 
  of the weapon.
  The minimum time before you can get the weapon 
  back is one scene, but if all else fails, it is always 
  recovered by the end of the issue.
  Disarming the Gear
  Despite being a power set, each weapon in the set is 
  assumed to be a physical weapon and is susceptible 
  to Disarmed the same as any other weapon.
  Another Gear 
  Heavy Option
  Don’t forget that if the cost of making your 
  gear heavy vigilante gets to be too high, you 
  can also forego making everything as part 
  of your power set and also use the Arsenal 
  stunt to supplement your hero. It means that 
  any gear that’s shut down or lost takes longer 
  to recover, but it’s a good way to round out 
  the character until you get more Milestones 
  under your belt.
  Trick Arrows
  Playing a character whose powers derive purely from a 
  quiver of trick arrows is another special consideration.
  Constructing the Quiver
  First, create the power set just as you would any other 
  type of power set. Give it an aspect, and purchase 
  your powers. The difference is that when it comes to 
  the Blast power, you do not have to purchase each 
  type of Blast as a separate power. Simply purchase 
  the power once if all of your arrows will have the same 
  Weapon Rating, and then purchase all the special 
  effects that apply.
  Snap-Fire is a trick arrow gal. As part of her 
  arsenal, she decides she’ll have a series of 
  arrows based on the Blast power. She also 
  decides that all of her arrows will have the 
  same Weapon Rating 3.
  She purchases Blast 3 for 3 Hero Points. 
  To represent the various effects the 
  quiver can produce, she then purchases 
  the following Special Effects (the cost is 
  in parenthesis): concussive (2), corrosive 
  (2), electrical (2), entangling (1), physical 
  projectile (1), and sonic (2). 
  Snap-Fire’s total cost for the Trick Arrow 
  power set is 13 Hero Points.
  
  149
  Likewise, if some of your arrows will have a different 
  Blast power Weapon Rating, or even a non-blast related 
  power, you must purchase those powers separately. 
  Snap-Fire has a habit of being attacked by a 
  villain who’s basically a living flame. She has an 
  arrow in her quiver that is capable of nullifying 
  all Fire type powers at once. The arrow is 
  covered by purchasing the Power Nullify (Type 
  Nullification: Fire).
  Snap-Fire purchases the Ranged Nullify 
  special effect for an extra 1 point, but she 
  and the GM determine that she’ll still need 
  to make an Accuracy roll since she’s firing a 
  physical arrow. They decide to treat that roll as 
  a limit (since normally a Ranged Nullify doesn’t 
  require an Accuracy roll), and lower the cost 
  by a point, effectively making the special effect 
  a zero cost.
  Snap-Fire spends 2 Hero Points and purchases 
  the power.
  Using Device Special 
  Effects
  As explained earlier in this chapter, sometimes a 
  special effect usually reserved for a device can 
  be applied to a normal power set if it would make 
  sense. In the case of some Trick Arrow power sets, 
  it most definitely would. 
  For example, if one or more arrows use a power that 
  requires its own controlling skill (such as the Power 
  skill), it rolls at Mediocre (+0) unless you purchase it at 
  a higher rating through device special effects. 
  Likewise, perhaps the archer’s bow is special 
  designed to read the exact palm and finger prints of 
  the person using it. This would be represented by the 
  Restricted device special effect.
  Required Complication
  Finally, a Trick Arrow power set, by its very nature, 
  must have at least one Complication that can be 
  compelled to represent the power set somehow being 
  shut down. The most common way is a Complication 
  representing a limited number of arrows or the bow 
  string mysteriously snapping.
  Disarming the Archer
  An archer can be Disarmed in combat, though 
  whether or not another person could use their bow 
  would all depend on whether or not the power set 
  had the Restricted special effect or not.
  Trick Archer versus 
  Gear Heavy Vigilante
  The astute person will quickly notice that the 
  trick archer gets one heck of a cost discount 
  versus the street heavy vigilante. That’s 
  absolutely true, and it’s by design.
  When a gear heavy vigilante has a weapon 
  shut down through a Complication or they 
  get Disarmed, they typically have one or 
  more weapons still readily available. Losing 
  the weapon might slow them down for a 
  moment, but they’re usually back in the 
  fight fairly quickly.
  By comparison, then a trick archer has their 
  power shut down through a Complication, 
  or get Disarmed, well . . . to be a bit frank, 
  they’re probably a lot more screwed. Shutting 
  down or disarming a trick archer typically 
  takes away their entire power set since it 
  happened to either the bow or the quiver. 
  They can’t use any of their powers until the 
  power set is someone recovered.
  Now, if that doesn’t sit well with your group, 
  don’t sweat it. Just build the Trick Arrow type 
  of character the same way you would a gear 
  heavy vigilante, with each arrow being shut 
  down as an individual weapon.
  Utility Belt
  Particularly in a street level series, a utility belt can 
  be a real boon in certain situations. In comic books, 
  it allows the hero to carry along a wide-array of small 
  items which can provide a decisive advantage when 
  confronting certain types of obstacles. The hero has 
  an advanced lock-picking set to get past the security 
  door, or a small torch capable of cutting a hole in the 
  glass so he can reach in and disarm the window alarm. 
  Sometimes, the hero has the smoke pellets he needs 
  to confound his enemies and make a quick escape.
  A utility belt costs 1 Hero Point to purchase, and 
  you need not define the contents. Once per issue, 
  when a situation arises where your utility belt would 
  be able to help you, you can declare possessing 
  an item that would allow you to automatically get 
  
  150
  past the obstacle, perhaps by having just the right 
  tools to get past a lock, or releasing gas pellets to 
  incapacitate the guards.
  Once the item is used, it is gone from the scene.
  If you need another item from your belt (or the same 
  item again), you must spend a fate point and use the 
  Create an Advantage action to create a gear aspect 
  representing the item. Your utility belt grants you a +2 
  to bonus to creating the aspect, and your skill for doing 
  so is Mediocre (+0), which cannot be increased through 
  special effects. This means your subsequent uses of 
  the utility belt in the same issue will get you an aspect to 
  invoke for a bonus to the relevant skill roll, but no longer 
  nets you an automatic overcome success.
  The gear aspect must make sense, and must be 
  something your character can believably have in his 
  belt. It also must be some sort of normal item, and 
  not a super-science device. So, a small cutting torch, 
  some handcuffs, smoke pellets, a miniature camera, 
  aqua-breather, an entangling boomerang— those 
  types of items can be expected. The GM has final 
  veto power on any particular gear aspect.
  Once created, the aspect lasts until its free invocations 
  have been used, at which time the item is considered 
  to have served its purpose. While in play, however, the 
  gear aspect can be compelled like any other aspect.
  Utility belt doesn’t receive any Stress Boxes. 
  However, it can be targeted with things like a Disarm 
  aspect from the Create an Advantage action, which is 
  already factored into the 1-point cost.
  For utility belts with more advanced and unique 
  items, build it as a full power set, instead. Use the 
  Trick Arrow section for guidelines on how to also 
  build a utility belt.
  Power-Armor
  Power-armor works just like any other power set as far 
  as having the powers that make it go. You purchase 
  the powers with any special effects and Limitations, 
  add them to your character sheet, give the power set 
  an aspect, and game-on!
  Power-Armor is considered a power set, not a device 
  (it’s talked about here because most people are going 
  to look for Power-Armor stuff in the device sections). 
  This is an important distinction to note, because 
  unlike item and devices, Power-Armor does not get 
  2-Stress boxes for free. But that’s okay, because it 
  can’t be targeted directly like a device, despite the 
  narrative visual a power suit might give. 
  That means that unless you purchase some levels 
  in the Hardiness power, any damage sustained even 
  while you’re in the suit goes directly against the Stress 
  and Consequences of your character. So, heed our 
  advice that is probably a good idea to purchase some 
  levels in Hardiness. It’s also probably a good idea to 
  consider a few levels in Invulnerability as well. 
  Power-Armor Hardiness
  If you decide to take our advice, here are some special 
  considerations when looking at Hardiness as part of 
  a Power-Armor set, as opposed to the power being 
  directly possessed by the character.
  Unlike a character with Hardiness built into them, 
  where they directly get the extra Stress boxes 
  and consequence slots as part of their regular 
  character, power-armor assumes its extra Stress 
  and consequence tracks separately from the main 
  character. In other words, your hero has his own 
  Stress boxes and consequence slots, and the boxes 
  and slots awarded by Hardiness are tracked entirely 
  under the power-armor set.
  When the hero is in the armor and takes physical 
  damage, the damage should first come off the Stress 
  and consequence slots provided by the armor. 
  Additionally, Power-Armor consequences do not heal 
  as normal, but require the Resources (i.e. a lab or 
  workshop at the appropriate level) and Technology 
  skill level to repair them. So, unless your hero is a 
  technological genius and slightly rich, his reliance 
  on an outside organization or entity would be shown 
  in a character aspect. If the armor is Taken Out, 
  the character can still be active, but all of the suit’s 
  powers are inaccessible.
  A suit of power-armor has Hardiness 4, granting 
  it two Stress boxes, one Mild Consequence 
  slot, and one Moderate Consequence slot. The 
  hero takes a 2-stress hit and fills in his Armor’s 
  2-Stress box. The next attack is for 4-hits, and 
  he fills in the armor’s Moderate Consequence 
  slot. He now only has a Mild Consequence 
  slot left. If he takes more than 3-Hits, he’s 
  gone beyond the suit’s damage absorption 
  capabilities. At that point, he’d either have to 
  shut down the armor (it’s Taken Out), or start 
  taking the damage to his personal Stress and 
  Consequences to keep the suit in operation. 
  Of course, the hero can choose to avoid the armor 
  taking the damage at any time and apply it directly to 
  
  151
  his own tracks. Yeah, it would keep him in the fight 
  a little longer, but he’s going to be hurting later. This 
  mimics the instances where the character inside the 
  armor was nearly killed during the battle, but the suit 
  was still operational.
  In the end, the boon for the armored hero is that if his 
  armor had a consequence, he could simply remove 
  the suit and no longer be affected by the consequence 
  unless he put it back on before repairing it.
  The downside to that is the fact that by removing the 
  suit, he’s also losing access to all powers contained 
  within that power set.
  There’s another trade-off as well. Even though the 
  Power-Armor gives him an overall total of 4 Stress 
  Boxes (the two normal Stress boxes for the character 
  plus two from the Hardiness power for the Power-
  Armor), he doesn’t have the same benefit as a 
  character with the power and 4 character stress 
  boxes. That type of hero can take a 4-hit attack and 
  use one Stress box to absorb it. Meanwhile, the four 
  Stress boxes total that a power-armored hero has 
  thanks to the Hardiness 4 example are split: his 
  normal two Stress boxes, and the armor’s two Stress 
  boxes from the power, and the two types do not add 
  together— meaning he has a 1-Stress and 2-Stress 
  box on his character, and a 1-Stress and 2-Stress box 
  on the armor. In other words, he is unable to absorb 
  a single 4-Hit attack with Stress. But, as was stated, 
  when he takes consequences on the Power-Armor, 
  he has the advantage of not being hindered by them 
  simply by removing the armor.
  The power-armor rules can also be applied to things 
  like unique body armor.
  For example, you could simply use Resources or 
  Contacts to get Armor 3 for your street vigilante, 
  or you could invest in a power set that includes: 
  Invulnerability 3 and Hardiness 3 (body armor), 
  which would give you 2 Stress boxes plus 1 Mild 
  Consequence slot for the armor, plus negate 3 points 
  of damage and also allow any additional Special 
  Effects to be purchased.
  Likewise, you could simply give the armor 
  Hardiness 3. It isn’t invulnerable to damage and, 
  by the power’s narrative, each time it absorbs 
  damage it gets damaged itself.
  Power Armor and 
  Healing Damage
  Unless 
  the 
  power 
  armor 
  can 
  regenerate, 
  consequences taken by the armor do not heal 
  normally; they must be repaired. Doing so requires 
  a facility with a quality rating at least equal to the 
  severity of the consequence. The opposition is also 
  equal to the consequence’s severity, and increases 
  by +1 for each rating the facility quality rating is below 
  the opposition. It takes one hour per opposition rating 
  to repair the armor. In other words, repairing a Severe 
  Consequence would take 6 hours.
  Power Armor and Super-
  Tough Characters
  We already know that Invulnerability levels do not 
  stack— the character uses the highest rating. But 
  what happens when your character with Hardiness 
  is put into power armor with its own Stress track 
  and consequence slots?
  Characters wearing armor with Hardiness, even 
  those who have the power on their own, still benefit 
  from the extra Stress boxes and consequence slots 
  from the armor. 
  And you thought those guys wearing armor in the 
  comics were just cool window dressing.
  Power-Armor 
  Complications
  Taking 
  one 
  or 
  more 
  power-armor 
  themed 
  Complications is completely optional.
  
  152
  Chapter 11: Actions And Outcomes
  are just Nameless NPCs and not worth a 
  conflict for something like this.
  Dylan rolls his Stealth skill, which is rated at 
  Great (+4). He gets a –2 on the dice, for a total of 
  2, which corresponds to Fair (+2) on the ladder
  Opposition
  As we said in Chapter 1: The Basics, whenever 
  you roll the dice, you’re comparing your roll to your 
  It’s Time For Action!
  You roll the dice when there’s some kind of interesting 
  opposition keeping you from achieving your goals. If 
  there’s no interesting opposition, you just accomplish 
  whatever you say you’re trying to do.
  Whenever you take action, there’s a good chance 
  that something or someone is going to be in your 
  way. It wouldn’t be an interesting 
  story if the bad guy just rolled 
  over and handed you victory on a 
  plate— clearly, he’s got some crazy 
  security measures to keep you out 
  of his place. Or the mastermind’s 
  island is already blowing up around 
  you. Or the anti-supers protesters 
  are filling the streets around your 
  headquarters. Or someone’s been 
  bribing the informants to keep 
  quiet.
  That’s when it’s time to take out 
  the dice.
  • Choose the character’s skill that 
  is appropriate to the action.
  • Roll four Fate dice.
  • Add together the symbols 
  showing on the dice. A + is +1, 
  a - is –1, and a 0 is 0.
  • Add your skill rating to the dice 
  roll. The total is your result on 
  the ladder.
  • If you invoke an aspect, add +2 
  to your result or reroll the dice.
  Midnight Avenger needs to 
  sneak 
  past 
  some 
  security 
  guards to get into the home 
  of a crime boss in the Terenza 
  crime family. Mike says it’ll 
  be 
  an 
  Overcome 
  action 
  against Average (+1) passive 
  opposition, since the guards 
  
  153
  opposition. Opposition is either active, meaning it’s 
  another person rolling dice against you, or passive, 
  meaning that it’s just a set rating on the ladder 
  which represents the influence of the environment or 
  situation you’re in. GMs, it’s your job to decide what 
  the most reasonable source of opposition is.
  Mike decides to roll active opposition against 
  Dylan on behalf of the guards. She decides the 
  most appropriate opposing skill is Notice—
  they’re trying to watch for people sneaking 
  onto the property, after all.
  The guards are Nameless NPCs, so he gives 
  them Average (+1) in Notice. He rolls and gets 
  +2 on the dice, for a total of Good (+3). The roll 
  for the guards beat Dylan by +1.
  For The Gm: Active 
  Or Passive?
  If a PC or a named NPC can reasonably 
  interfere with whatever the action is, then 
  you should give them the opportunity to 
  roll active opposition. This does not count 
  as an action for the opposing character; it’s 
  just a basic property of resolving actions. 
  In other words, a player doesn’t have to do 
  anything special to earn the right to actively 
  oppose an action, as long as the character 
  is present and can interfere. If there’s any 
  doubt, having an appropriate situation 
  aspect helps justify why a character gets to 
  actively oppose someone else.
  If there is no character in the way, then look 
  at your situation aspects in this scene to see 
  if any of them justify some sort of obstacle, or 
  consider the circumstances (like rough terrain, 
  a complex lock, time running out, a situational 
  complication, et cetera.). If something sounds 
  interesting, choose passive opposition and 
  set a rating on the ladder.
  Sometimes you’re going to run into edge 
  cases, where something inanimate seems 
  like it should provide active opposition 
  (like an automated gun) or an NPC can’t 
  provide proactive resistance (like if they’re 
  unaware of what the PC is doing). Follow 
  your gut and use the type of opposition 
  that fits the circumstances or makes the 
  scene more interesting.
  The Four Outcomes
  When you roll the dice, either you’re going to fail, tie, 
  succeed, or succeed with style.
  Every roll you make in a Daring Comics game results 
  in one of four outcomes, generally speaking. The 
  specifics may change a little depending on what kind 
  of action you’re taking, but all the game actions fit 
  this general pattern.
  Fail
  If you roll lower than your opposition, you fail.
  This means one of several things: you don’t get what 
  you want, you get what you want at a serious cost, or 
  you suffer some negative mechanical consequence. 
  Sometimes, it means more than one of those. It’s the 
  GM’s job to determine an appropriate cost.
  Tie
  If you roll the same as your opposition, you tie.
  This means you get what you want, but at a minor 
  cost, or you get a lesser version of what you wanted.
  Succeed
  If you roll higher than your opposition by 1 or 2 
  shifts, you succeed.
  This means you get what you want at no cost.
  Succeed with Style
  If you roll higher than your opposition by 3 or more 
  shifts, you succeed with style.
  This means that you get what you want, but you also 
  get an added benefit on top of that.
  
  154
  For The Gm: How Hard Should Skill Rolls Be?
  For active opposition, you don’t really need to worry about how hard the roll is—just use the NPC’s 
  skill level and roll the dice like the players do, letting the chips fall where they may. We have guidelines 
  about NPC skill levels in Running the Game.
  For passive opposition, you have to decide what rank on the ladder the player has to beat. It’s more 
  an art than a science, but we have some guidelines to help you.
  Anything that’s two or more steps higher than the PC’s skill level (Fair (+2) skill and Great (+4) 
  opposition, for example) means that the player will probably fail or need to invoke aspects to succeed.
  Anything that’s two or more steps lower than the PC’s skill level (Fair (+2) skill and Mediocre (+0) 
  opposition, for example) means that the player will probably not need to invoke aspects and have a 
  good chance of succeeding with style.
  Between that range, there’s a roughly equal chance that they’ll tie or succeed, and a roughly equal 
  chance that they will or won’t need to invoke aspects to do so.
  Therefore, low difficulties are best when you want to give the PCs a chance to show off and be 
  awesome, difficulties near their skill levels are best when you want to provide tension but not 
  overwhelm them, and high difficulties are best when you want to emphasize how dire or unusual the 
  circumstances are and make them pull out all the stops.
  Finally, a couple of quick axioms:
  Average is called Average for a reason. If nothing about the opposition sticks out, then the difficulty 
  doesn’t need more than a +1.
  If you can think of at least one reason why the opposition sticks out, but otherwise just can’t decide 
  what the difficulty should be, pick Fair (+2). It’s in the middle of a PC’s range of skills, so it provides a 
  decent challenge for every skill level except Great (+4), and you want to give PCs a chance to show 
  off their peak skill anyway.
  
  155
  For The Gm: Serious 
  Cost Vs. Minor Cost
  When you’re thinking about costs, think 
  both about the story in play and the game 
  mechanics to help you figure out what would 
  be most appropriate.
  A serious cost should make the current 
  situation worse somehow, either by creating a 
  new problem or exacerbating an existing one. 
  Bring in another source of opposition in this 
  scene or the next one (such as a new opposing 
  NPC or an obstacle to overcome), or ask the 
  player to take a consequence at their lowest 
  free level, or give someone who opposes the 
  PC an advantage with a free invocation.
  A minor cost should add a story detail 
  that’s problematic or bad for the PC, but 
  doesn’t necessarily endanger progress. You 
  could also ask the PC to take stress or give 
  someone who opposes the PCs a boost.
  It’s okay if the minor cost is mainly a 
  narrative detail, showing how the PC just 
  barely scratched by. We give more advice 
  about dealing with costs on in Chapter 13: 
  Running the Game.
  The Four Actions
  When you make a skill roll, you’re taking one of 
  four actions: overcome, create an advantage, 
  attack, or defend.
  There are four types of actions you can take in a game 
  of Daring Comics. When you make a skill roll, you have 
  to decide which of these you’re going to try. The skill 
  descriptions tell you which actions are appropriate for 
  that skill and under which circumstances. Usually, the 
  action you need to take will be pretty obvious from the 
  skill description, your intent, and the situation in play, 
  but sometimes you might have to talk it over with the 
  group to find out which is the most appropriate.
  The four actions are: overcome, create advantage, 
  attack, and defend.
  Overcome
  Use the overcome action to achieve assorted goals 
  appropriate to your skill.
  Every skill has a certain niche of miscellaneous 
  endeavors that fall under its purview, certain situations 
  where it’s an ideal choice. A character with Thief tries 
  to jimmy a window, a character with Empathy tries 
  to calm the crowd, and a character with Technology 
  tries to fix a broken thruster on his Power-Armor.
  When your character’s in one of these situations and 
  there’s something between her and her goals, you use 
  the overcome action to deal with it. Look at it as the 
  “catch-all” action for every skill. If it doesn’t fall into 
  any other category, it’s probably an overcome action.
  The opposition you have to beat might be active or 
  passive, depending on the situation.
  • When you fail an overcome action, you have two 
  options. You can simply fail, which means you 
  don’t attain your goal or get what you were after, 
  or you can succeed at a serious cost.
  • When you tie an overcome action, you attain 
  your goal or get what you were after, but at a 
  minor cost.
  • When you succeed at an overcome action, you 
  attain your goal without any cost.
  • When you succeed with style at an overcome 
  action, you get a boost in addition to 
  attaining your goal.
  Midnight Avenger is in the home office of a 
  powerful crime boss in the Terenza crime 
  family. After some searching, he discovers a 
  hidden safe and wants to get inside.
  Mike declares the action will be an Overcome 
  against a Great (+3) opposition. Dylan rolls 
  the dice and gets a total of +3. Looking at his 
  sheet, he adds in Midnight Avenger’s Fair (+2) 
  in Thief, for a total of Superb (+5).
  
  156
  Judging on the Fly
  You may occasionally run into situations 
  where it seems appropriate to provide a 
  different benefit or penalty for a given action 
  result than the one listed. It’s okay to go back 
  to the basic description of the four outcomes 
  and sub in something that makes sense.
  For example, on the overcome action it says 
  you get a boost in addition to success when 
  you succeed with style. But if that overcome 
  roll is going to end the scene, or you can’t 
  think of a good boost, You may choose to 
  offer a story detail as an extra benefit instead.
  Create an Advantage
  Use the create an advantage action to make a 
  situation aspect that gives you a benefit, or to claim a 
  benefit from any aspect you have access to.
  The create an advantage action covers a broad range 
  of endeavors, unified around the theme of using 
  your skills to take advantage (hence the name) of the 
  environment or situation you’re in.
  Sometimes, that means you’re doing something to 
  actively change your circumstances (like firing a light-
  based power at opponent’s eyes or setting something 
  on fire), but it could also mean that you’re discovering 
  new information that helps you (like learning how to 
  use a piece of alien technology through trial-and-error), 
  or taking advantage of something you’ve previously 
  observed (like your opponent’s predisposition to a 
  bad temper).
  When you roll to create an advantage, you must 
  specify whether you’re creating a new situation 
  aspect or taking advantage of an aspect that’s already 
  in place. If the former, are you attaching that situation 
  aspect to a character or to the environment?
  Opposition might be active or passive, depending on 
  the circumstances. If your target is another character, 
  their roll always counts as a defend action.
  If you’re using create an advantage to make a 
  new aspect…
  • When you fail, you either don’t create the 
  aspect, or you create it but someone else gets 
  the free invoke—whatever you end up doing 
  works to someone else’s advantage instead. 
  That could be your opponent in a conflict, or 
  any character who could tangibly benefit to 
  your detriment. You may have to reword the 
  aspect to show that the other character benefits 
  instead—work it out with the recipient in 
  whichever way makes the most sense.
  • When you tie, you get a boost instead of the 
  situation aspect you were going for. This might 
  mean you have to rename the aspect a bit 
  to reflect its temporary nature (Rough Terrain 
  becomes Rocks on the Path).
  • When you succeed, you create a situation aspect 
  with a free invocation.
  • When you succeed with style, you get a situation 
  aspect with two free invocations instead of one.
  Trinity is chasing a thug for the Terenza family 
  down some alleyways in New York. Along the 
  way, she decides to use her spell to control 
  metallic objects (Magnetic Control) to Create 
  an Advantage by throwing all of the empty 
  cans, small trash cans, and other objects into 
  the air to distract the thug.
  Trinity rolls her Magic, which is Superb (+5) 
  and gets a +1, for a total of Fantastic (+6).
  Mike rolls to defend for the thug, and gets a 
  total of Good (+3).
  Trinity succeeded with style, and places a 
  Distracted aspect on the thug, which she can 
  invoke twice for free.
  If you’re using create an advantage on an existing 
  aspect…
  • When you fail, you give a free invoke on that 
  aspect to someone else instead. That could be 
  your opponent in a conflict, or any character who 
  could tangibly benefit to your detriment.
  • When you tie or succeed, you place a free 
  invocation on the aspect.
  • When you succeed with style, you place two free 
  invocations on the aspect.
  Midnight Avenger is questioning a supposed 
  associate of the Terenza crime family about 
  anything he might know concerning hi-tech 
  arms making their way into New York. Mike 
  describes the scene, and makes mention of 
  the man wearing a crucifix around his neck.
  
  157
  Dylan grabs onto that detail, thinking that if the 
  man is wearing a crucifix, he’s likely religious 
  and maybe even a little superstitious. He 
  decides to bare his fangs at the guy, since they 
  are along and secluded. He isn’t exactly sure 
  what aspect he’s going for, but he’s betting 
  the guy isn’t going to be thrilled learning that 
  vampires are real.
  For this, he uses his Good (+3) in Provoke and 
  rolls a +1 on the dice, for a Great (+4) total.
  Mike rolls to defend, and gets a Fair (+2) total. 
  Mike reveals that the fella is very superstitious, 
  and makes the aspect The Devil Walks 
  Amongst Us known to everyone.
  Dylan has one free invocation of the aspect 
  that he can use, or pass of to someone else.
  Attack
  Use the attack action to harm someone in a conflict 
  or take them out of a scene.
  The attack action is the most straightforward of the 
  four actions—when you want to hurt someone in a 
  conflict, it’s an attack. An attack isn’t always physical 
  in nature; some skills allow you to hurt someone 
  mentally as well.
  Most of the time, your target will actively oppose 
  your attack. Passive opposition on an attack means 
  you’ve caught your target unaware or otherwise 
  unable to make a full effort to resist you, or the NPC 
  isn’t important enough to bother with dice.
  In addition, passive or not, the opposition always 
  counts as a defend action so you can look at these 
  two actions as being inexorably intertwined.
  • When you fail at an attack, you don’t cause any 
  harm to your target. (It also means that your 
  target succeeded on the defend action, which 
  could get you saddled with other effects.)
  • When you tie an attack, you don’t cause any 
  harm, but you gain a boost.
  • When you succeed on an attack, you inflict a 
  hit on your target equal to the number of shifts 
  you got. That forces the target to try and “buy 
  off” the value of your hit by taking stress or 
  consequences; if that’s not possible, your target 
  gets taken out of the conflict.
  • When you succeed with style on an attack, it 
  works like a normal success, but you also have 
  the option to reduce the value of your hit by one 
  to gain a boost as well.
  Wraith barrels into his opponent, and starts 
  pummeling him with fists. He rolls his Fight 
  of Great (+4) and gets +2 on the dice, for a 
  Fantastic (+6) total.
  Mike rolls for the high level lieutenant in the 
  crime family, Wraith’s opponent, and gets a 
  total of Great (+4).
  Xander wants to do better, and the Terenza 
  family has been discovered to be abducting 
  runaways to use as experiments within their 
  black-ops G.O.D. organization. Xander spends 
  a fate point and invokes Wraith’s aspect of: I 
  Will Not Let What Happened To Me Happen 
  To Others, for an additional +2.
  His total is now Legendary (+8), a whopping 
  +4 points over his opponent. Xander 
  decides to reduce his damage and place 
  a Boost. He lowers his damage by -1, 
  doing 3-Stress to the villain. He describes 
  his flurry of blows to the guy’s head, and 
  places a Dazed boost on him.
  Defend
  Use the defend action to avoid an attack or prevent 
  someone from creating an advantage against you.
  Whenever someone attacks you in a conflict or tries 
  to create an advantage on you, you always get a 
  chance to defend. As with attacks, this isn’t always 
  about avoiding physical sources of danger. Some 
  of the skills allow you to defend against attempts to 
  harm your mind or damage your resolve.
  Because you roll to defend as a reaction, your 
  opposition is almost always active. If you’re rolling a 
  defend action against passive opposition, it’s because 
  the environment is hostile to you somehow (like a 
  blazing fire), or the attacking NPC isn’t important 
  enough for the GM to bother with dice.
  • When you fail at a defense, you suffer the 
  consequences of whatever you were trying 
  to prevent. You might take a hit or have an 
  advantage created on you.
  • When you tie a defense, you grant your 
  opponent a boost.
  • When you succeed at a defense, you 
  
  158
  successfully avoid the attack or the attempt to 
  gain an advantage on you.
  • When you succeed with style at a defense, it 
  works like a normal success, but you also gain a 
  boost as you turn the tables momentarily.
  Trinity is being confronted by a visage of 
  Xanarath, the extradimensional demon who 
  grants her the mystical abilities she harnesses. 
  Xanarath is not too happy that Trinity has 
  been using his powers for the forces of good. 
  Although he can’t physically harm her while 
  she is on the Earth plane and he’s in his 
  home dimension, he nonetheless decides to 
  intimidate her, informing her how her actions 
  will have repercussions, not only for her 
  teammates, but also her loved ones.
  Mike rolls Provoke for Xanarath, which is rated 
  at Superb (+5). He gets +1 on the dice, for a 
  Fantastic (+6) total.
  Anna rolls Trinity’s Will, rated at Good (+3). She 
  gets +3 on the dice, for total of Fantastic (+6).
  Since Anna tied on her Defend action, Mike 
  gets to place a boost on her, representing that 
  Xanarath is starting to get to her. He calls it: 
  Flustered and Worried, writes it on an index 
  card, and slides it over to Anna.
  Can I Defend Against 
  Overcome Actions?
  Technically, no. The defend action is 
  there to stop you from taking stress, 
  consequences, or situation aspects—
  basically, to protect you against all the 
  bad stuff we represent with mechanics.
  But, you can roll active opposition if you’re in 
  the way of any action, as per the guidelines. 
  So if someone’s doing an overcome action 
  that might fail because you’re in the way, you 
  should speak up and say, “Hey, I’m in the 
  way!” and roll to oppose it. You don’t get any 
  extra benefits like the defend action gives 
  you, but you also don’t have to worry about 
  the aforementioned bad stuff if you lose.
  No Stacked Effects!
  You’ll notice that the defend action has 
  outcomes that mirror some of the outcomes 
  in attack and create an advantage. For 
  example, it says that when you tie a 
  defense, you grant your opponent a Boost. 
  Under attack, it says that when you tie, you 
  receive a Boost.
  That doesn’t mean the attacker gets two 
  boosts—it’s the same result, just from two 
  different points of view. We just wrote it that 
  way so that the results were consistent when 
  you looked up the rule, regardless of what 
  action you took.
  
  159
  Chapter 12: Comic Book Action
  Conflicts
  In a conflict, characters are actively trying to harm 
  one another. It could be a fist fight, a battle of ranger 
  super-powers, or even using city debris against each 
  other. It could also be a tough interrogation, a psychic 
  assault, or a shouting match with a loved one. As 
  long as the characters involved have both the intent 
  and the ability to harm one another, then you’re in a 
  conflict scene.
  Conflicts are either physical or mental in nature, 
  based on the kind of harm you’re at risk of suffering. 
  In physical conflicts, you suffer bruises, scrapes, cuts, 
  and other injuries. In mental conflicts, you suffer loss 
  of confidence and self-esteem, loss of composure, 
  and other psychological trauma.
  Setting up a conflict is a little more involved than 
  setting up contests or challenges. Here are the steps:
  • Set the scene, describing the environment the 
  conflict takes place in, creating situation aspects 
  and zones, and establishing who’s participating 
  and what side they’re on.
  • Determine the turn order.
  • Start the first exchange:
   
  ᴑ On your turn, take an action and then resolve 
  it.
   
  ᴑ On other people’s turns, Defend or respond to 
  their actions as necessary.
   
  ᴑ At the end of everyone’s turn, start again with 
  a new exchange.
  You know the conflict is over when everyone on one 
  of the sides has conceded or been Taken Out.
  Setting the Scene
  GMs and players, you should talk briefly before you 
  start a conflict about the circumstances of the scene. 
  This mainly involves coming up with quick answers to 
  variations of the four W-questions, such as:
  Whether attempting to infiltrate a villain’s lair, trading 
  blows with evil on the public streets, engaging 
  someone in a mental conflict, or trying to calm 
  panicked citizens, just as Daring Comics resolves 
  around the four action types of Overcome, Create an 
  Advantage, Attack, and Defend, the context of where 
  those action types will take place are divided into 
  Conflict, Challenge, and Contest.
  In this chapter, we’ll explore each of those three 
  types in detail, and explain which is the best method 
  depending on the type of scene taking place.
  Zooming In On The Action
  Most of the time, a single skill roll should be enough 
  to decide how a particular situation in play resolves. 
  You’re not obligated to describe actions in a particular 
  timeframe or level of detail when you use a skill. 
  Therefore, you could use a single Athletics roll to find 
  out whether you can safely climb the outside of a 
  skyscraper, or use that same single skill roll to find out 
  whether you can safely avoid a crumbling building 
  that’s about to crush you.
  Sometimes, however, you’ll be in a situation 
  where you’re doing something really dramatic and 
  interesting, like pivotal set pieces in a movie or a 
  book. When that happens, it’s a good idea to zoom 
  in on the action and deal with it using multiple skill 
  rolls, because the wide range of dice results will 
  make things really dynamic and surprising. Most 
  fight scenes fall into this category, but you can 
  zoom in on anything that you consider sufficiently 
  important—car chases, court trials, high-stakes 
  poker games, and so on.
  We have three ways for you to zoom in on the action 
  in Daring Comics:
  • Conflicts, when two or more characters are 
  trying to directly harm each other
  • Challenges, when one or more characters try to 
  achieve something dynamic or complicated
  • Contests, when two or more characters are 
  competing for a goal
  
  160
  • Who’s in the conflict?
  • Where are they positioned relative to one 
  another?
  • When is the conflict taking place? Is that 
  important?
  • What’s the environment like?
  You don’t need an exhaustive amount of detail here, 
  like precise measures of distance or anything like 
  that. Just resolve enough to make it clear for everyone 
  what’s going on.
  GMs, you’re going to take this information and create 
  situation aspects to help further define the arena of 
  conflict.
  Wraith, Trinity, Barrage, and Midnight Avenger 
  are breaking into a dockside warehouse in order 
  to find a shipment of the hi-tech weapons that 
  have been turning the streets of New York into 
  a warzone. Unfortunately, someone tipped the 
  Terenza crime family off. Now Brickhouse, one 
  of the super-powered lieutenants, is at the 
  warehouse waiting for them to show up, and 
  he brought along four associates.
  The participants in the conflict are pretty 
  obvious—the PCs, plus Brickhouse and 
  four nameless thugs, all NPCs under Mike’s 
  control. The warehouse is the environment, 
  and the group takes a moment to talk about 
  it—boxes and crates everywhere, large and 
  open, there’s probably a second floor, and 
  Mike mentions the loading door is open 
  because they’re waiting for a ship to come in.
  Situation Aspects
  GMs, when you’re setting the scene, keep an eye 
  out for fun-sounding features of the environment to 
  make into situation aspects, especially if you think 
  someone might be able to take advantage of them 
  in an interesting way in a conflict. Don’t overload it. 
  Find three to five evocative things about your conflict 
  location and make them into aspects.
  Good options for situation aspects include:
  • Anything regarding the general mood, weather, 
  or lighting: dark or badly lit, storming, creepy, 
  crumbling, blindingly bright, et cetera.
  • Anything that might affect or restrict movement: 
  filthy, mud everywhere, slippery, rough, and so 
  forth.
  • Things to hide behind: vehicles, obstructions, or 
  large furniture.
  • Things you can knock over, wreck, or use as 
  improvised weapons: bookshelves, crates, et 
  cetera.
  • Things that are flammable
  Situation Aspects 
  And Zones In Mental 
  Conflicts
  In a mental conflict, it might not always make 
  sense to use situation aspects and zones to 
  describe a physical space. It’d make sense 
  in an interrogation, for example, where the 
  physical features of the space create fear, 
  but not in a really violent argument with a 
  loved one. Also, when people are trying to 
  hurt each other emotionally, usually they’re 
  using their target’s own weaknesses against 
  them—in other words, their own aspects.
  So, you may not even need situation aspects 
  or zones for a lot of mental conflicts. Don’t 
  feel obligated to include them.
  Considering our warehouse again, Mike 
  thinks about what might make good situation 
  aspects.
  He decides that there are enough reinforced 
  metal crates in here to make free movement a 
  potential problem, so she picks Heavy Crates 
  and Crowded as aspects. The loading door is 
  open, which means that there’s a large dock 
  with water in it, so she also picks Open to 
  the Water as a situation aspect, figuring that 
  someone might try to knock someone in.
  As the scene unfolds, players might suggest features 
  of the environment that are perfect as aspects. If the 
  GM described the scene as being poorly lit, a player 
  should be able to invoke the Shadows to help on a 
  Stealth roll even if she hadn’t previously established 
  it as an aspect. If the feature would require some 
  intervention on the part of the characters in the scene 
  to become aspect-worthy, then that’s the purview of 
  the create an advantage action. Usually the apartment 
  complex doesn’t catch On Fire! without someone 
  actually committing a bit of arson.
  
  161
  Zones
  GMs, if your conflict takes place over a large area, 
  you may want to break it down into zones for 
  easier reference.
  A zone is an abstract representation of physical space. 
  The best definition of a zone is that it’s close enough 
  that you can interact directly with someone (in other 
  words, walk up to and punch them in the face).
  Generally speaking, a conflict should rarely involve 
  more than a handful of zones. Two to four is probably 
  sufficient, save for really big conflicts. This isn’t a 
  miniatures board game— zones should give a tactile 
  sense of the environment, but at the point where you 
  need something more than a cocktail napkin to lay it 
  out, you’re getting too complicated.
  • If you can describe the area as bigger than 
  a house, you can probably divide it into two 
  or more zones— think of a warehouse or a 
  shopping center parking lot.
  • If it’s separated by stairs, a ladder, a fence, 
  or a wall, it could be divided zones, like two 
  floors of a house.
  • “Above X” and “below X” can be different zones, 
  especially if moving between them takes some 
  doing—think of the airspace around something 
  large, like a blimp.
  When you’re setting up your zones, note any 
  situation aspects that could make moving 
  between those zones problematic. They’ll be 
  important later, when people want to move 
  from zone to zone. If that means you need 
  more situation aspects, add them now.
  Mike decides the warehouse needs to be 
  multiple zones. The main floor is big enough, 
  in his mind, for two zones, and the Heavy 
  Crates he mentioned earlier make it hard to 
  freely move between them.
  He knows there’s also a second floor 
  ringing the inner walls, so he makes that an 
  additional zone. He adds Shadowy Upper 
  Level to the scene.
  If, for some reason, someone decides to run 
  outside, he figures that can be a fourth zone, but 
  he doesn’t think he needs any aspects for it.
  He sketches the rough map on an index card 
  for everyone to see.
  
  162
  Tight Zones 
  While zones divide up big areas like parking lots and 
  stadiums—showing how difficult it is to run across a 
  football field quickly—they can also be used to divide 
  up small areas in interesting ways. For example, a 
  fight on an invading space vessel might take place 
  in tight quarters that require allies to cross several 
  zones in order to offer support to a friend in trouble. 
  By forcing players to choose between spending 
  actions on moving or offering help from afar, zones 
  can make ordinary conflicts dramatic.
  Dangerous Zone Aspects
  Zones can also create drama by restricting 
  movement and providing threats the characters have 
  to overcome. For example, a zone on a battlefield 
  might have the aspect Taking Heavy Fire, requiring 
  characters to make an Athletics roll to avoid taking 
  damage as they run through the firefight. Some zones 
  might also disappear after a specified number of 
  turns. Collapsing bridges, plummeting space ships, 
  and closing impregnable doors, all push characters 
  to move quickly as the battlefield shifts around them 
  and give the players a chance to force NPCs into 
  those zones to contend with the threats as well.
  Mental or Social Zones
  Not all conflicts happen in the physical world; super-
  heroes are often drawn into mental conflicts that can 
  be mapped out in interesting ways. For example, 
  a psychic may find her way through a patient’s 
  dreamscape blocked by situation aspects that must 
  be overcome though a series of Investigation and 
  Empathy rolls.
  For those of you who want mental conflicts involving a 
  telepath or psychic to be more than just a few simple 
  die rolls, move the conflict onto a mental plane that 
  for all intents and purposes appears as a physical 
  reality. Draw out your zone map accordingly, and note 
  any zone barriers and situation aspects. Then treat 
  the conflict the same as you would a physical battle.
  Try to keep in mind, however, that while the mental 
  conflict is going on, your non-psychic players are 
  going to be sitting around and waiting. So, use this 
  option only occasionally, and only for truly dramatic 
  mental battles, or make sure to split your spotlight 
  between the psychic and physical realms.
  Establishing Sides
  It’s important to know everyone’s goal in a conflict 
  before you start. People fight for a reason, and if 
  they’re willing to do harm, it’s usually an urgent 
  reason.
  The normal assumption is that the player characters 
  are on one side, fighting against NPCs who are in 
  opposition. It doesn’t always have to be that way, 
  however—PCs can fight each other and be allied with 
  NPCs against each other.
  Make sure everyone agrees on the general goals of 
  each side, who’s on which side, and where everyone 
  is situated in the scene (like who’s occupying which 
  zone) when the conflict begins.
  It might also help, GMs, to decide how those groups 
  are going to “divvy up” to face one another—is one 
  character going to get mobbed by the bad guy’s 
  henchmen, or is the opposition going to spread itself 
  around equally among the PCs? You might change 
  your mind once the action starts, but if you have a 
  basic idea, it gives you a good starting point to work 
  from.
  In our continuing warehouse fight example, 
  the sides are obvious: Brickhouse and the 
  Terenza thugs want to do in the PCs, and the 
  PCs want to keep that from happening.
  The conflict starts with everyone on the main 
  warehouse floor. Mike decides that Brickhouse 
  and one of the thugs are going to go after 
  Trinity. Each of the remaining thugs will attempt 
  to slow down one of the other heroes.
  Turn Order
  Your turn order in a conflict is based on your skills. In 
  a physical conflict, compare your Notice skill to the 
  other participants. In a mental conflict, compare your 
  Empathy skill. Whoever has the highest gets to go 
  first, and then everyone else in descending order.
  If there’s a tie, compare a secondary or tertiary skill. 
  For physical conflicts, that’s Athletics, then Physique. 
  For mental conflicts, Rapport, then Will. If there’s still 
  a tie after all that, just roll the four fate dice with the 
  highest total acting first, or let the player’s decide, or 
  whatever works best for your table.
  GMs, for a simple option, pick your most advantageous 
  NPC to determine your place in the turn order, and let 
  all your NPCs go at that time.
  
  163
  Wraith has a Notice of Good (+3), higher than everyone 
  else, so he goes first.
  Midnight Avenger and Barrage both have Notice 
  at Fair (+2), making it a tie. Since this is a physical 
  conflict, they both go to Athletics next. As luck would 
  have it, they both also have Athletics at Good (+3), 
  resulting in another tie. Going to Physique, they find 
  yet a third tie. They both have it at Average (+1). 
  Finally, Midnight Avenger just tells Barrage to go first, 
  and he’ll follow-up afterward..
  Trinity has a Notice of Average (+1), so she goes 
  fourth.
  Brickhouse and his thugs all lack the Notice skill. 
  Brickhouse has Physique at Superb (+5), and his 
  thugs don’t have it, so he goes fifth and they go last.
  The Exchange
  Exchanges in a conflict are a little more complicated 
  than in contests. In an exchange, every character 
  gets a turn to take an action. GMs, you get to go once 
  for every NPC you control in the conflict.
  Most of the time, you’re going to be attacking another 
  character or creating an advantage on your turn, 
  because that’s the point of a conflict—take your 
  opponent out, or set things up to make it easier to 
  take your opponent out.
  However, if you have a secondary objective in the 
  conflict scene, you might need to roll an overcome 
  action instead. You’ll encounter this most often if you 
  want to move between zones but there’s a situation 
  aspect in place making that problematic.
  Regardless, you only get to make one skill roll on 
  your turn in an exchange— unless you’re defending 
  against someone else’s action, which you can do as 
  many times as you want. You can even make defend 
  actions on behalf of others, so long as you fulfill two 
  conditions: it has to be reasonable for you to interpose 
  yourself between the attack and its target, and you 
  have to suffer the effects of any failed rolls.
  Handling A Lot of NPCs
  GMs, if you have a lot of nameless NPCs 
  in your scene, feel free to have them use 
  passive opposition to keep your dice rolling 
  down. Also, consider using mobs instead of 
  individual NPCs to keep things simple. 
  Full Defense
  If you want, you can forgo your action for the 
  exchange to concentrate on defense. You don’t get 
  to do anything proactive, but you do get to roll all 
  defend actions for the exchange at a +2 bonus.
  Weapon and Armor Ratings
  Daring Comics uses Weapon and Armor ratings. 
  A Weapon value adds to the shift value of a successful 
  hit. So, if you have Weapon: 2, it means that any hit 
  is worth 2 more shifts than it would normally be. This 
  counts for ties, so when you’re using a weapon, you 
  inflict stress on a tie instead of getting a boost. That 
  makes weapons very dangerous.
  An Armor value reduces the shifts of a successful hit. 
  So, Armor:2 makes any hit worth 2 less than usual. If 
  you hit, but the target’s Armor reduces the shift value 
  to 0 or below, you get a boost to use on your target 
  but don’t do any harm.
  Resolving Attacks
  A successful attack lands a hit equivalent to its shift 
  value on a target. So if you get three shifts on an 
  attack, you land a 3-shift hit (plus any Weapon Rating 
  you might have). The damage is reduced on a 1:1 
  basis by any Armor rating the target possesses.
  If you get hit by an attack and take one or more Hits 
  after accounting for Armor rating, then one of two 
  things happens: either you absorb the hit and stay in 
  the fight, or you’re taken out.
  Fortunately, you have two options for absorbing 
  hits to stay in the fight— you can take stress and/
  or consequences. You can also concede a conflict 
  before you’re taken out, in order to preserve some 
  control over what happens to your character.
  Taking a Hit
  If, for whatever reason, you want to forego 
  your defense and take a hit (like, say, to 
  interpose yourself in the path of an arrow 
  that’s about to skewer your friend), you can.
  Because you’re not defending, the attacker’s 
  rolling against Mediocre (+0) opposition, 
  which means you’re probably going to take 
  a bad hit.
  
  164
  Stress
  One of your options to mitigate the effect of a hit is to 
  take stress.
  The best way to understand stress is that it represents 
  all the various reasons why you just barely avoid taking 
  the full force of an attack. Maybe you twist away from 
  the blow just right, or it looks bad but is really just a 
  flesh wound, or you exhaust yourself diving out of the 
  way at the last second.
  Mentally, stress could mean that you just barely 
  manage to ignore an insult, or clamp down on an 
  instinctive emotional reaction, or something like that.
  Stress boxes also represent a loss of momentum—
  you only have so many last-second saves in you 
  before you’ve got to face the music.
  On your character sheet, you have a number of stress 
  boxes, each with a different shift value. By default, all 
  characters get a 1-point and a 2-point box. You may 
  get additional, higher-value stress boxes depending 
  on some of your skills (usually Physique and Will).
  When you take stress, check off a stress box with 
  a value equal to the shift value of the hit. If that box 
  is already checked, check off a higher value box. If 
  there is no higher available box, and you can’t take 
  any consequences, you’re taken out of the conflict.
  You can only check off one stress box per hit.
  Remember that you have two sets of stress boxes! 
  One of these is for physical stress, the other for 
  mental; you’ll start with a 1-shift and a 2-shift box 
  in each of these. If you take stress from a physical 
  source, you check off a physical stress box. If it’s a 
  mental hit, check off a mental stress box.
  After a conflict, when you get a minute to breathe, 
  any stress boxes you checked off become available 
  for your use again.
  Brickhouse, with his Super-Strength 1 (granting 
  him a Weapon: 1 rating to damage), pummels 
  Midnight Avenger. He gets two Shifts on his 
  attack roll, for a total of 3-Hits of damage (2-
  Hits for the 2-Shifts, plus an addition 1-Hit for 
  his Super-Strength.
  Midnight Avenger has all four stress boxes 
  available, so he checks off the 3-point stress 
  box to absorb the hit. That means he only 
  has his 1-point, 2-point, and 4-point boxes 
  available.
  The next exchange, Brickhouse hits him 
  for another 3-Hits worth of damage. Since 
  Midnight Avenger already used his 3-point 
  stress box, he now has to use his 4-point box 
  to absorb the damage. He only has his 1-point 
  and 2-point boxes remaining, so another hit 
  like that and he’s going to be forced to take a 
  consequence.
  Consequences
  The second option you have for mitigating a hit is 
  taking a consequence. A consequence is more severe 
  than stress. It represents some form of lasting injury or 
  setback that you accrue from the conflict, something 
  that’s going to be a problem for your character after 
  the conflict is over.
  Consequences come in three levels of severity: mild, 
  moderate, and severe. Each one has a different 
  shift value: two, four, and six, respectively. On your 
  character sheet, you have a number of available 
  consequence slots, in this section:
  When you use a consequence slot, you reduce 
  the shift value of the attack by the shift value of 
  the consequence. You can use more than one 
  consequence at a time if they’re available. Any of the 
  hit’s remaining shifts must be handled by a stress box 
  to avoid being taken out.
  However, there’s a penalty. The consequence written 
  in the slot is an aspect that represents the lasting 
  effect incurred from the attack. The opponent 
  who forced you to take a consequence gets a free 
  invocation, and the aspect remains on your character 
  sheet until you’ve recovered the consequence slot. 
  While it’s on your sheet, the consequence is treated 
  like any other aspect, except because the slant on it 
  is so negative, it’s far more likely to be used to your 
  character’s detriment.
  Unlike stress, a consequence slot may take a long 
  time to recover after the conflict is over. Also unlike 
  stress, you only have one set of consequences; 
  there aren’t specific slots for physical versus mental 
  consequences. This means that, if you have to take 
  a mild consequence to reduce a mental hit and your 
  mild consequence slot is already filled with a physical 
  consequence, you’re out of luck! You’re going to have 
  to use a moderate or severe consequence to absorb 
  that hit (assuming you have one left). The exception 
  to this is the extra consequence slot you would get 
  from a Superb (+5) Physique or Will is reserved for 
  physical or mental harm, respectively.
  
  165
  Going back to Midnight Avenger and 
  Brickhouse, the super-villain continues to beat 
  down the vampiric super-hero, landing a solid, 
  super-strength kick to the hero’s midsection, 
  causing a walloping 4-hits of damage. Since 
  Midnight Avenger only has his 1-point and 
  2-point stress boxes remaining, he has to take 
  a consequence.
  Taking 4-hits of damage means he has to take 
  a Moderate Consequence, which represents 
  up to 4-points of damage. Dylan and Mike 
  agree to call the consequence Fractured Ribs, 
  and Dylan writes it down in the consequence 
  slot.
  Naming a Consequence
  Here are some guidelines for choosing what to name 
  a consequence:
  Mild 
  consequences 
  don’t 
  require 
  immediate 
  medical attention. They hurt, and they may present 
  an inconvenience, but they aren’t going to force 
  you into a lot of bed rest. On the mental side, mild 
  consequences express things like small social gaffes 
  or changes in your surface emotions. Examples: 
  Black Eye, Bruised Hand, Winded, Flustered, Cranky, 
  Temporarily Blinded.
  Moderate consequences represent fairly serious 
  impairments that require dedicated effort toward 
  recovery (including medical attention). On the 
  mental side, they express things like damage to your 
  reputation or emotional problems that you can’t just 
  shrug off with an apology and a good night’s sleep. 
  Examples: Deep Cut, First Degree Burn, Exhausted, 
  Drunk, Terrified.
  Severe consequences go straight to the emergency 
  room (or whatever the equivalent is in your game)—
  they’re extremely nasty and prevent you from doing 
  a lot of things, and will lay you out for a while. On the 
  mental side, they express things like serious trauma 
  or relationship-changing harm. Examples: Second-
  Degree Burn, Compound Fracture, Guts Hanging 
  Out, Crippling Shame, Trauma-Induced Phobia.
  What Skill Do I Use 
  For Recovery?
  In Daring Comics, physical recovery happens through 
  the Treatment skill. For mental recovery, use the 
  Empathy skill.
  Powers such as Healing and Regeneration can also 
  be used, as described under the power’s description.
  Recovering from a 
  Consequence
  In order to regain the use of a consequence slot, you 
  have to recover from the consequence. That requires 
  two things: succeeding at an action that allows you 
  to justify recovery, and then waiting an appropriate 
  amount of game time for that recovery to take place.
  The action in question is an overcome action; the 
  obstacle is the consequence that you took. If it’s a 
  physical injury, then the action is some kind of medical 
  treatment or first aid. For mental consequences, the 
  action may involve therapy, counseling, or simply a 
  night out with friends.
  The difficulty for this obstacle is based on the shift 
  value of the consequence. Mild is Fair (+2), moderate 
  is Great (+4), and severe is Fantastic (+6). If you are 
  trying to perform the recovery action on yourself, 
  increase the difficulty by two steps on the ladder.
  Keep in mind that the circumstances have to be 
  appropriately free of distraction and tension for you 
  to make this roll in the first place. You’re not going 
  to clean and bandage a nasty cut while ogres are 
  tromping through the caves looking for you. GMs, 
  you’ve got the final judgment call.
  If you succeed at the recovery action, or someone 
  else succeeds on a recovery action for you, you get 
  to rename the consequence aspect to show that 
  it’s in recovery. So, for example, Broken Leg could 
  become Stuck in a Cast, Scandalized could become 
  Damage Control, and so on. This doesn’t free up 
  the consequence slot, but it serves as an indicator 
  that you’re recovering, and it changes the ways the 
  aspect’s going to be used while it remains.
  Whether you change the consequence’s name or 
  not—and sometimes it might not make sense to do 
  so—mark it with a star so that everyone remembers 
  that recovery has started.
  Then, you just have to wait the time.
  The amount of time it takes is based upon the Series 
  Tone.
  Midnight 
  Avenger 
  took 
  a 
  Moderate 
  Consequence in his fight with Brickhouse. 
  Back at the base, Trinity treats him at the 
  infirmary, and makes a Treatment roll against 
  Great (+4) opposition. She succeeds.
  
  166
  This allows Midnight Avenger to rename the 
  consequence to something like Taped Ribs 
  and start the recovery process. Since the 
  series tone was set to Four Color, he’ll recover 
  from the injury after half an issue. Afterward, 
  he’ll erase the consequence and be able to 
  use the slot again in a later conflict.
  Extreme Consequences
  In addition to the normal set of mild, moderate, 
  and severe consequences, every PC also gets one 
  last-ditch option to stay in a fight—the extreme 
  consequence. Between major milestones, you can 
  only use this option once.
  An extreme consequence will 
  absorb up to 8-shifts of a hit, but 
  at a very serious cost—you must 
  replace one of your aspects 
  (except the high concept, that’s 
  off limits) with the extreme 
  consequence. That’s right, an 
  extreme consequence is so 
  serious that taking it literally 
  changes who you are.
  Unlike 
  other 
  consequences, 
  you can’t make a recovery 
  action to diminish an extreme 
  consequence— you’re stuck with 
  it until your next major milestone. 
  After that, you can rename the 
  extreme consequence to reflect 
  that you’re no longer vulnerable 
  to the worst of it, as long as 
  you don’t just switch it out for 
  whatever your old aspect was. 
  Taking an extreme consequence 
  is 
  a 
  permanent 
  character 
  change; treat it as such.
  Conceding the 
  Conflict
  When all else fails, you can 
  also just give in. Maybe you’re 
  worried that you can’t absorb 
  another hit, or maybe you decide 
  that continuing to fight is just not 
  worth the punishment. Whatever 
  the reason, you can interrupt 
  any action at any time before 
  the roll is made to declare that 
  you concede the conflict. This is 
  super-important— once dice hit 
  the table, whatever happens is 
  written in stone, and you’re either taking more stress, 
  suffering more consequences, or getting Taken Out.
  Concession gives the other person what they wanted 
  from you, or in the case of more than two combatants, 
  removes you as a concern for the opposing side. 
  You’re out of the conflict, period.
  But it’s not all bad. First of all, you get a fate point 
  for choosing to concede. On top of that, if you’ve 
  sustained any consequences in this conflict, you get 
  an additional fate point for each consequence. These 
  fate points may be used once this conflict is over.
  
  167
  Second of all, you get to avoid the worst parts of your 
  fate. Yes, you lost, and the narration has to reflect 
  that. But you can’t use this privilege to undermine the 
  opponent’s victory, either—what you say happens 
  has to pass muster with the group.
  That can make the difference between, say, being 
  mistakenly left for dead and ending up in the enemy’s 
  clutches, in shackles, without any of your stuff—
  the sort of thing that can happen if you’re taken out 
  instead. That’s not nothing.
  Brickhouse turns out to be too much for 
  Midnight Avenger to Handle, having hit 
  with several devastating attacks in the 
  course of the fight.
  Before Mike’s next turn, Dylan says, “I concede. 
  I don’t want to risk any more consequences.”
  Midnight 
  Avenger 
  taken 
  a 
  moderate 
  consequence. He gets a fate point for 
  conceding, as well as one more fate point for 
  the single consequence he took, giving him 
  two total.
  Mike says, “So, what are you trying to 
  avoid here?”
  Dylan says, “Well, I don’t want to get killed or 
  captured, for starters.”
  Mike says, “Fair enough. So, we’ll say that 
  Brickhouse knocks you out cold and doesn’t 
  bother to finish you off, because he still has 
  your teammates to deal with. He may even 
  think you’re dead. But, he’ll quickly search 
  your person and take the two vials of blood 
  you have for later feeding.”
  Dylan is okay with that. He doesn’t get captured 
  or killed, and by taking his blood supply, it 
  adds some teeth to him being defeated.
  Getting Taken Out
  If you don’t have any stress or consequences left to buy 
  off all the shifts of a hit, that means you’re taken out.
  Taken Out is bad. It means not only that you can’t fight 
  anymore, but that the person who took you out gets 
  to decide what your loss looks like and what happens 
  to you after the conflict. Obviously, they can’t narrate 
  anything that’s out of scope for the conflict (like having 
  you die from shame), but that still gives someone else 
  a lot of power over your character that you can’t really 
  do anything about.
  Character Death
  So, if you think about it, there’s not a whole lot keeping 
  someone from saying, after taking you out, that your 
  character dies. Typically, the average villain might 
  not have any morale issues with simply killing you, 
  so it certainly seems reasonable that one possible 
  outcome of defeat is your character getting killed.
  In practice, though, this assumption might be pretty 
  controversial depending on what kind of group you’re 
  in. Some people think that character death should 
  always be on the table, if the rules allow it, and if 
  that’s how the dice fall, then so be it.
  Others are more circumspect, and consider it very 
  damaging to their fun if they lose a character upon 
  whom they’ve invested hours and hours of gameplay, 
  just because someone spent a lot of fate points or 
  their die rolls were particularly unlucky.
  We recommend the latter approach, mainly for the 
  following reason: most of the time, sudden character 
  death is a pretty boring outcome when compared to 
  putting the character through hell. On top of that, all 
  the story threads that character was connected to 
  just kind of stall with no resolution, and you have to 
  expend a bunch of effort and time figuring out how to 
  get a new character into play mid-stride.
  That doesn’t mean there’s no room for character death 
  in the game, however. We just recommend that you 
  save that possibility for conflicts that are extremely 
  pivotal, dramatic, and meaningful for that character— 
  in other words, conflicts in which that character would 
  knowingly and willingly risk dying in order to win. 
  Players and GMs, if you’ve got the feeling that you’re 
  in that kind of conflict, talk it out when you’re setting 
  the scene and see how people feel.
  At the very least, even if you’re in a hardcore group 
  that invites the potential for character death on 
  any taken out result, make sure that you telegraph 
  the opponent’s lethal intent. GMs, this is especially 
  important for you, so the players will know which 
  NPCs really mean business, and can concede to 
  keep their characters alive if need be.
  Movement
  In a conflict, it’s important to track where everyone 
  is relative to one another, which is why we divide the 
  environment where the conflict’s taking place into 
  zones. Where you have zones, you have people trying 
  to move around in them in order to get at one another 
  or at a certain objective.
  
  168
  Normally, it’s no big deal to move from one zone to 
  another. If there’s nothing preventing you from doing 
  so, you can move one zone in addition to your action 
  for the exchange.
  If you want to move more than one zone (up to 
  anywhere else on the map), if a situation aspect 
  suggests that it might be difficult to move freely, or if 
  another character is in your way, then you must make 
  an overcome action using Athletics to move. This 
  counts as your action for the exchange.
  GMs, just as with other Overcome rolls, you’ll set 
  the difficulty. You might use the number of zones 
  the character is moving or the situation aspects in 
  the way as justification for how high you set passive 
  opposition. If another character is impeding the 
  path, roll active opposition and feel free to invoke 
  obstructing situation aspects in aid of their defense.
  If you fail that roll, whatever was impeding you keeps 
  you from moving. If you tie, you get to move, but your 
  opponent takes a temporary advantage of some kind. 
  If you succeed, you move without consequence. If 
  you succeed with style, you can claim a Boost in 
  addition to your movement.
  In our continuing warehouse conflict, Barrage 
  wants to go after one of the thugs, who has 
  started shooting from the second floor. That 
  requires her to cross one zone to get to the 
  access ladder for the second floor, and then 
  climb it, making her opponent two zones away.
  She’s currently mixing it up with a thug herself, 
  whose Accuracy is at Fair (+2).
  Keirdwyn tells Mike her intent, and Amanda 
  says, “Okay, the thug you’re fighting is going 
  to try and keep you from getting away, so he’s 
  going to provide active opposition.”
  Barrage’s Athletics is Good (+3). She rolls 
  and gets +1, for a Great result. The thug rolls 
  his opposition, and rolls –2, for a result of 
  Mediocre (+0). That gives Barrage three shifts, 
  and a success with style.
  Keirdwyn and Amanda describe Barrage 
  faking out the thug with some quick bursts 
  from her hi-tech gun, vaulting over a crate, 
  and taking the ladder two rungs at a time 
  to get up top. She takes a boost, which she 
  calls Momentum.
  The thug up top swallows hard, swinging his 
  handgun toward the hero.
  Advantages in a Conflict
  Remember that aspects you create as advantages 
  follow all the rules for situation aspects. That means 
  the GM can use them to justify overcome actions, 
  they last until they’re made irrelevant or the scene is 
  over, and in some cases they represent as much a 
  threat to you as an opponent.
  When you create an advantage in a conflict, think 
  about how long you want that aspect to stick around 
  and whom you want to have access to it. It’s difficult for 
  anyone besides you and your friends to justify using 
  an advantage you stick to a character, but it’s also 
  easier to justify getting rid of it. Usually one overcome 
  action could undo it. It’s harder to justify getting rid of 
  an aspect on the environment (seriously, who is going 
  to move that flaming semi you just threw in the middle 
  of the narrow street?), but anyone in the scene could 
  potentially find a reason to take advantage of it.
  Other Actions in a Conflict
  As stated above, you may find yourself in a situation 
  where you want to do something else while your 
  friends are fighting. You might be disarming a death 
  trap, searching for a piece of information, or checking 
  for hidden assailants.
  In order to do this, GMs, set the player up with a 
  modified form of challenge. One of the tasks is likely 
  going to be to defend yourself. In any exchange where 
  someone attacks you or tries to create an advantage 
  on you, you must Defend successfully in order to be 
  able to take one of the other actions in the challenge. 
  So long as no one has successfully attacked you or 
  stuck an advantage on you, you can use your action 
  to roll for one of the challenge goals.
  Free Actions
  Sometimes it just makes sense that your character is 
  doing something else in conjunction with or as a step 
  toward their action in an exchange. You quick-draw 
  a weapon before you use it, you shout a warning 
  before you kick in a door, or you quickly size up a 
  room before you attack. These little bits of action are 
  colorful description more than anything else, meant 
  to add atmosphere to the scene.
  GMs, don’t fall into the trap of trying to police every 
  little detail of a player’s description. Remember, 
  if there’s no significant or interesting opposition, 
  you shouldn’t require a roll—just let the players 
  accomplish what they say they do. Reloading a gun 
  or fishing for something in your backpack is part 
  
  169
  of performing the action. You shouldn’t require any 
  mechanics to deal with that.
  Ending a Conflict
  Under most circumstances, when all of the members 
  of one side have either conceded the conflict or have 
  been taken out, the conflict is over.
  GMs, once you know a conflict has definitively ended, 
  you can pass out all the fate points earned from 
  concession. Players, take the fate points for when 
  your aspects were invoked against you, make a note 
  of whatever consequences you suffered in the fight, 
  and erase any checks in your stress boxes.
  Transitioning to a 
  Contest or Challenge
  You may find yourself in a conflict scene where the 
  participants are no longer interested in or willing to 
  harm one another, because of some change in the 
  circumstances. If that happens, and there’s still more 
  to resolve, you can transition straight into a contest 
  or challenge as you need. In that case, hold off on 
  awarding the end-of-conflict fate points and whatnot 
  until you’ve also resolved the contest or challenge.
  Teamwork
  Characters can help each other out on actions. 
  There are two versions of helping in Daring Comics—
  combining skills, for when you are all putting the 
  same kind of effort into an action (like using Physique 
  together to push over a crumbling wall), and stacking 
  advantages, for when the group is setting a single 
  person up to do well (like causing multiple distractions 
  so one person can use Stealth to get into a fortress).
  When you combine skills, figure out who has the 
  highest skill level among the participants. Each other 
  participant who has at least an Average (+1) in the 
  same skill adds a +1 to the highest person’s skill level, 
  and then only the lead character rolls. So if you have 
  three helpers and you’re the highest, you roll your skill 
  level with a +3 bonus.
  If you fail a roll to combine skills, all of the participants 
  share in the potential costs—whatever complication 
  affects one character affects all of them, or everyone 
  has to take consequences. Alternatively, you can 
  impose a cost that affects all the characters the same.
  Following an explosion in the middle of Times 
  Square, the heroes are trying desperately to 
  move a large piece of rubble to rescue the 
  child trapped in a small hole underneath. Mike 
  declares it a Physique effort.
  Wraith has Good (+3) Physique and is the 
  highest on the team. Midnight Avenger, 
  Barrage, and Trinity each have it at Average 
  (+1), so they each contribute. Wraith now rolls 
  Physique, with a +3 to the roll.
  When you stack advantages, each person takes 
  a create an advantage action as usual, and gives 
  whatever free invocations they get to a single 
  character. Remember that multiple free invocations 
  from the same aspect can stack.
  Later in the story, the team must once again 
  face Brickhouse. Knowing how damned strong 
  and invulnerable the villain is, and that Midnight 
  Avenger has a personal grudge against him, 
  the team decides to work together to let their 
  vampiric ally get his vengeance.
  Barrage knows that her ice gun won’t freeze 
  and hold the villain for long, but that isn’t her 
  intent. She just wants to keep him busy. She 
  lays down some cover fire, successfully using 
  the Create an Advantage action to place a 
  Distracted aspect on with one free invocation.
  Next, Wraith uses his invisibility power to 
  phase in and out of existence as he pummels 
  Brickhouse, always moving behind him. 
  He isn’t trying to hurt the guy, just distract 
  him even more. He succeeds with style on 
  his Create an Advantage action, for two 
  free invocations. Xander decides his action 
  mirrored what Barrage was going for, so just 
  adds the additional two free invocations to the 
  already existing Distracted aspect.
  Meanwhile, Trinity casts her Light Control 
  spell, getting a +2 to Create an Advantage 
  action when creating light based aspects 
  (as per the power’s description), and also 
  succeeds with style against Brickhouse. 
  She creates a Blinded aspect on him with 
  two free invocations.
  All three heroes turn over the five free 
  invocations to Midnight Avenger, which he 
  uses for a whopping +10 to his attack against 
  the pain-in-the-ass villain.
  Brickhouse should never have taken Midnight 
  Avenger’s blood supply.
  
  170
  Collateral Damage
  In comic books, super-heroes and their villainous 
  counterparts are always tearing up the scenery 
  whenever they go toe-to-toe. Whether it’s energy 
  beams, 
  super-science, 
  or 
  super-strength 
  and 
  invulnerability, the surrounding environment rarely 
  stays intact for long. While a lot of such collateral 
  damage can be represented by simply situation 
  aspects and even some detonating situation aspects, 
  there’s another mechanic that Daring Comics uses to 
  not only represent the wear-and-tear on the scene, 
  but also allow the heroes to stand a little longer, and 
  fight a little harder. 
  It’s called the Collateral Damage Consequence.
  Collateral Consequences
  Each story arc begins with the player-characters 
  having a pool of three communal consequences, 
  one for each of the three normal consequence 
  slots of Mild, Moderate, and Severe (Collateral 
  Damage Consequences do not have an Extreme 
  Consequence slot). Keep in mind, it’s one of each 
  type of consequence slot in total, not one per player. 
  Whenever a player-character would have taken a 
  consequence, they can instead decide to use one of 
  the communal slots at an equal or greater value, and 
  instead place the consequence on the environment 
  as Collateral Damage. Once a slot is used by a 
  player, it is no longer available for the rest of the story 
  arc— unless it is cleared by the end of the Issue or 
  personally assumed by the character (see: Clearing 
  Collateral Consequences below).
  Midnight Avenger is facing an alien parasite 
  infected Phalanx (one of the world’s most 
  powerful super-heroes), and is hit with a super-
  strength punch that sends him reeling for a 
  massive Moderate Consequence. Instead of 
  taking the hit, Dylan decides to use the open 
  Moderate Collateral Damage Consequence 
  slot. Since they’re fighting on a city street, he 
  describes how he instead dodges the blow 
  and Phalanx instead takes out a telephone 
  pole, causing multiple live wires to hit the 
  street and placing nearby citizens in jeopardy.
  
  171
  The group decides to call it Downed Live 
  Wires and writes it in the appropriate Collateral 
  Consequence.
  The group now has the Mild and Severe 
  Collateral Consequence slots remaining.
  Clearing Collateral 
  Consequences
  Using Collateral Consequences are not to be taken 
  lightly. Each of these Consequences must be cleared 
  by the end of the Issue by an Overcome action (using 
  whatever skill is appropriate) with an opposition +2 
  over the normal for a Consequence. In other words: 
  a Mild is a Great (+4), a Moderate is a Fantastic (+6), 
  and a Severe is a Legendary (+8) opposition. Until 
  cleared, Collateral Consequences can be Compelled 
  and Invoked against your heroes, though you can 
  offer a fate point to resist the Compel as normal.
  To make matters more precarious for your heroes 
  who use the environment to avoid taking the hit, 
  only one Overcome action can be made to clear a 
  specific Collateral Consequence. That isn’t one per 
  player, but one per group. So, your team is definitely 
  going to have to use Teamwork if the environment 
  gets too beat up.
  If you clear them, great! Well done. 
  If you fail to clear them by the end of the Issue, 
  however, one of two things happen. Either any player 
  can offer to take the Consequence onto themselves 
  at the same severity (renamed if required to represent 
  how they are taking the blame, and so forth), or the 
  Consequences remains in the collateral slot and that 
  slot cannot be used again for the rest of the story arc 
  (what happens to it after that is explained to the GM 
  in Chapter 15: Advancing the Series).
  If you take the Collateral Consequence as a personal 
  consequence, it can then be cleared as normal. 
  However, until it does, remember that you’ve now 
  lost an otherwise open consequence slot due to the 
  trust damage, public outrage, guilt, and so forth that 
  your battle caused.
  Throughout the fight with Phalanx, the heroes 
  use both a Moderate and Severe Collateral 
  Consequence slot. Now that the fight is over 
  and they have a moment, they decide it’s time 
  to start cleaning up in one fashion or another.
  The Moderate slot is Downed Live Wires, 
  and since it is a 4-point Consequence has 
  an opposition of Fantastic (+6) to clear. Mike 
  tells them that it’ll require Athletic rolls, since 
  basically they’re be getting the wires up off 
  the street without getting electrocuted or 
  electrocuting anyone else (you would think the 
  bystanders would back off, but nothing is ever 
  that common sense easy). The group decides 
  to use the Teamwork rules, and after all the 
  bonuses are calculated and the “lead hero” 
  makes the roll, they get an Epic (+7) result. 
  Mike clears the Consequence, and the 
  Moderate Collateral Damage Consequence 
  is once again available for use in a 
  subsequent scene.
  Next, they decide to tackle the Severe 
  Collateral Damage Consequence, which 
  was Heavily Damaged Skyscrapers. Since 
  repairing the skyscraper is beyond the heroes’ 
  ability, Mike decides that a Rapport roll will 
  be necessary to handle the evacuation out 
  of the highly populated, downtown business 
  area, danger zone.
  Once again, the group uses the Teamwork 
  rules as best they can, but in the end fail to 
  clear the Consequence. None of the players 
  want to assume the Severe Consequence 
  under their own slots (which might have been 
  renamed to something such as: Damaged 
  Reputation), so the consequence remains in 
  the Severe Collateral Damage Consequence 
  until the end of the story arc.
  Combat Tactics
  Rarely do super-beings in comic books simply 
  stand toe-to-toe and duke it out. They are using 
  scenery, charging into a foe, grappling each other, 
  and distracting their opponent as a set-up for other 
  members of the team to hit ‘em hard.
  Combat tactics allow you to mimic the maneuvers 
  used in your favorite comic book battles, and are an 
  important part of any combat scene.
  Aiming
  To aim, take an action to place an aspect on the 
  target, such as In My Sights or I Have You Now, 
  which constitutes your action for the round. On the 
  next round, you can invoke the aspect as normal 
  (including any free invocations) to gain a bonus to 
  your attack roll.
  
  172
  All-Out
  With this tactic, you are throwing caution to the wind 
  and putting everything you have into an offensive. 
  When making an All-Out attack, you gain a +2 to your 
  attack roll. Due to your focus on attacking instead 
  of maintaining decent defenses, however, you also 
  get boost placed on you such as Wide Open or Left 
  Myself Vulnerable, which a single opponent (not 
  necessarily the one you attacked) gets to use against 
  you for free.
  Charge
  So, you want to use your body as a battering ram against 
  some poor person? That’s called a Charge attack.
  To make a Charge attack you must first place an aspect 
  upon your target representing the set-up. On the 
  following round, you get the normal free invocations for 
  setting up the advantage, but must also move at least 
  10 feet to get your speed going. You make an Attack 
  action using your Physique, which your opponent can 
  defend against normally. If you have the Invulnerability 
  power, you get half its Power Level (round up) as a 
  weapon rating. In other words, Invulnerability 4 means 
  that if you hit the other person with a charge, you get a 
  Weapon: 2 damage bonus.
  Otherwise, you do damage as normal for an attack roll. 
  There is an added option with a charge attack, though. 
  You can reduce your damage by any number of Shifts 
  achieved on the roll and knock back your opponent an 
  equal number of feet. If you have Super-Strength, you 
  knock them back an equal number of zones.
  Keep in mind, you cannot reduce the Weapon Rating 
  you get for being invulnerable— that’s damage you’re 
  doing on a hit through sheer toughness.
  If you miss the Charge attack, you immediately 
  get a boost placed on you such as off-balance or 
  In a Bad Position that an opponent gets to use 
  against you for free. If you tie with the Defend roll, 
  you still suffer a boost with a free invocation as 
  above, plus your opponent gets to place a second 
  boost on you as normal.
  Combat Tricks
  Some maneuvers in comic books are actually combat 
  tricks using a particular power or attack type—the 
  grim vigilante who uses specially created boomerangs 
  to disarm a foe or knock him off his feet, or the world-
  renowned archer who pins his opponent to a wall by 
  his clothes with several well-placed arrows.
  A combat trick can cover a wide range of possibilities 
  in a comic book campaign, and never cause actual 
  damage. The most common uses are detailed below.
  Cover Fire
  Using the cover fire maneuver means spraying an 
  area with (usually) bullets to cause the enemy to keep 
  their heads down. It’s a great maneuver to cover an 
  escape or an action by an ally.
  First, take an action to place a situation aspect on 
  the area, such as Hail of Bullets or More Lead 
  Than You Can Handle. In addition to the normal free 
  invocations, the Shifts you achieved on the roll act as 
  the passive opposition for your opponent. They have 
  to beat the opposition to be able to move across the 
  zone. You can use the aspect’s invocations (free or 
  with a fate point), to increase the passive opposition 
  by +2 per invocation. Likewise, the invocations can 
  also be used on Defend actions (such as against 
  ranged attacks against you or an ally), representing 
  the enemy being unable to take aim due to having to 
  also worry about the cover fire.
  The Cover Fire lasts for the current exchange.
  Disarm
  To disarm an opponent, use the Create an Advantage 
  action to place a situation aspect on them, such as 
  Disarmed or Weaponless. Since you are placing the 
  aspect directly on your opponent, they get to Defend 
  against it normally.
  If you succeed, you place the aspect with the 
  usual number of free invocations. Additionally, your 
  opponent cannot use the weapon (which means they 
  are likely to lose access to their Weapons skill, too), 
  until they succeed at an Overcome action to remove 
  the aspect, which recovers the weapon. If you choose 
  not to oppose the action, then it’s against Mediocre 
  (+0) passive opposition. Otherwise, they must roll 
  against your skill as active opposition.
  Distraction
  A distraction is simply a matter of using the normal 
  rules to Create an Advantage and place an aspect on 
  the opponent. They can Defend against the attempt 
  as normal, but the idea is for you to gain one or more 
  free invocations and pass them to an ally, representing 
  the enemy being focused on you and vulnerable to a 
  big hit from your teammate.
  
  173
  Interpose
  You use your action for the round to place yourself 
  between an attack and its target.
  As long as you can cross the necessary distance 
  as a normal movement, once per round you can 
  place yourself in a position to use your own 
  Defend action against an attack and take any 
  damage that might occur.
  If you’ve already acted in the round, interposing 
  yourself requires that you spend a fate point.
  Ranged Knockdown & 
  Close Quarter Trips
  With this maneuver, you can use a thrown weapon to 
  trip an opponent within the same zone, or use your 
  Athletics, Fight, or Physique to knock your enemy to 
  the ground, up close and personal.
  First, you must place an aspect on your opponent 
  such as Knocked Down or On Your Back, with 
  the usual number of free invocations, which your 
  opponent can Defend against. If you’re successful, 
  your opponent is knocked to the ground. They lose 
  all movement until they get back to their feet. They 
  can attempt a ranged attack (such as firing energy 
  bolts or a gun), but their targets can invoke the aspect 
  placed upon them to assist in defense.
  To remove the aspect is a Mediocre (+0) passive 
  opposition, but you can attempt to stop them by 
  taking your action to provide active opposition.
  Ranged Pin
  Using throwing knives, steel boomerangs, or arrows, 
  you want to pin your opponent to a surface, such as to 
  the floor or against a wall, without actually damaging 
  them.
  Perform a Create an Advantage action to place an 
  aspect upon them, such as Stuck to the Wall or 
  Pinned to the Floor, which they can Defend against 
  normally. If successful, you place the aspect with 
  the normal number of free invocations. You can also 
  compel the aspect as normal, thereby using your 
  compel to prevent them from attacking (unless the 
  attack would make sense and be hard to stop, such 
  as eye beams).
  To break free of the pin and remove the aspect, your 
  opponent must make an Overcome action against 
  passive opposition equal to the number of Shifts 
  you achieved on the roll. You can choose to use 
  invocations of the aspect (free or with a fate point) to 
  add +2 to the passive opposition.
  Ricochet
  Cover in Daring Comics is handled through the 
  invocation of situation aspects. A character might 
  invoke Large Crates or something like Armored 
  Truck to get a +2 or more (if more than one aspect is 
  invoked) to defensive rolls. The ricochet combat trick 
  lets you bounce your attack, whether a shield or an 
  energy beam, off of nearby objects to attack the target 
  in such a way that the cover gives them no benefit.
  A ricochet can be performed once per conflict. 
  Make an Accuracy roll at against the target’s Defend 
  roll. They do not get the benefit for invoking cover, but 
  for each surface after the first that you are bouncing 
  your attack off of, their Defend roll gets a +1 bonus. 
  If you succeed, you do damage as normal, plus an 
  additional Hit for each surface you bounced the 
  attack off of.
  Fast Ball
   A special maneuver between two characters, the 
  fast ball is a comic book staple where a super-strong 
  character throws a buddy at an opponent (preferably 
  with the buddy’s consent).
  To perform a fast ball, both characters must act on 
  the lowest initiative turn between the two, and the 
  throwing character must be strong enough to get the 
  other character across the distance to the target. The 
  throwing character makes an Accuracy roll against 
  Mediocre (+0) opposition to hit the target. On a 
  success, the thrown character gets a +2 to whatever 
  follow-up attack he plans to perform. On a success 
  with style, the attacking character also gets a boost.
  The thrown character then makes his attack as normal. 
  If the throw fails or ties, the players can agree to 
  succeed at a cost, which should usually translate 
  into 2-Stress or a Mild Consequence (depending on 
  whether it was a minor or major cost), as the thrown 
  character somehow landed wrong from a nearly 
  botched throw.
  Grapples and Entangles
  Whether it is in hand-to-hand combat or with a 
  weapon such as a net or trick grappling line, this is 
  where you attempt to lock down your opponent and 
  stop them from taking any action.
  
  174
  The skills rolled will be determined by the type of 
  grapple. For hand-to-hand, it will likely be opposing 
  Fight rolls, or Fight versus Athletics. For a ranged 
  grapple, it’ll likely be Accuracy versus Athletics. 
  Aspects can be invoked.
  Despite the skills being used, this is not an Attack 
  action, but is a Create an Advantage action. You 
  are going to place an aspect on the target such as 
  Netted, Tied Up, or Pinned Down. If successful, you 
  get the normal number of free invocations, plus your 
  opponent is considered immobile and within your 
  grasp (or tied up by your net).
  How he removes the aspect and breaks free depends 
  on the type of grapple.
  For a hand-to-hand, wrestling type of grapple, the 
  grapple must be maintained each round, which means 
  the two combatants automatically make opposed 
  rolls against each other. If the grappler decides to not 
  roll for the grapple on subsequent rounds, it’s broken 
  and the placed aspect goes away.
  Beginning on the round after the grapple is first made 
  (i.e. the first round where you have to maintain it), if you 
  win the roll, you can use the Shifts to cause damage to 
  your target. The trade-off is that if your opponent is still 
  active the next round, the number of Shifts of damage 
  you caused to him also act as a bonus to his roll to get 
  free that round. This represents the fact that you weren’t 
  trying as hard to simply immobilize them, and although 
  you caused some damage (or tried to, as Invulnerability 
  applies), your overall grip weakened a little.
  For a range entanglement, the victim must succeed 
  at an Overcome action with passive opposition equal 
  to the number of Shifts the grapple gained on the 
  initial roll. Like with a wrestling grapple, this cannot 
  succeed at a cost. Additionally, invocations of the 
  placed aspect can be used to increase the opposition 
  by +2 per invocation.
  Lifting
  To lift an object, check the associated weight on the 
  benchmark lifting chart for normal strength or super-
  strength. The weight of the object serves as the 
  passive opposition to lift it.
  Characters with super-strength can automatically lift 
  any weight on the normal benchmark chart.
  Knockback and Throwing
  In comic books, super-powered combatants are 
  always knocking each other into buildings, through 
  streets, and generally causing a lot of collateral 
  damage whenever they fight. Although Daring 
  Comics handles a special type of collateral damage 
  later in the book (allowing you to off-set damage by 
  causing environmental complications), more common 
  collateral damage should be handled as part of the 
  narrative. How far does your hero knock the villain 
  back with that incredible punch, and does he go 
  through the building or hit the wall and crumble to 
  a stop? For the most part, that should be handled 
  as part of the narrative of a super-powered fight. The 
  GM can even use such instances as springboards to 
  a new scene where the heroes have to save innocent 
  civilians trapped in the rubble or stop a ruptured gas 
  main from exploding.
  Sometimes, though your hero might specifically 
  go for a knockback, or attempt to throw an object 
  or person with purpose. For those instances, use 
  the following rules.
  Knockback: When you decided to purposefully 
  knock an opponent back, you forego doing damage in 
  exchange for getting your opponent out of your face. 
  There are two measurements you use for knockback, 
  one for normal strength and one for super-strength.
  For normal strength, each Shift of damage you would 
  have done instead translates into feet of knockback. 
  So, if you achieved 3-Shifts on your attack roll, you 
  instead knock your opponent back three feet.
  For super-strength, the formula is the same, except 
  you send your opponent flying back a number of 
  zones equal to your Shift.
  If your attack normally has a Weapon Rating 
  associated with it, you automatically do the Weapon 
  Rating in damage and cannot reduce it for additional 
  knockback without the appropriate special effect.
  Throwing: Throwing is similar to knockback, but 
  requires a roll of its own. Look at the benchmark lifting 
  chart that applies to your strength level (normal or 
  super-strength). The weight of the object determines 
  the difficulty to lift it and throw it. Assuming you made 
  the roll to lift the object, you can then throw the object 
  one zone for every Shift gained on the lifting roll for 
  normal strength, and one zone for each Shift achieved 
  on the roll for super-strength.
  Character super-strength throwing a weight from the 
  normal benchmark chart is more of a narrative flavor 
  as to how far they can throw it. It’s not uncommon for 
  immensely strong characters in comic books to be able 
  to throw lighter objects dozens of miles, or even into orbit.
  
  175
  Being knocked into objects: When you knockback 
  or throw a person into another object, compare their 
  Physique to the Material Strength of the object. If the 
  character’s Physique is higher, they burst through and 
  continue moving. If the Material Strength is higher, 
  they suffer an immediate Create an Advantage by the 
  object. Because this is directly against the character, 
  they can Defend normally.
  The skill rating of the action is the difference between 
  the character’s Physique and the Material Strength, 
  and the Defend roll is made with Physique.
  If the character has Invulnerability, add the 
  power levels of Invulnerability to Physique when 
  determining if the character breaks through the 
  object. Invulnerability also provides a bonus to the 
  Defend roll against the Create an Advantage action 
  from a sudden stop as normal. The bonus is equal to 
  half the Invulnerability, rounded up.
  If the Create an Advantage action succeeded, an 
  aspect or boost is placed on the character such as 
  Winded, Dazed, or Staggered. Any free invokes are 
  not used by the object, but are used by the character’s 
  opponent(s). The character can remove the aspect 
  by rolling Physique against opposition equal to the 
  number of Shifts the action received.
  Scenery as Weapons
  Super-beings are always using the scenery as an 
  impromptu weapon in comic books. Whenever a 
  character tries to use the scenery (a tree, streetlight, 
  car, dumpster, and so forth) as a weapon, as long as 
  the character can lift the object, they can use it to 
  strike their opponent.
  Using scenery is not a be-all of a conflict. In comic 
  books, the landscape is typically used to provide a 
  conceit for how a super-strong character can attack 
  multiple foes at once (such as with a street light) or 
  how a melee-based character can make an attack at 
  a range (throwing an armored truck at someone).
  Normally, such objects are considered situation 
  aspects. You could be fighting on a City Street or 
  be standing next to a Gas Tanker. Invoking such 
  aspects provides the narrative for using the street 
  light to sweep your opponents, or two throw the gas 
  tanker across the zone to attack someone.
  You can also spend a fate point to immediately add 
  such an aspect as a story element, but you don’t get 
  any free invocations of it.
  Using an object for a sweep maneuver gets you the 
  normal +2 bonus if you actually invoke it (but you 
  don’t have to), and uses the normal rules for attacking 
  multiple foes. You make the attack roll and split your 
  result against your opponents, which they defend 
  against normally. If you attempt to cause knockback 
  with such an improvised melee weapon, you knock 
  your target back an additional zone.
  When throwing a heavy object at your opponent, 
  make an Attack roll as normal. Take the general 
  weight category of the object from the Super-Strength 
  benchmark table, and divide it in half (round up). That 
  is the Weapon Rating of the object. The object’s 
  Weapon Rating does not stack with any you get from 
  Super-Strength or other powers, but you do get to 
  use the greater Weapon Rating of the two.
  As already stated, the idea is that using the scenery 
  primarily provides a narrative element for attacking 
  several targets at once or using your super-strength 
  at range. It also provides the GM a chance to place 
  more situation aspects in place (see: Detonating 
  Situation Aspects) as a result of your move. Scenery 
  isn’t meant to be the end-all of super-powered 
  combats, and rarely serve as such in comic books. 
  Otherwise, the average super-hero setting would be 
  an apocalyptic wasteland in a short time, as every 
  super-strength adversary suddenly used all available 
  cars and buildings as weapons.
  Special Situations
  Just as combat tactics spice up any battle between 
  super-opponents, situations often arise in which 
  further complicate matters for the characters. An 
  opponent might be hiding behind cover, using the 
  cover of darkness to try to get away, or causing 
  something highly flammable to explode and endanger 
  innocent lives.
  The special situation rules explain how to use the 
  more common types of complications in your own 
  super-powered conflicts.
  Blind/Deaf
  Being rendered blind is different than being placed in 
  absolute darkness with something like the Darkness 
  Control power. While the power provides a situation 
  aspects that can be invoked for a bonus or reroll, 
  typically characters can also act and react normally. 
  That is especially true if they have something like 
  thermal vision or Darkvision.
  
  176
  When you render a character blind, however, and 
  place a Blinded aspect on them (which they can 
  Defend against normally), you are literally shutting 
  down their vision. Not only can you invoke or compel 
  the aspect against them, but they are also incapable 
  of any actions that require sight until they remove the 
  aspect. Removing the aspect requires a roll against 
  passive opposition equal to the number of Shifts you 
  received when placing the aspect. Being blinded 
  renders all vision useless, including super-powers 
  such as thermal vision or Darkvision.
  Characters temporarily made deaf suffer the same basic 
  effect, except it completely shuts down their hearing 
  and prevents any hearing related actions, including 
  non-telepathic communication with teammates. 
  Breaking Things
  To break an object, either through a melee attack or 
  with a ranged attack, roll against opposition equal 
  to the material strength of the object. The material 
  strength is reduced by 1 per Weapon Rating and 
  Shift. Once the material strength is reduced below 
  zero, the object is either destroyed or has a hole 
  large enough to pass through, which ever makes 
  sense for the object.
  Unlike a normal Overcome action, the character 
  cannot succeed at a cost if the Physique roll fails, and 
  only reduces the Material Strength by the Weapon 
  Rating on a tie.
  Cold and Heat
  Once temperatures reach below –40 degrees 
  Fahrenheit or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 
  characters run the risk of suffering ill-effects from 
  the heat or cold.
  Every hour a character is exposed to extreme cold 
  or heat without adequate protective measures 
  (such as insulated clothing or plenty of water), he 
  is suffers an attack from a skill rating of Fair (+2) 
  against his Physique, and any damage suffered 
  cause Consequences, not Stress. Invulnerability 
  is reduced by half (round up) for purposes of 
  negating the damage. 
  Cover
  Taking advantage of cover simply means invoking 
  an appropriate situation aspect such as Large 
  Crates or Corner of a Wall and for +2 (or a reroll) 
  to the Defend action.
  Crushing Damage
  Crushing damage means you are buried under a 
  heavy load, or perhaps even at the bottom of the 
  ocean, and are suffering an attack every round from 
  the sheer weight.
  Before you get buried, a situation aspect must 
  be placed on your character. Typically, this will be 
  something along the lines of Crushing Depths or 
  Toppled Wall. You can Defend against the aspect 
  normally. If you succeed, you’ve managed to avoid 
  being buried. 
  If you fail, then the fun begins (though likely not for 
  you). The GM will assign an Attack skill rating based 
  on the general weight pressing down on you, ranging 
  from Mediocre (+0) for several hundred pounds to a 
  small car, to Fantastic (+6) for several dozen tons. Bear 
  in mind that the Attack skill used will also depend on 
  whether or not the character in invulnerable, super-
  strong, and so forth. For example, against a normal 
  street vigilante with costume-armor, a Fantastic (+6) 
  weight might represent the equivalent of a ton or two 
  of rubble, whereas for an invulnerable super-strong 
  character, that same attack skill might represent 
  several hundred tons pressing down on top of him.
  To break free, the buried character must succeed at a 
  Physique roll against passive opposition equal to the 
  Attack skill rating. This roll can succeed at a cost as 
  with an Overcome action. Since this is meant to be 
  abstract, blasting through the rubble (or whatever it is) 
  works under the same Overcome action. Whatever is 
  burying the character isn’t treated the same as trying 
  to burst through a standing wall or other obstacle.
  For oceanic pressures, treat the Overcome action as 
  the same: physique versus the attack skill rating as 
  passive opposition. The difference is in the narrative— 
  the character is attempting to swim against the 
  pressure to the surface instead of pushing the rubble 
  aside enough to crawl out.
  Likewise, each round whatever is burying the character 
  makes an attack roll, defended by Physique.
  Darkness
  Darkness typically does not attack, but is instead 
  treated as a situation aspect which can be invoked 
  for a +2 to an action, particularly Attack or Defend 
  actions, representing your character taking advantage 
  of the conditions.
  
  177
  Detonating Situation 
  Aspects
  Some situation aspects imply destructibility or finite 
  use, such as Gas Tanker or Ruptured Gas Main. 
  They can have an effect on the narrative but not 
  necessarily a mechanical effect. 
  When a player detonates a situation aspect, he 
  declares his intent to do so and explains how he’s 
  using that aspect such that no one will be able to use 
  it again. If he can do this to everyone’s satisfaction, 
  he gets to invoke the aspect 
  once for free.
  Once he’s done invoking the 
  aspect, it goes away and 
  the situation changes for the 
  worse —or at least the more 
  dangerous. 
  Detonating 
  an 
  aspect creates a new situation 
  aspect, which represents how 
  the old aspect was destroyed, 
  and how it wrecked things. 
  That last bit is the key— it has 
  to wreck things, to complicate 
  things. It’s not fair to detonate 
  that Gas Tanker and replace 
  it with something boring like 
  Hole in the Street. Replace 
  it with something big and 
  flashy and destructive, like 
  The Nearby Buildings are on 
  Fire! or Buildings Collapsing 
  Toward Civilians!. The new 
  situation aspect must always 
  make things more tenuous for 
  everyone, and should always 
  be an imminent threat.
  Disease and 
  Poison
  When creating a disease or 
  poison, assign it a strength, 
  generally from Mediocre (+0) 
  to Fantastic (+6). The rating 
  serves as the Attack skill, 
  which is usually opposed by 
  the victim’s Physique.
  To 
  infect 
  someone, 
  roll 
  the Attack rating against 
  the 
  target’s 
  Physique. 
  If 
  successful, 
  the 
  target 
  is 
  infected with the disease or poison and starts 
  taking damage. Although damage typically causes 
  Stress, particularly lethal diseases and poisons 
  bypass Stress and cause direct Consequences.
  A disease might attack a victim once a day, whereas 
  a poison might attack every hour or sooner. The 
  time between each attack on the victim’s body is 
  determined by the GM, but for specifically character-
  crafted diseases and poisons, options found in 
  the Gadgets and Inventions chapter allow you to 
  customize your biological weapons.
  
  178
  Drowning/Suffocation
  A character can hold their breath for a number of 
  minutes equal to their Physique +1. After that time, 
  unless the character can draw breath and get oxygen 
  back into the bloodstream, they suffer an attack 
  against their Physique beginning at Mediocre (+0) 
  attack skill and increasing one step on the ladder each 
  round. Invulnerability does not negate the damage.
  Explosions
  An explosion typically covers an entire zone or more, 
  and attacks everyone within the zone. It’s basically 
  considered an Area Effect attack, and does not split 
  its attack result between targets. Each and every 
  target defends against the full attack roll. 
  Falling
  It’s common in role-playing games to have hard rules 
  for taking damage from falling. Let’s face it, though, 
  in comic books the heroes or villains going SPLAT! is 
  hardly a staple of the story. Well, unless a character 
  falling to their death is meant as part of the story, in 
  which case it is either a significant scene, or the actual 
  landing happens off-camera and whether or not the 
  character is really dead, or will dramatically return 
  at a later time, is always the question. Otherwise, 
  the heroes tend to snag that grappling line onto 
  something at the last minute and take some Stress 
  or a Minor Consequence, or a flying ally swoops in to 
  catch them at the last second.
  Generally speaking, falling heroes should be given 
  a solid chance of avoiding the sudden stop of a 
  hard, life ending landing— whether through the 
  trusty Swingline or a flying teammate. Sure, make it 
  dramatic, but always remember that Daring Comics is 
  here to emulate comic books, not simulate reality. So, 
  our apologies to all those comic book forum posters 
  who like to bring the laws of science into comic book 
  debates— the two do not mix in this game.
  However, if you really want to deal with numbers for 
  falling, use the following guidelines. Assign the fall 
  an attack skill ranging from Average (+1)) for falling 
  from a tall building, to Fantastic (+6) for falling from 
  a very high flying aircraft. The fall makes an attack at 
  the time of landing against the character’s Physique, 
  and Invulnerability negates damage as normal. If you 
  really want to make falling dangerous, also give the 
  fall a Weapon Rating equal to the skill rating, allowing 
  it to deal damage in excess of any Shifts achieved on 
  the attack roll.
  Fire
  Typically, fire is treated as a situation aspect, such 
  as Burning Room or the ever popular On Fire. 
  Characters can invoke the aspect and typically use it 
  for bonuses to attack or defense rolls as a means of 
  complicating things for their opponents.
  Fire can also be a living, raging thing that can not 
  only attack the heroes, but also use it’s skill for 
  Create an Advantage actions such as Thick Smoke 
  or Weakening Floor.
  A fire’s attack skill should be rated from Mediocre (+0) 
  for simple bonfires all the way to Fantastic (+6) for a 
  raging inferno.
  If you want the fire to take damage, give it two Stress 
  boxes and then treat its skill rating as though it were 
  Physique, granting it additional Stress and a Mild 
  Consequence slot as appropriate.
  General Environmental 
  Hazards
  Although we gave fire its own entry, basically any 
  environmental hazard could be handled the same way, 
  whether it is a corrosive atmosphere, poisonous gas 
  pumped through the ventilation system, or cryogenic 
  freezing temperatures. Assign it a skill rating from 
  Mediocre (+0) to Fantastic (+6), which it can use to 
  both attack the heroes and create situation aspects.
  Same as with fire, if you want the hazard to be 
  able to take damage, give it two Stress boxes 
  and then treat its skill rating as though it were 
  Physique, granting it additional Stress and a Mild 
  Consequence slot as appropriate.
  Gravity
  When dealing with scenes taking place in different 
  gravity than Earth’s, use the following guidelines when 
  it comes time to drive the point home in the narrative.
  For low gravity environments, create a situation aspect 
  representing the lower gravity. The aspect stays in place 
  as long as the characters remain in the scene, and the 
  normal free invocations for creating an aspect apply.
  For high gravity, assign the gravity a rating. Generally, 
  look at it as being 1/2 again earth’s gravity equal’s 
  one step on the ladder. So, an environment that is 
  1.5x Earth’s gravity has a rating of Average (+1), a 
  place with twice Earth’s gravity has a rating of Fair 
  (+2), possessing 2.5x Earth’s gravity is Good (+3) 
  rating, and so forth.
  
  179
  Whenever character attempt a physical action, 
  including Attack and Defend, passive opposition or 
  any opposed rolls against them suffers a bonus equal 
  to the gravity rating.
  Starvation, Thirst, 
  and Lack of Sleep
  Like with falling, it isn’t a common thing in super-hero 
  comics for the characters to be debilitated by hunger, 
  thirst, or lack of sleep. On the occasions where it can 
  come into play and affect the character, give them a 
  Minor Consequence representing whatever problem 
  it causes. Like with any Consequence, the character 
  can invoke it to their benefit if they can find a creative 
  reason to do so, but generally speaking it is going to 
  be invoked or compelled against them.
  The Consequence stays until they do something to 
  eliminate the condition— in other words: eat, drink 
  enough fluid, or get some rest. 
  Whether or not the Regeneration power heals the 
  Consequence is really up to your group. In some 
  instances, the power might be able to keep the 
  character going longer, but more than likely even it 
  is going to fail to help as the character’s body finally 
  goes into shutdown mode.
  Underwater Movement
  Unless a character possess an ability that lets 
  him swim naturally (such as the Aquatic power), 
  a character cannot move more than one zone for 
  free when swimming.
  Challenges
  A single overcome action is sufficient to deal with a 
  straightforward goal or obstacle—the hero needs to 
  pick this lock, disarm this bomb, sift out a vital piece 
  of information, and so on. It’s also useful when the 
  details of how something gets done aren’t important 
  or worth spending an intense amount of time on, when 
  what you need to know is whether the character can 
  get something done without any setbacks or costs.
  Sometimes, however, things get complicated. It’s 
  not enough to pick the lock, because you also have 
  to hold off the hordes of attacking zombies and set 
  up the magical ward that’s going to keep pursuers 
  off your back. It’s not enough to disarm the bomb, 
  because you also have to land the crashing blimp and 
  keep the unconscious scientist you’re rescuing from 
  getting hurt in said landing.
  A challenge is a series of overcome actions that you 
  use to resolve an especially complicated or dynamic 
  situation. Each overcome action uses a different skill 
  to deal with one task or part of the situation, and you 
  take the individual results as a whole to figure out 
  how the situation resolves.
  GMs, when you’re trying to figure out if it’s 
  appropriate to call for a challenge, ask yourself the 
  following questions:
  • Is each separate task something that can 
  generate tension and drama independently of 
  the other tasks? If all the tasks are really part 
  of the same overall goal, like “detaching the 
  detonator,” “stopping the timer”, and “disposing 
  of the explosive material” when you’re disarming 
  a bomb, then that should be one overcome 
  action, where you use those details to explain 
  what happened if the roll goes wrong.
  • Does the situation require different skills to 
  deal with? Holding off the zombies (Fight) while 
  pushing down a barricade (Physique) and fixing 
  your broken wagon (Crafts) so that you can get 
  away would be a good instance for a challenge.
  To set up a challenge, simply identify the individual 
  tasks or goals that make up the situation, and treat 
  each one as a separate overcome roll. (Sometimes, 
  only a certain sequence for the rolls will make sense 
  to you; that’s okay too.) Depending on the situation, 
  one character may be required to make several rolls, 
  or multiple characters may be able to participate.
  Several days after the Necroleans invaded 
  earth with their necrotic biotechnology and 
  turned a majority of the population into zombie 
  like shock troops, Barrage is working with what 
  remains of the military to direct a counter-
  attack against one of the aliens’ nearby, newly 
  constructed, supply depots. Meanwhile, she 
  discovers an alien bomb planted near the 
  survivor outpost, and has to disarm it while 
  keeping the citizens calm.
  Mike decides that several skills are going to 
  come into play. First will be Leadership, to 
  effectively direct the remaining, ragtag military 
  forces. Next will be Technology to successfully 
  disarm the bomb. And finally will be Rapport, 
  which Keirdwyn will use to see if Barrage can 
  keep the survivors from going into a rout.
  To conduct a challenge, call for each overcome action 
  in whichever order seems most interesting, but don’t 
  
  180
  decide anything about how the situation turns out 
  until after you’ve collected all the results—you want 
  to have the freedom to sequence the events of each 
  roll in the order that makes the most sense and is the 
  most entertaining. Players, if you get a boost on one 
  of your rolls, feel free to use it on another roll in the 
  challenge, provided you can justify it.
  GMs, after the rolls have been made, you’ll consider 
  the successes, failures, and costs of each action as 
  you interpret how the scene proceeds. It could be that 
  the results lead you into another challenge, a contest, 
  or even a conflict.
  Mike sets the opposition for the Overcome 
  actions at Good (+3). He figures the 
  remaining military is no longer all that 
  coordinated, and aren’t possessing the best 
  morale, since pretty much the entire planet, 
  including their brothers-in-arms, have been 
  turned into zombies.
  Keirdwyn picks up the dice, and rolls against 
  her Fair (+2) Leadership first. She gets a 
  phenomenal +1 on the dice, for a Good (+3) total. 
  She ties with the opposition, so succeeds but 
  at a minor cost. She and Mike discuss it briefly, 
  and decide that Necrolean reinforcements will 
  be arriving within five minutes.
  Next, she rolls her Superb (+5) Technology to 
  disarm the alien bomb. This time she rolls +3 
  on the dice, for Legendary (+8) result. That’s a 
  success with style, so she not only disarms the 
  bomb, but gets a boost. She calls the boost 
  Better Understanding of Necrolean Tech.
  Finally, she rolls her Fair (+2) Rapport, rolls –1 
  on the dice, and gets an Average (+1) result. 
  That’s a failure, but Mike lets her succeed 
  at a minor cost. She stops the citizens of 
  panicking, but unfortunately, the reverse of 
  what she wanted happens. Inspired, they race 
  off with makeshift weapons to help the military 
  unit and the newly constructed supply depot. 
  That means that the citizens will be on location 
  when the Necrolean forces arrive, putting a 
  massive amount of lives in danger.
  But that’s for the next scene to handle.
  If you have any boosts that went unused in the challenge, 
  feel free to keep them for the rest of this scene or 
  whatever scene you’re transitioning to, if the events of 
  the challenge connect directly to the next scene.
  Advantages in a Challenge
  You can try to create an advantage during a challenge, 
  for yourself or to help someone else out. Creating an 
  advantage doesn’t count towards completing one of 
  the challenge goals, but failing the roll could create a 
  cost or problem that negatively impacts one of the other 
  goals. Be careful using this tactic; advantages can help 
  complete tasks more effectively and create momentum, 
  but trying to create them is not without risk.
  Attacks in a Challenge
  Because you’re always up against passive opposition 
  in a challenge, you’ll never use the attack action. If 
  you’re in a situation where it seems reasonable to roll 
  an attack, you should start setting up for a conflict.
  Contests
  Whenever two or more characters have mutually 
  exclusive goals, but they aren’t trying to harm each 
  other directly, they’re in a contest. Arm wrestling 
  matches, races or other sports competitions, and 
  public debates are all good examples of contests.
  GMs, answer the following questions when you’re 
  setting up a contest:
  • What are the “sides”? Is every character in the 
  contest in it for herself, or are there groups of 
  people opposing other groups? If you have 
  multiple characters on a side, they roll together 
  using the Teamwork rules.
  • What environment does the contest take place 
  in? Are there any significant or notable features 
  of that environment you want to define as 
  situation aspects?
  • How are the participants opposing each other? 
  Are they rolling against each other directly 
  (like in a straight sprint race or a poker match), 
  or are they trying to overcome something in 
  the environment (like an obstacle course or a 
  panel of judges)?
  • What skills are appropriate for this contest? 
  Does everyone have to roll the same one, or 
  do several apply?
  Barrage is attempting to disarm another 
  Necrolean bioweapon, this one capable of 
  unleashing a lethal nerve toxin over an entire 
  area that is deadly to humans. The weapon 
  was launched from space, crashed into the 
  center of the survivor encampment, and is 
  embedded in the street.
  
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  The bioweapon is controlled by a nearby 
  Necromind— the Necrolean cast of psychics 
  with power over the form of nanotechnology 
  the alien race uses. The Necromind is on a 
  hovering sled type vehicle that is surrounded 
  by a forcefield the heroine has been unable to 
  penetrate. Time is running out, so she decides 
  to instead focus on shutting down the weapon 
  before it’s fully activated.
  Mike decides that Barrage will use her 
  Technology skill, while the Necromind uses 
  its Mental skill to facilitate the telepathic 
  powering-up and activation of the weapon.
  Now you can get started.
  A contest proceeds in a series of exchanges. In an 
  exchange, every participant gets to make one skill 
  roll to determine how well they do in that leg of the 
  contest. This is basically an overcome action.
  Players, when you make a contest roll, compare your 
  result to everyone else’s.
  • If you got the highest result, you win the 
  exchange. If you’re rolling directly against the 
  other participants, then that means you got 
  the highest rank on the ladder out of everyone. 
  If you’re all rolling against something in the 
  environment, it means you got the most shifts 
  out of everyone.
  Winning the exchange means you score a victory 
  (which you can just represent with a tally mark or 
  check mark on scratch paper) and describe how you 
  take the lead.
  • If you succeed with style and no one else does, 
  then you get to mark two victories.
  • If there’s a tie for the highest result, no one 
  gets a victory, and an unexpected twist occurs. 
  This could mean several things depending on 
  the situation: the terrain or environment shifts 
  somehow, the parameters of the contest change, 
  or an unanticipated variable shows up and 
  affects all the participants. GMs, you should 
  create a new situation aspect reflecting this 
  change.
  • The first participant to achieve three victories 
  wins the contest.
  Barrage has Technology at Superb (+5) and this 
  particular Necromind has Mental at Great (+4).
  In the first exchange, Barrage rolls well and 
  gets a total of Epic (+7). The Necromind only 
  gets a Fantastic (+6) total, so Barrage wins. 
  Keirdwyn marks down one tally. She describes 
  The next exchange, Barrage doesn’t do as 
  well. She rolls –3 on the dice for a Fair (+2 
  total). The Necromind rolls a zero, for a Superb 
  (+5) total. He gets a success with style, and 
  Mike marks two tallies for the victory. He 
  narrates how a low vibration comes from the 
  weapon, that increases in intensity as the 
  things begins powering-up.
  The next exchange, Barrage gets a zero for 
  a Superb (+5) total, and the Necromind ties. 
  Neither wins, but Mike narrates how a small 
  unit of Necrolean sky-sleds have arrived, 
  and the soldiers within the encampment are 
  engaging them in battle. He places an aspect 
  on the scene called Distracting Battle.
  The fourth exchange sees the Necromind 
  roll a +2 for a total of Fantastic (+6). Barrage 
  also rolls a +2, for an Epic (+7) total. She 
  doesn’t want just a single tally, and wants 
  to end this confrontation now. Keirdwyn 
  spends a fate point to invoke the new scene 
  aspect Distracting Battle, explaining how the 
  Necromind’s are tapped into the Necrolean 
  soldiers as well, as the ensuing battle is 
  causing it to lose overall focus.
  Mike agrees, and Keirdwyn adds +2 to her 
  roll, giving her a Monstrous (+9) result, and a 
  success with style. Keirdwyn marks two more 
  tallies for her victory, granting her three total, 
  and ending the conflict.
  Mike goes on to narrate how she disarms the 
  weapon, and the small Necrolean force is 
  sent into retreat.
  Creating Advantages 
  in a Contest
  During any exchange, you can try to create an 
  advantage before you make your contest roll. If you’re 
  targeting another participant, they get to defend 
  normally. If someone can interfere with your attempt, 
  they provide active opposition as normal.
  Doing this carries an additional risk—failing to create 
  an advantage means you forfeit your contest roll, 
  
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  which means there’s no way you can make progress 
  in the current exchange. If you at least tie, you get to 
  make your contest roll normally.
  If you’re providing a bonus via the Teamwork rules, 
  failing to create an advantage means the lead character 
  doesn’t benefit from your help this exchange.
  The survivor encampment is littered with 
  broken vehicles, dumpsters, and metal debris 
  of all types.
  Keirdwyn wants Barrage to use the Magnetic 
  Control power of her gauntlets to toss a storm 
  of small, metallic objects at the Necromind’s 
  sky-sled to cause a distraction. 
  She rolls her Technology of Superb (+5) to 
  activate her power (since she has a stunt that 
  allows her to use her Technology skill in place 
  of the Power skill when using her device based 
  powers). The Necromind, since its defense is 
  all about remaining focused, will use its Great 
  (+4) Will to defend.
  Keirdwyn rolls a +2 for an Epic (+7) result. 
  The Necromind rolls a –1 for a Good (+3) 
  result. Keirdwyn succeeds in placing a 
  Distracted aspect on the alien invader, and 
  can invoke it twice for free.
  Since she at least got a tie (and she actually 
  did a lot better than that), she also gets to 
  make her normal contest roll.
  Attacks in a Contest
  If someone tries to attack in a contest, then they’re 
  doing direct harm, and it ceases to be a contest. You 
  should immediately stop what you’re doing and start 
  setting up for a conflict instead.
  Chases
  Although not always part of a comic book story, 
  chases nonetheless have their place in super-hero 
  comic books. Whether it’s two speedsters, a vigilante 
  chasing a villain across rooftops, or a swinging hero 
  trying to stop a get-away vehicle, chases can play a 
  dramatic roll in any Daring Comics Issue.
  There are two ways to handle chases: the standard 
  method, which treats them as a Contest, and the in-
  depth method, which uses a Chase Stress track.
  Speed Rating
  Before we get into the two methods of dealing 
  with chases, let’s talk about Speed Rating. Daring 
  Comics divides different levels of speed into their 
  own rating, which helps emulate the different levels 
  of the Flight or Super-Speed powers, as well as 
  the difference between a character on foot and a 
  character in a speeding car.
  Whenever a chase is taking place between different 
  Speed Ratings, count the number of steps between 
  them. That is the bonus added to any relevant rolls 
  made by the greater of the Speed Ratings.
  A vigilante on foot is attempting to race across 
  the rooftops to pursue a speeding car through 
  the city streets. The vigilante has a Speed 
  Rating 1, while the car has a Speed Rating 3. 
  Whenever the driver of the car makes a roll 
  during the chase, he receives +2 bonus.
  Speed Rating 1: Foot
  Speed Rating 2: Bike/Horse
  Speed Rating 3: Car/Motorcycle
  Speed Rating 4: Helicopter, Small Plane
  Speed Rating 5: Jet, Escape Velocity
  Standard Chases
  This method is the quickest and easiest way of 
  handling a chase, and still maintains a dramatic 
  element. Treat the chase as a Contest, with the side 
  to first gain three victories having either caught the 
  person they were chasing, or lost their pursuer.
  In-Depth Cases
  This method takes a little longer to play, and also 
  maintains a lot of dramatic tension.
  To start, set up a stress track for the chase. This is 
  your timer for the scene. The fleeing party is trying to 
  empty the stress track, while the pursuers are trying 
  to fill it. The length of the stress track determines how 
  long the scene lasts, and where you start on the track 
  sets the difficulty of the escape.
  You first need to decide how long you want your 
  chase scene to go on. If you are looking for an 
  average-length scene, a stress track of 10 should 
  be the baseline. If you want to go less than 10, you 
  should probably make the chase a regular contest. 
  
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  If you want the chase to be longer or more involved, 
  add more stress. A 14-stress chase scene is a major 
  event in the session, and an 18 or 20 stress scene 
  could be the main focus of a whole session of play. 
  Setting how many stress boxes are already checked 
  off determines how close the pursuers are to catching 
  the fleeing group. Usually you are going to want the 
  stress to start right in the middle. You can make it 
  harder for the fleeing party to escape by setting the 
  stress closer to the top of the range, like 7 stress on 
  a 10-stress track. By the same token, you can make 
  the escape easier by setting the starting stress at a 
  lower level. It’s probably best to avoid this, unless the 
  player characters are the pursuing party. If the chase 
  is less complicated, just use a challenge or contest 
  instead of the chase stress track.
  Once you’ve got your stress track set, determine 
  who gets to go first. This can be a judgment call, 
  or it can be based on which individual character on 
  each side has the highest relevant skill. Each side 
  will take turns, so who starts has a slight advantage, 
  but that’s about it.
  In turn, each side makes skill rolls to attempt to 
  increase or diminish the stress track. This is an 
  Overcome action, and it can be opposed by either a 
  passive defense or, more likely, by an active opposition 
  from the other side in the chase. These actions can 
  be all sorts of things, and it’s most exciting if they 
  are varied and inventive. Vehicle rolls for vehicular 
  chases should describe how the character is dodging 
  through barriers or oncoming traffic, for example, and 
  Athletics for foot chases would be about how the 
  characters climb up on to the rooftops and parkour 
  across dangerous hazards. A variety of other skills 
  can come into play for different sorts of actions. You 
  can use Deceive to fake out your opponent, Fight 
  to knock someone down, Notice to spot hazards 
  and avoid them while allowing your opponent to get 
  entangled, Physique to knock obstacles into your 
  opponent’s way. If a player comes up with a good 
  action for just about any skill, you should allow it.
  • When making your roll, the outcome determines 
  what happens to the chase stress track.
  • If you fail, your opponent has the choice to either 
  create a boost that works against you, or to move 
  the stress track one check in their direction.
  • If you tie, you may choose to move the stress 
  track one check in your direction, but if you do 
  so, your opponent gains a +1 on their next roll.
  • If you succeed, you move the stress track one 
  check in your direction.
  • If you succeed with style, you get to move the 
  stress track two checks in your direction, or one 
  check and you gain a boost that you can use 
  against your opponent on your next roll.
  Each side takes turns making moves and rolling against 
  their skills, and make sure you apply any Speed factor 
  bonus if the relative speeds can apply to a given roll. 
  Keep the tension up with good descriptions, going 
  into detail about each move and its results. When 
  one side or the other has either eliminated or filled the 
  stress track, the chase is over. There’s either been a 
  capture (or the chase now becomes a Conflict as the 
  two sides fight for it), or an escape.
  
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  Chapter 13: Running Daring Comics
  like a good movie editor and say, “I think we’ve pretty 
  much milked this scene for all it’s worth. What do we 
  want to do next?”
  Emulation, Not Simulation.
  Daring Comics is designed to emulate 
  the comic book genre, not simulate reality. 
  Although some comic book titles, or new-
  direction storylines in already established 
  titles, have attempted to scientifically explain 
  some of the feats our favorite super-heroes 
  perform (and indeed, there has even been 
  a book or two on the topic), don’t get too 
  hampered by a sense of realism. This is 
  super-heroes: grand adventures by larger 
  than human beings. Focus on the characters, 
  the drama, and the action.
  That’s not to say that you can’t run games 
  where realism is a key ingredient like in some 
  select comic books. It’s your game, and 
  should be handled however you see fit. Just 
  remember that by design, Daring Comics 
  doesn’t worry about that type of realism, so 
  you might have to make rules adjustments.
  What You Do
  If you’re the gamemaster, then your job is a little different 
  from everyone else’s. This chapter is going to give you a 
  bunch of tools to make that job easier during play.
  We already talked a little bit about the GM’s job in 
  Chapter One: The Basics, but let’s take a more 
  detailed look at your unique responsibilities.
  Start and End Scenes
  One of your primary responsibilities during the game 
  is to decide definitively when a scene begins and 
  ends. This might not seem like that big a deal, but it 
  is, because it means that you’re the person primarily 
  responsible for the pacing of each game session. 
  If you start scenes too early, it takes a long time to 
  get to the main action. If you don’t end them soon 
  enough, then they drag on and it takes you a long 
  time to get anything done.
  The players will sometimes help you with this, if 
  they’re keen on getting to the next bit of action, but 
  sometimes they’ll naturally be inclined to spend too 
  much time bantering in character or focusing on 
  minutiae. When that happens, it’s your job to step in 
  
  185
  Play the World and the NPCs
  As the gamemaster, it’s your job to decide how 
  everyone and everything else in the world responds 
  to what the heroes do, as well as what their 
  environment is like. If a player botches a roll, you’re 
  the one who gets to decide the consequences. 
  When an NPC attempts to capture a hero’s friend, 
  you’re the one who gets to decide how they go 
  about it. When the heroes stroll up to a suspicious 
  group on the streets, you get to decide what kind of 
  day the group is having, what kind of personalities 
  they have, and whether they are friendly, suspicious, 
  nervous, or even aggressive. You even determine 
  the weather when the PCs are out on patrol.
  Fortunately, you don’t have to do this in a vacuum. 
  You have a lot of tools to help you decide what would 
  be appropriate. The process we outline in series 
  creation should provide you with a lot of context 
  about the game you’re running, whether that’s in the 
  form of aspects like current and impending issues, 
  specific locations that you might visit, or NPCs with 
  strong agendas that you can use.
  The heroes’ aspects also help you decide how to 
  make the world respond to them. As stated in the 
  Chapter Two: Aspects and Fate Points, the best 
  aspects have a double edge to them. You have a lot 
  of power to exploit that double edge by using event-
  based compels. That way, you kill two birds with one 
  stone— you add detail and surprise to your game 
  world, but you also keep the heroes at the center of 
  the story you’re telling.
  This facet of your job also means that when you have 
  NPCs in a scene, you speak for and make decisions 
  for them like the players do for their heroes. You 
  decide when they’re taking an action that requires 
  dice, and you follow the same rules the players do 
  for determining how that turns out. Your NPCs are 
  going to be a little different than the heroes, however, 
  depending on how important they are to the story.
  Let The Players Help You
  You don’t have to shoulder the whole 
  burden of making up world details yourself. 
  Remember, the more collaborative you get, 
  the more emotional investment the players 
  are going to have in the result, because they 
  shared in its creation.
  If a character has an aspect that connects 
  them to someone or something in the world, 
  make that player your resident “expert” on 
  whatever the aspect refers to. So if someone 
  has Worked for the Terenza Family, poll that 
  player for information whenever the Terenza 
  family comes up in conversation. Some players 
  will defer back to you, and that’s fine, but it’s 
  important that you keep making the offer so 
  as to foster a collaborative atmosphere.
  Also, one of the main uses of the create an 
  advantage action is precisely to give players 
  a way to add details to the world through their 
  characters. Use that to your advantage when 
  you draw a blank or simply want to delegate 
  more control. One good way to do this during 
  play is to answer the player’s question with a 
  question, if they ask for information.
  Judge the Use of the Rules
  It’s also your job to make most of the moment-to-
  moment decisions about what’s legit and what’s 
  not regarding the rules. Most often, you’re going to 
  decide when something in the game deserves a roll, 
  
  186
  what type of action that is (overcome, attack, etc.) 
  and how difficult that roll is. In conflicts, this can get a 
  little more complicated, like determining if a situation 
  aspect should force someone to make an overcome 
  action, or deciding whether or not a player can justify 
  a particular advantage they’re trying to create.
  You also judge the appropriateness of any invocations 
  or compels that come up during play, like we talked 
  about in the Chapter Two: Aspects and Fate Points, 
  and make sure that everyone at the table is clear on 
  what’s going on. With invocations, this is pretty easy— 
  as long as the player can explain why the aspect is 
  relevant, you’re good to go. With compels, it can get a 
  little more complicated, because you need to articulate 
  precisely what complication the player is agreeing to.
  We provide some more tips on judging the use of 
  rules below.
  You’re The Chairman, 
  Not God
  Approach your position as arbiter of the rules 
  by thinking of yourself as “first among equals” 
  in a committee, rather than as an absolute 
  authority. If there’s a disagreement on the use 
  of the rules, try encouraging a brief discussion 
  and let everyone talk freely, rather than making 
  a unilateral decision. A lot of times, you’ll find 
  that the group is self-policing. If someone tries 
  to throw out a compel that’s a real stretch, it’s 
  just as likely that another player will bring it up 
  before you do.
  Your job is really to have the “last word” 
  on any rules-related subject, rather than to 
  dictate from your chair. Keep that in mind.
  Create Story Arcs (and 
  Nearly Everything Else)
  Finally, you’re responsible for making all of the stuff 
  that the PCs encounter and react to in the game. That 
  not only includes NPCs with skills and aspects, but it 
  also includes the aspects on scenes, environments, 
  and objects, as well as the dilemmas and challenges 
  that make up a story of Daring Comics. You provide the 
  prompts that give your group a reason to play this game 
  to begin with— what problems they face, what issues 
  they have to resolve, whom they’re opposing, and what 
  they’ll have to go through in order to win the day.
  What To Do During 
  Series Creation
  As outlined in Series Creation, inventing or deciding 
  on a setting is often a collaborative effort between 
  you and your players. In that sense, the best thing 
  you can do as GM during the game-creation process 
  is to be open to new ideas and be generous with your 
  own, just like everyone else. Play off of and expand 
  upon the suggestions that the others offer up. Your 
  players will be more invested in the game if they feel 
  like they’ve had a hand in building it.
  What To Do During Play
  Now that you’ve gone through the process of 
  series creation with the players, let’s take a detailed 
  look at how to approach your various jobs during a 
  session of play.
  The Golden Rule
  Before we go into specifics, here’s our general 
  Golden Rule of Daring Comics: Decide what you’re 
  trying to accomplish first, then consult the rules to 
  help you do it.
  This might seem like common sense, but we call it 
  out because the order is important. In other words, 
  don’t look at the rules as a straitjacket or a hard 
  limit on an action. Instead, use them as a variety of 
  potential tools to model whatever you’re trying to do. 
  Your intent, whatever it is, always takes precedence 
  over the mechanics.
  Most of the time, the very definition of an action makes 
  this easy. Any time your intent is to harm someone, 
  you know that’s an attack. Any time you’re trying to 
  avoid harm, you know that’s a defense.
  But sometimes, you’re going to get into situations 
  where it’s not immediately clear what type of action 
  is the most appropriate. As a GM, don’t respond to 
  these situations by forbidding the action. Instead, try 
  to nail down a specific intent, in order to point more 
  clearly to one (or more) of the basic game actions.
  
  187
  Silver Rule
  The corollary to the Golden Rule is as follows: 
  Never let the rules get in the way of what 
  makes narrative sense. If you or the players 
  narrate something in the game and it makes 
  sense to apply a certain rule outside of the 
  normal circumstances where you would do 
  so, go ahead and do it.
  The most common example of this has to 
  do with consequences. The rules say that 
  by default, a consequence is something a 
  player chooses to take after getting hit by an 
  attack in a conflict.
  But say you’re in a scene where a player 
  decides that, as part of trying to intimidate 
  his way past someone, his hero is going to 
  punch through a brick wall with a bare fist.
  Everyone likes the idea and thinks it’s cool, 
  so no one’s interested in what happens if the 
  hero fails the roll. However, everyone agrees 
  that it also makes sense that the hero would 
  injure his hand in the process (which is part 
  of what makes it intimidating).
  It’s totally fine to assign a mild consequence 
  of Brick Mortar in My Hand in that case, 
  because it fits with the narration, even though 
  there’s no conflict and nothing technically 
  attacked the hero.
  As with the Golden Rule, make sure 
  everyone’s on the same page before you do 
  stuff like this.
  When to Roll Dice
  Roll the dice when succeeding or failing at the 
  action could each contribute something interesting 
  to the game.
  This is pretty easy to figure out in regards to success, 
  most of the time. The PCs overcome a significant 
  obstacle, win a conflict, or succeed at a goal, which 
  creates fodder for the next thing. With failure, however, 
  it’s a little more difficult, because it’s easy to look at 
  failure in strictly negative terms. You fail, you lose, you 
  don’t get what you want. If there’s nothing to build on 
  after that failure, play can grind to a halt in a hurry.
  The worst, worst thing you can do is have a failed roll that 
  means nothing happens—no new knowledge, no new 
  course of action to take, and no change in the situation. 
  That is totally boring, and it discourages players from 
  investing in failure— something you absolutely want 
  them to do, given how important compels and the 
  concession mechanic are. Do not do this.
  If you can’t imagine an interesting outcome from 
  both results, then don’t call for that roll. If failure is 
  the uninteresting option, just give the PCs what they 
  want and call for a roll later, when you can think of 
  an interesting failure. If success is the boring option, 
  then see if you can turn your idea for failure into a 
  compel instead, using that moment as an opportunity 
  to funnel fate points to the players.
  Situation Aspects 
  Are Your Friend
  When you’re trying to figure out if there’s 
  a good reason to ask the PCs to make 
  an overcome roll, look at the aspects on 
  your scene. If the existence of the aspect 
  suggests some trouble or problem for the 
  PC, call for an overcome roll. If not, and you 
  can’t think of an interesting consequence 
  for failure, don’t bother.
  For example, if a character is trying to 
  sprint quickly across a room, and you have 
  a situation aspect like Cluttered Floors, it 
  makes sense to ask for a roll before they 
  can move. If there is no such aspect, just 
  let them make the move and get on to 
  something more interesting.
  Making Failure Awesome
  If the PCs fail a roll in the game and you’re not 
  sure how to make that interesting, try one of the 
  following ideas.
  Blame the Circumstances
  The PCs are super-heroes. They aren’t supposed 
  to look like fools on a regular or even semi-regular 
  basis. Sometimes, all it takes is the right description 
  to make failure into something dynamic. Instead of 
  narrating that the PC just messed things up, blame 
  the failure on something that the PC couldn’t have 
  prevented. There’s a secondary mechanism on that 
  lock that initially looked simple (Thief), or the contact 
  broke his promise to show up on time (Contacts), or 
  a sudden seismic shift throws off your run (Athletics).
  
  188
  That way, the PCs still look awesome, even though 
  they don’t get what they want. More importantly, 
  shifting the blame to the circumstances gives you an 
  opportunity to suggest a new course of action, which 
  allows the failure to create forward momentum in 
  your story. The contact didn’t make his appointment? 
  Where is he? Who was following him to the 
  rendezvous? The ancient tome of the Cult of Nebecar 
  is withered? Maybe someone can restore it. That way, 
  you don’t spend time dwelling on the failure and can 
  move on to something new.
  Succeed at a Cost
  You can also offer to give the PCs what they want, but at 
  a price— in this case, the failed roll means they weren’t 
  able to achieve their goals without consequence.
  A minor cost should complicate the PC’s life. Like the 
  above suggestion, this focuses on using failure as a 
  means to change up the situation a bit, rather than just 
  negating whatever the PC wanted. Some suggestions:
  • Foreshadow some imminent peril. “You hack 
  into the corporate records for VanCorp, but 
  the back door tracing program immediately 
  logs your location.”
  • Introduce a new wrinkle. “The informant tells 
  you that the guy who typically knows where 
  to find the villain’s hideout is the same guy 
  you put in prison four months ago. The same 
  guy who managed to escape from his cell and 
  disappear last week.”
  • Present the player with a tough choice. “You 
  hold the collapsing ceiling long enough for two 
  of the others to get through safely, but not the 
  rest. Who’s it going to be?”
  • Place an aspect on the PC or the scene. 
  “Somehow you manage to land on your feet, but 
  with a Twisted Ankle as a souvenir.”
  • Give an NPC a Boost. “Jonathan Barludi, you 
  know, the millionaire businessman and also the 
  secretive head of his own crime family, surprises 
  you a bit by agreeing to your offer, but he does 
  so with a wry smile that makes you uneasy. 
  Clearly, Barludi Has A Plan.”
  • Check one of the PC’s stress boxes. Careful 
  with this one— it’s only a real cost if the PC’s 
  likely to take more hits in the same scene. 
  If you don’t think that’s going to happen, go 
  with another choice.
  A serious cost does more than complicate the PC’s 
  life or promise something worse to come— it takes a 
  serious and possibly irrevocable toll, right now.
  One way you can do this is by taking a minor cost 
  to the next level. Instead of suspecting that a guard 
  heard them open the vault, a few guards burst in the 
  room, weapons drawn. Instead of being merely cut off 
  from their allies by a collapsing ceiling, one or more 
  of those allies ends up buried in the debris. Instead 
  of merely having to face an awkward situation with 
  Berthold, he’s still angry and out for their blood.
  Other options could include:
  • Reinforce the opposition. You might clear one 
  of an NPC’s stress boxes, improve one of their 
  skills by one step for the scene, or give them a 
  new aspect with a free invocation.
  • Bring in new opposition or a new obstacle, such 
  as additional enemies or a situation aspect that 
  worsens the situation.
  • Delay success. The task at hand will take much 
  longer than expected.
  • Give the PC a consequence that follows logically 
  from the circumstances— mild if they have one 
  available, moderate if they don’t.
  If you’re stuck for just how serious a serious cost 
  should be, you may want to use the margin of failure 
  as a gauge. For instance, if the player failed their 
  Stealth roll by 1 or 2, the PCs outnumber the guards. 
  Not a tough fight, but a fight nonetheless. If they 
  failed it by 3 to 5, it’s an even match, one that’s likely 
  to use up resources like fate points or consequences. 
  But if they failed by 6 or more, they’re outnumbered 
  and in real danger.
  Let the Player Do the Work
  You can also kick the question back to the players, 
  and let them decide what the context of their own 
  failure is. This is a great move to foster a collaborative 
  spirit, and some players will be surprisingly eager 
  to hose their own characters in order to further the 
  story, especially if it means they can keep control of 
  their own portrayal.
  It’s also a great thing to do if you just plain can’t 
  think of anything. 
  “Okay, so, you failed that Technology roll by 2 to 
  break into the G.O.D. Lab building. So you’re working 
  the extremely advanced security lock, and something 
  goes wrong. What is it?” 
  
  189
  “You missed that Notice roll. What don’t you notice 
  as you’re sneaking up to the genetic research 
  laboratory doors” 
  It’s better if the question is specific, like those 
  examples. Just saying: “Okay, tell me how you fail!” 
  can easily stall things by putting a player on the spot 
  unnecessarily. You want to let the player do the work, 
  not make them.
  Setting Difficulties
  When you’re setting passive opposition for an action, 
  keep in mind the difficulty “break points” that we 
  mentioned in Actions and Outcomes— anything that’s 
  two or more steps above the PC’s skill is probably 
  going to cost them fate points, and anything that’s 
  two or more below the PC’s skill will be a breeze.
  Rather than “modeling the world” or going for 
  “realism,” try setting difficulties according to dramatic 
  necessity (remember, Daring Comics is about comic 
  book adventure emulation), things should generally 
  be more challenging when the stakes are high and 
  less challenging when they aren’t.
  Functionally, this is the same as setting a consistent 
  difficulty and assessing a circumstantial penalty to the 
  roll to reflect rushing the task or some other unfavorable 
  condition. But psychologically, the difference between 
  a high difficulty and a lower difficulty with a penalty 
  is vast and shouldn’t be underestimated. A player 
  facing a higher difficulty will often feel like they’re being 
  properly challenged, while that same player facing a 
  large penalty, likely chosen at the GM’s discretion, will 
  often feel discouraged by it.
  Setting a difficulty low is mainly about showcasing a 
  being a super-hero, letting them shine in a particular 
  moment and reminding us why this character is in the 
  spotlight. You can also set lower difficulties during 
  periods when you know the PCs are low on fate points, 
  giving them the chance to take compels in order to 
  get more. You should also set lower difficulties on 
  anything that’s in the way of the PC’s getting to the 
  main action of a scene—you don’t want them to get 
  stalled at the evil overlord’s drawbridge if the point of 
  the scene is confronting the evil overlord!
  Finally, some actions should take lower difficulties by 
  default, especially if no one’s contesting or resisting 
  them. Unopposed efforts to create advantages in a 
  conflict should never be harder than Average (+1) or 
  Fair (+2), and neither should attempts to put an aspect 
  on an object or location. Remember that opposition 
  doesn’t have to always take the form of an NPC 
  getting in the way—if the evil mastermind has hidden 
  the evidence in his lair and away from prying eyes, you 
  might consider that a form of opposition, even though 
  the mastermind might not be physically present.
  If the PCs are overflowing in fate points, or it’s a crucial 
  moment in the story when someone’s life is on the 
  line, or the fate of many is at stake, or they’re finally 
  going against foes that they’ve been building up to for 
  a scenario or two, feel free to raise difficulties across 
  the board. You should also raise difficulties to indicate 
  when a particular opponent is extremely prepared for 
  the PCs, or to reflect situations that aren’t ideal— if 
  the PC’s are not prepared, or don’t have the right 
  tools for the job, or are in a time crunch, et cetera.
  Setting the difficulty right at the PC’s skill level is, as 
  you might imagine, sort of a middle ground between 
  these two extremes. Do this when you want some 
  tension without turning things up to 11, or when the 
  odds are slightly in the PC’s favor but you want a 
  tangible element of risk.
  Justify Your Choices
  Your only other constraint in setting difficulties goes 
  back to the Silver Rule above— you need to make 
  sure that your choices make sense in the context of 
  the narrative you’re creating. If the only reason for 
  setting a difficulty at Superb (+5) is because it’s two 
  higher than the PC’s skill level and you want to bleed 
  his fate points off, you strain credibility.
  In that sense, you can look at setting difficulties as 
  being a lot like invoking aspects—there needs to be 
  a good reason that backs up your choice in the story. 
  It’s totally okay if that justification is something you’re 
  about to make up, rather than something you know 
  beforehand. Situation aspects are a great tool for 
  this— if the players already know that the warehouse 
  they’re in is Pitch Black and Littered with Old 
  Debris, it’s easy to justify why it’s so hard to notice 
  the thugs hiding within. No one will bat an eye at you 
  looking at the relevant situation aspects and giving a 
  +2 to the opposition for each one, because it mirrors 
  the invoke bonus they get.
  Either way, don’t skip the justification part— either let 
  the players know what it is immediately when you tell 
  them the difficulty, or shrug mysteriously and then let 
  them find out soon thereafter (as in, the time it takes 
  to think it up).
  You might also try using “out of place” difficulties 
  to indicate the presence of unanswered questions 
  during the game— for some odd reason, the apparent 
  
  190
  rundown building you’re trying to break into to seek 
  evidence has an Epic (+7) lock on the door. What could 
  be so important in there that you don’t know about?
  Dealing with 
  Extraordinary Success
  Sometimes, a PC is going to roll far in excess of the 
  difficulty, getting a lot of shifts on the roll. Some of the 
  basic actions already have a built-in effect for rolling 
  really well, like hitting harder on a good attack roll.
  For others, it’s not so clear. What’s happens when you 
  get a lot of shifts on a Notice roll or an Investigate roll? 
  You want to make sure those results have some kind 
  of meaning and reflect how competent the PC’s are.
  Here are a few choice options.
  • Go crazy with the narration: It might seem 
  superfluous, but it’s important to celebrate a 
  great roll with a suitable narration of over the 
  top success. This is a great time to take the 
  suggestions above for Making Failure Awesome 
  and applying them here. Let the success affect 
  something else, in addition to what the PC was 
  going for, and bring the player into the process 
  of selling it by prompting them to make up cool 
  details. “So you got five shifts on that Contacts 
  roll— tell me, where does Nicky No Nose usually 
  go when he’s keeping low from the police, and 
  what do you say when you find him there?”
  • Add an aspect: You can express additional 
  effects of a good roll by placing an aspect 
  on the PC or on the scene, essentially letting 
  them create an advantage for free. “So your 
  Contacts roll to contact your friends in the police 
  department succeeded with four shifts. They’re 
  going to arrive in the immediate area for backup, 
  but are going to let you call the shots.”
  • Reducing time: If it’s important to get something 
  done fast, then you can use extra shifts to 
  decrease the time that it takes to do an action.
  Dealing with Time
  We recognize two kinds of time in Daring Comics: 
  game time and story time.
  Game Time
  Game time is how we organize play in terms of the 
  real players sitting at the table. Each unit of game time 
  corresponds to a certain amount of real time. They are:
  • •Exchange: The amount of time it takes all 
  participants in a conflict to take a turn, which 
  includes doing an action and responding to any 
  action taken against them. This usually doesn’t 
  take longer than a few minutes.
  • Scene: The amount of time it takes to resolve a 
  conflict, deal with a single prominent situation, or 
  accomplish a goal. Scenes vary in length, from a 
  minute or two if it’s just a quick description and 
  some dialogue, to a half hour or more in the case 
  of a major set-piece battle against a main NPC.
  • Issue: The sum total of all the scenes you run 
  through in a single sitting. An issue ends when 
  you and your friends pack it up for the night and 
  go home. For most people, each issue is about 
  2 to 4 hours. A minor milestone usually occurs 
  after an issue.
  • Story arc: One or more issues, but usually no 
  more than four. Most of the time, the issues that 
  make up a story arc will definitively resolve some 
  kind of problem or dilemma presented by the GM, 
  or wrap up a storyline. A significant milestone 
  usually occurs at the end of a story arc. 
  • Volume: Several story-arcs, usually between 
  two and four. A story arc typically culminates in 
  an event that brings great change to the game 
  world, building up from the resolution of the 
  problems. You can look at volume like most 
  graphic novel collections in any of your favorite 
  comic book titles. You’re not always guaranteed 
  to have a recognizable arc like a published 
  volume (the nature of role-playing games being 
  different than the clean, precise structure of 
  writing a comic book storyline). It’s possible to 
  bounce from situation to situation without having 
  a defined plot structure. Major milestones usually 
  happen at the end of a Volume.
  • Series: The sum of all the time you’ve sat at 
  a table playing this particular game of Daring 
  Comics— every issue and volume. Technically, 
  there’s no upper limit to how long a series can 
  be. Some groups go for years; others get to the 
  end of a volume and then stop. We presume that 
  a typical group will go for a few volumes before 
  having a grand finale and moving on to another 
  game. You might set up your game as a kind of 
  mega-event series where there’s one massive 
  conflict that everything else is a smaller part of, 
  or it might simply consist of the smaller individual 
  stories that you tell in your scenarios.
  
  191
  Story Time
  Story time is what we call the time as the characters 
  perceive it, from the perspective of being in the story: 
  the amount of time it takes for them to accomplish 
  any of the stuff you and the players say that they 
  do during play. Most of the time, you’ll do this as 
  an afterthought, mentioning it in passing (“Okay, 
  so it takes you an hour to fly to the country of Pax 
  Wyvernia”) or mentioning it as part of a skill roll (“Cool, 
  so after 20 minutes of sweeping the room, you find 
  the following…”).
  Under most circumstances, story time has no actual 
  relation to real time. For example, a combat exchange 
  might take a few minutes to play out in real time, but it 
  only covers what happens in the first few seconds of a 
  conflict. Likewise, you can cover long swaths of time 
  simply by saying that it happens (“The contact takes 
  five hours to get back to you. Are you doing anything 
  while you wait, or can we just skip to the meeting?”). 
  When used this way, it’s really just a convenience, 
  a narrative device in order to add verisimilitude and 
  some consistency to your story.
  Sometimes, though, you can use story time in creative 
  ways to create tension and surprise during the game. 
  Deadline Pressure
  Nothing creates tension like a good deadline. In 
  television and film, this is called the ticking time 
  bomb method (though it doesn’t always indicate 
  a literal bomb). The heroes only have a certain 
  number of minutes to disable the death trap, or a 
  certain amount of time to get across the city before 
  something blows up, or a certain amount of time to 
  deliver the ransom before loved ones get aced by 
  the bad guys, and so on.
  Some of the game’s default actions are made to take 
  advantage of deadline pressure, such as challenges 
  or contests. They each limit the number of rolls that 
  a player can make before something happens, for 
  better or for worse.
  You don’t have to limit yourself to using just those 
  two, though. If you set a hard deadline for something 
  bad in one of your Issues, you can start keeping track 
  of the amount of time everything takes, and use it 
  as a way to keep the pressure on. Remember, nearly 
  everything takes time. Even a basic attempt to create 
  an advantage using Empathy requires you to sit with 
  the target for a little while, and if every action the PCs 
  are taking is chipping away at a clock, it may be time 
  they don’t have.
  Of course, it’d be no fun if there was nothing they could 
  do to improve a deadline situation, and it’d be no fun 
  if the crawl toward the deadline was predictable.
  Using Story Time in Success and Failure
  Therefore, when you’re using story time to 
  create deadline pressure, feel free to incorporate 
  unpredictable jumps in time when the PCs do really 
  well or really badly on a roll.
  Taking extra time is a great way to make failure 
  awesome as per the guidelines above, especially 
  using the “Success at a Cost” option. Give the players 
  exactly what they want, but at the cost of taking more 
  time than they were trying to spend, thus risking that 
  their efforts will come too late. Or it could be the thing 
  that pushes a deadline over the edge— maybe things 
  aren’t completely hopeless, but now there are extra 
  problems to deal with.
  Likewise, reward extreme success by reducing the 
  amount of time it takes to do something while the 
  PCs are under deadline. That laboratory research 
  (Knowledge) that was going to take a day gets 
  wrapped up in a few hours. While looking for a 
  certain underworld weapons dealer  (Contacts) to 
  get a line on the network so you can eventually 
  shut it down, you manage to find him that same 
  day rather than in a week.
  If time is a factor, you should also be able to use 
  invocations and compels to manipulate time, to make 
  things easier or more complicated respectively.
  How Much Time Is A Shift Worth?
  Just like with any other roll, the number of shifts 
  you get (or the amount you fail by) should serve 
  as a barometer for just how severe the time jump 
  is. So, how do you decide just how much to 
  award or penalize?
  It really depends on how much time you decide the 
  initial action is going to take. We usually express 
  time in two parts: a specific or abstract measure of 
  quantity, then a unit of time, such as “a few days,” 
  “twenty seconds,” “three weeks,” and so on.
  We recommend you measure in the abstract and 
  express all the game actions as half, one, a few, 
  or several of a given unit of time. So if you imagine 
  something taking six hours, think of it as “several 
  hours.” If you imagine something taking twenty 
  minutes, you can either call that “several minutes” or 
  round up to “half an hour”, whichever feels closest.
  
  192
  This gives you a starting point for moving up and 
  down. Each shift is worth one jump from wherever 
  your starting point is. So if your starting point is 
  “several hours,” and it benefits the PCs to speed 
  things up, then it works like this: one shift jumps the 
  time down to “a few hours,” two shifts down to “one 
  hour,” and three shifts down to “a half hour.”
  Going past either end of the spectrum moves you 
  down to several increments of the next unit of time 
  or up to half the next unit of time, depending on 
  which direction you’re going. So four shifts on the 
  aforementioned roll might jump you from “several 
  hours” to “several minutes.” Failing by one, 
  conversely, might jump you from “several hours” 
  to “half a day.”
  This allows you to quickly deal with time jumps 
  no matter where you’re starting from, whether 
  the actions you have in mind are going to take 
  moments or generations
  Story Time and the Scope of an Action
  It’s easy to think of most actions that a PC takes being 
  limited to anything that the character can directly 
  affect, and working on a “person-to-person” scope. 
  And most of the time, that’s going to be precisely the 
  case— after all, Daring Comics is about individual 
  super-heroes facing dramatic adversity.
  However, consider for a moment what might do with 
  all the time in the world to accomplish a particular 
  action. Imagine a month-long Rapport roll for a 
  negotiation with an Atlantean diplomatic to avoid 
  a war between the underwater kingdom and the 
  surface world, where the PC gets to talk with every 
  delegate in detail, rather than just focusing on a single 
  conference. Imagine a weeks-long investigation, 
  charting out every detail of a target’s personal routine.
  By allowing each roll to represent a long period of 
  time, you can “zoom out” to handle events that reach 
  far beyond the individual player character making 
  the roll, and affect the setting in a big way. That 
  month-long Rapport roll might result in charting a 
  new political course between the two nations. That 
  Investigate roll might be the start of bringing in one of 
  the most notorious criminals in the setting, one that’s 
  been hounding the PCs for a whole campaign.
  This is a great way to make long breaks in story time 
  more interactive, rather than bogging the game down 
  with long narration or trying to retroactively come up 
  with what happened during that time. If the PCs have 
  long-term goals they want to accomplish, see if you 
  can find a way to turn that into a contest, challenge, or 
  conflict that covers the whole break, or just have them 
  make a single skill roll to see if something unexpected 
  happens. If they happen to fail the roll, whatever you 
  invent as a consequence will make good material for 
  the game going forward.
  Remember that if you do this with a conflict or a 
  contest, that you scale each exchange appropriately. 
  If a conflict is taking place over the course of a year, 
  then each exchange might be a month or two, and 
  everyone should describe their actions and the results 
  of their actions in that context.
  Zoom In, Zoom Out
  There’s no rule that says you’re required to keep 
  your rolls consistent in terms of story time. One trick 
  you can do is use the result of one roll to segue into 
  another roll that takes place over a much smaller 
  period in time, or vice versa. This is a great way 
  to open a new scene, contest, or conflict, or just 
  introduce a change of pace.
  Time Increments
  Sometimes, especially with particular powers, time 
  becomes more of a factor and specific Shifts on a roll 
  to use a power might state that the amount of time 
  it takes to perform a task moves up or down in Time 
  Increments. For those situations, the time increments 
  are listed below. 
  As GM, you’re also free to use the time increments as 
  a baseline for any story time that you might need to 
  keep track of, especially to help you out if you need 
  to ad hoc something and want to apply some extra 
  Shifts the player earned to it.
  
  193
  Time Increments
  Instant
  An Exchange
  Half a minute
  A Minute
  A Few Minutes
  15 Minutes
  Half an hour
  An Hour
  A few hours
  An Afternoon
  A day
  A few days
  A week
  A few weeks
  A month
  A few months
  A season
  Half a year
  A year
  A few years
  A Decade
  A lifetime or more
  Judging the Use of 
  Skills and Stunts
  By now, you pretty much have all the advice 
  you need to deal with skill and stunt use— the 
  individual descriptions in Skills and Stunts, the 
  action descriptions and examples in Challenges, 
  Contests, and Conflicts, and the advice immediately 
  above about setting difficulties and how to handle 
  success and failure.
  The only other major problem you’ll have to worry 
  about is when you run into an “edge case” with a skill. 
  A player wants to use it for an action that seems like a 
  bit of a stretch, or a situation comes up in your game 
  where it makes sense to use a skill for something 
  that’s not normally a part of its description.
  When you run into this, talk it over with the group 
  and see what everyone thinks. It’s going to end up 
  one of three ways:
  It’s too much of a stretch. Consider creating a new skill.
  It’s not a stretch, and anyone can use the skill that 
  way from now on under the same conditions.
  It wouldn’t be a stretch if the character had a stunt 
  that allowed it.
  If you decide that a certain use of a skill needs a stunt, 
  allow the player in question the chance to spend a 
  fate point to temporarily “borrow” that stunt for the 
  current roll if he or she wants. Then, if they want to 
  keep the bonus, they have to spend a point of refresh 
  to buy it (presuming they have any available), or wait 
  for a major milestone to pick it up.
  Aspects and Details: 
  Discovery vs. Creation
  From the player’s point of view, there’s almost no 
  way to know what you’ve made up beforehand and 
  what you’re inventing in the moment, especially if 
  you’re the kind of GM who doesn’t display or consult 
  any notes at the table. Thus, when a player tries to 
  discover something you haven’t made up yet, you 
  can treat it as if they were making a new aspect or 
  story detail. If they succeed, they find what they’re 
  looking for. If they fail, you can use what they were 
  looking for as inspiration to help you come up with 
  the real information.
  If you’re really comfortable with improvising, this 
  means that you can come to the table with very little 
  prepared beforehand, and let the players’ reactions 
  and questions build everything for you. You may need 
  to ask some prompting questions first, to narrow 
  down the scope of what information the player’s 
  looking for, but after that, the sky’s the limit.
  Affecting Multiple Targets
  Invariably, if you play Daring Comics long enough, 
  someone’s going to try to affect multiple people 
  at once in a conflict without the Area Effect ability. 
  Explosions are a staple of physical conflict, but are 
  by no means the only example— consider tear gas or 
  some kind of high-tech stunner. You can extend this 
  to mental conflict also. For example, you might use 
  
  194
  Provoke to establish dominance in a room with your 
  presence, or Rapport to make an inspirational speech 
  that affects everyone listening.
  The easiest way to do this is to create an advantage 
  on the scene, rather than on a specific target. A Gas-
  Filled Room has the potential to affect everyone in it, 
  and it’s not too much of a stretch to suggest that the 
  Inspirational Mood in a room could be contagious. 
  In this context, the aspect presents an excuse to 
  call for a skill roll (using the overcome action) from 
  anyone in the scene who attempts to get past it. 
  Generally speaking, it won’t cause damage, but it 
  will make things more difficult for those affected.
  Things get more complicated 
  when you want to filter specific 
  targets, rather than just affect a 
  whole zone or scene. When that 
  happens, divide your resulting 
  total up against every target, who 
  all get to defend as per normal. 
  Anyone who fails to defend either 
  takes stress or gains an aspect, 
  depending on what you were 
  trying to do. (Note: If you create 
  an advantage to put an aspect on 
  multiple targets, you do get a free 
  invocation for each one.)
  Attacking 
  a 
  whole 
  zone 
  or 
  everyone in a scene is something 
  you’re going to have to judge by 
  circumstance, like any other stretch 
  use of a skill. Depending on the 
  circumstances of your setting, this 
  might be a totally normal thing to 
  do (for example, because everyone 
  uses grenades and explosives), it 
  might be impossible, or it might 
  require a stunt. As long as you can 
  justify it, you don’t need to apply 
  any special rules:  you roll for the 
  attack, and everyone in the zone 
  defends as normal. Depending on 
  the circumstances, you may even 
  have to defend against your own 
  roll, if you’re in the same zone as 
  the attack!
  Remember, though, the 1-Point 
  Area 
  Attack 
  special 
  effect 
  in both the Powers and the 
  Devices and Gear chapters 
  takes all the guesswork and ad 
  hoc ruling off the table.
  Compels And 
  Multiple Targets
  Just a quick note: players who want to 
  compel their way out of a conflict don’t get 
  a free lunch on affecting multiple targets, 
  whether it’s one aspect or several that justify 
  the compel. A player must spend one fate 
  point for each target they wish to compel. 
  One fate point compels an individual, period.
  
  195
  Dealing with Aspects
  As with skills and stunts, the entire Aspects and Fate 
  Points chapter is designed to help you judge the use 
  of aspects in the game. As the GM, you have a very 
  important job in managing the flow of fate points to 
  and from the players, giving them opportunities to 
  spend freely in order to succeed and look awesome, 
  and bringing in potential complications to help keep 
  them stocked up on points.
  Invocations
  Because of that, we recommend that you don’t apply 
  extremely exacting standards when the PC wants to 
  invoke an aspect. You want them to spend in order 
  to keep the flow going, and if you’re too stringent on 
  your requirements, it’s going to discourage them from 
  that free spending.
  On the other hand, feel free to ask for more clarification 
  if you don’t get what a player is implying, in terms of 
  how the aspect relates to what’s happening in play. 
  Sometimes, what seems obvious to one person isn’t 
  to another, and you shouldn’t let the desire to toss fate 
  points lead to overlooking the narration. If a player is 
  having a hard time justifying the invocation, ask them to 
  elaborate on their action more or unpack their thoughts.
  You might also have the problem of players who get 
  lost in the open-ended nature of aspects— they don’t 
  invoke because they aren’t sure if it’s too much of a 
  stretch to apply an aspect in a certain way. The more 
  work you do beforehand making sure that everyone’s 
  clear on what an aspect means, the less you’ll run 
  into this. To get the player talking about invoking 
  aspects, always ask them whether or not they’re 
  satisfied with a skill roll result (“So, that’s a Great. You 
  want to leave it at that? Or do you want to be even 
  more awesome?”). Make it clear that invoking an 
  aspect is almost always an option on any roll, in order 
  to try and get them talking about the possibilities. 
  Eventually, once you get a consistent dialogue going, 
  things should smooth out.
  Compels
  During the game, you should look for opportunities to 
  compel the PCs’ aspects at the following times:
  • Whenever simply succeeding at a skill roll 
  would be bland
  • Whenever any player has one or no fate points
  • Whenever someone tries to do something, and 
  you immediately think of some aspect-related 
  way it could go wrong
  Remember that there are essentially two types 
  of compels in the game: decision-based, where 
  something complicated occurs as a result of 
  something a character does; and event-based, where 
  something complicated occurs simply as a result 
  of the character being in the wrong situation at the 
  wrong time.
  Of the two, you’re going to get the most mileage 
  out of event-based compels—it’s already your job to 
  decide how the world responds to the PCs, so you 
  have a lot of leeway to bring unfortunate coincidence 
  into their lives. Most of the time, players are just 
  going to accept you doing this without any problems 
  or minimal negotiation.
  Decision-based compels are a little trickier. Try to 
  refrain from suggesting decisions to the players, and 
  focus on responding to their decisions with potential 
  complications. It’s important that the players retain 
  their sense of autonomy over what their PCs say and 
  do, so you don’t want to dictate that to them. If the 
  players are roleplaying their characters according 
  to their aspects, it shouldn’t be hard to connect the 
  complications you propose to one of them.
  During play, you’ll also need to make clear when 
  a particular compel is “set”, meaning that there’s 
  no backing out without paying a fate point. When 
  players propose their own compels, this won’t come 
  up, because they’re fishing for the point to begin 
  with. When you propose them, you need to give the 
  players room to negotiate with you over what the 
  complication is, before you make a final decision. 
  Be transparent about this— let them know when the 
  negotiation phase has ended.
  Weak Compels
  In order for the compel mechanic to be effective, you 
  have to take care that you’re proposing complications 
  of sufficient dramatic weight. Stay away from 
  superficial consequences that don’t really affect the 
  character except to provide color for the scene. If 
  you can’t think of an immediate, tangible way that the 
  complication changes what’s going on in the game, 
  you probably need to turn up the heat. If someone 
  doesn’t go “oh crap” or give a similar visceral reaction, 
  you probably need to turn up the heat. It’s not good 
  enough for someone to be angry at the PC— they get 
  angry and they’re willing to do something about it in 
  front of everyone. It’s not good enough for a business 
  
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  partner to cut them off— he cuts them off and tells 
  the rest of his associates to blacklist them.
  Also, keep in mind that some players may tend to 
  offer weak compels when they’re fishing for fate 
  points, because they don’t really want to hose their 
  character that badly. Feel free to push for something 
  harder if their initial proposal doesn’t actually make 
  the situation that much more dramatic.
  Encouraging the Players to Compel
  With five aspects per PC, it’s prohibitively difficult for 
  you to take the sole responsibility for compels at the 
  table, because that’s a lot of stuff to remember and 
  keep track of. You need the players to be invested in 
  looking for moments to compel their own characters.
  Open-ended prompting can go a long way to create 
  this habit in your players. If you see an opportunity 
  for a potential compel, instead of proposing it 
  directly, ask a leading question instead. “So, you’re 
  at the political charity function, and the head of 
  the Terenza crime family is present (he’s also a 
  successful business owner and philanthropist). You 
  have Worked for the Terenza Crime Family as a 
  character aspect. Do you think this evening is going 
  to go smoothly for your character?” Let the player 
  do the work of coming up with the complication and 
  then pass the fate point along.
  Also remind the players that they can compel your 
  NPCs, if they happen to know one of that NPC’s 
  aspects. Do the same open-ended prompting when 
  you’re about to have an NPC make a decision, and 
  ask the players to fill in the blanks. 
  Your main goal should be to enlist the players as 
  partners in bringing the drama, rather than being 
  the sole provider.
  Creating The Opposition
  One of your most important jobs as a GM is creating 
  the NPCs who will oppose the PCs and try to 
  keep them from their goals during your scenarios. 
  The real story comes from what the PCs do when 
  worthy adversaries stand between them and their 
  objectives— how far they’re willing to go, what price 
  they’re willing to pay, and how they change as a result 
  of the experience.
  As a GM, you want to shoot for a balancing act 
  with the opposing NPCs— you want the players to 
  experience tension and uncertainty, but you don’t 
  want their defeat to be a foregone conclusion. You 
  want them to work for it, but you don’t want them 
  to lose hope.
  Take Only What You 
  Need to Survive
  First of all, keep in mind that you’re never obligated 
  to give any NPC a full sheet like the ones the PCs 
  have. Most of the time, you’re not going to need 
  to know that much information, because the NPCs 
  aren’t going to be the center of attention like the PCs 
  are. It’s better to focus on writing down exactly what 
  you need for that NPC’s encounter with the PCs, 
  and then fill in the blanks on the fly (just like PCs 
  can) if that NPC ends up becoming more important 
  in the campaign.
  The NPC Types
  NPCs come in three different flavors: nameless NPCs, 
  supporting NPCs, and main NPCs.
  Nameless NPCs
  The majority of the NPCs in your campaign world 
  are nameless—people who are so insignificant to 
  the story that the PCs interactions with them don’t 
  even require them to learn a name. The random 
  shopkeeper they pass on the street, the archivist at 
  the library, the third patron from the left at the bar, the 
  guards at the gate. Their role in the story is temporary 
  and fleeting—the PCs will probably encounter them 
  once and never see them again. In fact, most of the 
  time, you’ll create them simply out of reflex when you 
  describe an environment. “The downtown center is 
  busy. Thousands of people move in a congestion 
  along the sidewalk, and hundreds of cars face even 
  greater congestion on the street. Overhead, a low 
  flying news helicopter records the daily bustle.”
  On their own, nameless NPCs usually aren’t meant 
  to provide much of a challenge to the PCs. You use 
  them like you use a low-difficulty skill roll, mainly as 
  an opportunity to showcase the PCs’ competence. In 
  conflicts, they serve as a distraction or a delay, forcing 
  the PCs to work a little harder to get what they want. 
  Action-adventure stories often feature master villains 
  with an army of minions. These are the minions.
  For a nameless NPC, all you really need is two or three 
  skills based on their role in the scene. Your average 
  security guard might have Fight and Accuracy, while 
  your average informant might only have Contacts. 
  They never get more than one or two aspects, 
  
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  because they just aren’t important enough. They only 
  have one or two stress boxes, if any, to absorb both 
  physical and mental hits. In other words, they’re no 
  match for a typical PC.
  Nameless NPCs come in three varieties: Average, 
  Fair, and Good.
  Average
  • Competence: Rank-and-file order-takers, 
  local conscripts, and the like. When in doubt, a 
  nameless NPC is Average.
  • Purpose: Mostly there to make the PCs look 
  more awesome.
  • Aspects: One or two.
  • Skills: One or two Average (+1).
  • Stress: No stress boxes—a one shift hit is 
  enough to take them out.
  Fair
  • Competence: Trained professionals, like soldiers 
  and elite guards, or others whose role in the 
  scene speaks to their experience, such as a 
  sharp-tongued courtier or talented thief.
  • Purpose: Drain a few of the players’ resources 
  (one or two fate points, stress boxes, possibly a 
  mild consequence).
  • Aspects: One or two.
  • Skills: One Fair (+2), and one or two Average 
  (+1).
  • Stress: One stress box—a two shift hit is enough 
  to take them out.
  Good
  • Competence: Tough opposition, especially in 
  numbers.
  • Purpose: Drain the players’ resources—as Fair, 
  but more so. Provide a decent stumbling block 
  (in numbers) on the way to a more significant 
  encounter.
  • Aspects: One or two.
  • Skills: One Good (+3), one Fair (+2), and one or 
  two Average (+1).
  • Stress: Two stress boxes—a three shift hit is 
  enough to take them out.
  Mobs
  Whenever possible, identical nameless NPCs like to 
  form groups, or mobs. Not only does this better ensure 
  their survival, it reduces the workload on the GM. For 
  all intents and purposes, you can treat a mob as a 
  single unit— instead of rolling dice individually for each 
  of three thugs, just roll once for the whole mob.
  See the Teamwork section in the previous chapter 
  to see how mobs can concentrate their efforts to 
  be more effective.
  Hits and Overflow
  When a mob takes a hit, Shifts in excess of what’s 
  needed to take out one NPC are applied to the next 
  NPCs in the mob, one at a time. In this way, it’s 
  entirely possible for a PC to take out a mob of four or 
  five nameless NPCs (or more!) in a single exchange.
  When a mob takes enough stress to reduce it to a 
  single NPC, try to have that orphaned NPC join up 
  with another mob in the scene, if it makes sense. (If 
  it doesn’t, just have them flee. Nameless NPCs are 
  good at that.)
  Midnight Avenger and Wraith face-off against a 
  half-dozen thugs from the Terenza crime family 
  in the middle of an alley way in Liberty Heights. 
  These thugs are nameless NPCs with Notice 
  and Fight skills of Average (+1).
  Normally Midnight Avenger’s Fair (+2) Notice 
  would allow him to act first, but Mike reasons 
  that the thugs’ ability to surround the PCs 
  gives them the drop. In a big group of six, their 
  Average (+1) Notice is increased by +5 to a 
  Fantastic (+6).
  As they make their assault, Mike splits them 
  into two mobs of three: one for Midnight 
  Avenger and one for Wraith. Both attack with 
  Good (+3) ratings (Average Fight skill with +2 
  for the helpers), but neither mob hits.
  Midnight Avenger goes next. He extends his 
  fingernails into claws (the Melee Attack power) 
  and gets a Fantastic (+6) result with Fight 
  Mike’s first thug mob defends with a Good (+3), 
  so Midnight Avenger deals three shifts to the 
  mob— enough to take All three of them out.
  
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  Nameless NPCs as 
  Obstacles
  An even easier way to handle nameless NPCs is simply 
  to treat them as obstacles: Give a difficulty for the 
  PC to overcome whatever threat the NPC presents, 
  and just do it in one roll. You don’t even have to write 
  anything down, just set a difficulty according to the 
  guidelines in this chapter and Actions and Outcomes, 
  and assume that the PC gets past on a successful 
  roll.
  If the situation is more complicated than that, make 
  it a challenge instead. This trick is useful when you 
  want a group of nameless NPCs more as a feature of 
  the scene than as individuals. 
  NPC First, 
  Name Later
  Nameless NPCs don’t have to 
  remain nameless. If the players 
  decide to get to know that 
  barkeep or town crier or security 
  chief or whatever, go ahead 
  and make a real person out of 
  them—but that doesn’t mean 
  that you need to make them any 
  more mechanically complex. 
  If you want to, of course, go 
  ahead and promote them to a 
  supporting NPC. But otherwise, 
  simply giving that courtier a 
  name and a motivation doesn’t 
  mean he can’t go down in one 
  punch. 
  Supporting NPCs
  Supporting NPCs have proper 
  names and are a little more 
  detailed than nameless NPCs, 
  playing a supporting role in 
  your Issues (hence the name). 
  They often display some kind of 
  strong distinguishing trait that 
  sets them apart from the crowd, 
  because of their relationship 
  to a PC or NPC, a particular 
  competence or unique ability, 
  or simply the fact that they 
  tend to appear in the game a 
  great deal. Many comic books 
  feature a “lieutenant” character 
  who is the right-hand man of the mastermind; that’s 
  a supporting NPC in game terms. The faces that 
  you assign to the locations you make during game 
  creation are supporting NPCs, as are any characters 
  who are named in one of the PCs’ aspects.
  Supporting NPCs are a great source of interpersonal 
  drama, because they’re usually the people that the PCs 
  have a relationship with, such as friends, sidekicks, 
  family, contacts, and noteworthy opponents. While 
  they may never be central to resolving the main 
  dilemma of a scenario, they’re a significant part of 
  the journey, either because they provide aid, present 
  a problem, or figure into a subplot.
  Supporting NPCs are made much like nameless NPCs, 
  except they get to have a few more of the standard 
  character elements. These include a Concept, a 
  
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  Motivation, one or more additional aspects, one 
  stunt, and the standard two stress tracks with two 
  boxes each. They should have a handful of skills (say 
  four or five). If they have a skill that entitles them to 
  bonus stress boxes, award those as well. They have 
  one mild consequence and, if you want them to be 
  especially tough, one moderate consequence.
  • Skill Levels: A supporting NPC’s top skill can 
  exceed your best PC’s by one or two levels, 
  but only if their role in the game is to provide 
  serious opposition—supporting NPCs who are 
  allied with the PCs should be their rough peers 
  in skill level. (Another action-adventure trope is 
  to make the “lieutenant” character better than 
  the main villain at combat, contrasting brawn to 
  the villain’s brain.)
  • Concessions: Supporting NPCs should not 
  fight to the bitter end, given the option. Instead, 
  have them concede conflicts often, especially 
  early in a story, and especially if the concession 
  is something like “They get away.” Conceding 
  like this serves a few purposes. For one, it 
  foreshadows a future, more significant encounter 
  with the NPC. Because conceding comes with 
  a reward of one or more fate points, it also 
  makes them more of a threat the next time they 
  show up. What’s more, it’s virtually guaranteed 
  to pay off for the players in a satisfying way the 
  next time the NPC makes an appearance. “So, 
  Landon, we meet again! But this time it shall not 
  go so easily for you.”
  Finally, it implicitly demonstrates to the players that, 
  when things are desperate, conceding a conflict 
  is a viable course of action. A PC concession here 
  and there can raise the stakes and introduce new 
  complications organically, both of which make for a 
  more dramatic, engaging story.
  Main NPCs
  Main NPCs are the closest you’re ever going to get 
  to playing a PC yourself. They have full character 
  sheets just like a PC does, with five aspects, a 
  full distribution of skills, and a selection of stunts. 
  They are the most significant characters in your 
  PCs’ lives, because they represent pivotal forces of 
  opposition or allies of crucial importance. Because 
  they have a full spread of aspects, they also offer 
  the most nuanced options for interaction, and they 
  have the most options to invoke and be compelled. 
  Your primary “bad guys” in a scenario or arc should 
  always be main NPCs, as should any NPCs who are 
  the most vital pieces of your stories.
  Because they have all the same things on their sheet 
  as PCs do, main NPCs will require a lot more of your 
  time and attention than other characters. How you 
  create one really depends on how much time you 
  have—if you want, you can go through the whole 
  character creation process and work out their whole 
  backstory through phases, leaving only those slots 
  for “guest starring” open.
  Upgrading NPCs
  Of course, if you want, you can also upgrade 
  one of your current supporting NPCs to 
  a main using this method. This is great for 
  when a supporting NPC has suddenly or 
  gradually become—usually because of the 
  players—a major fixture in the story, despite 
  your original plans for them.
  You could also do things more on the fly if you need 
  to, creating a partial sheet of the aspects you know 
  for sure, those skills you definitely need them to have, 
  and any stunts you want. Then fill in the rest as you 
  go. This is almost like making a supporting NPC, 
  except you can add to the sheet during play.
  Main NPCs will fight to the bitter end if need be, 
  making the PCs work for every step.
  Regarding skill levels, your main NPCs will come in 
  one of two flavors— exact peers of the PCs who grow 
  with them as the campaign progresses, or superiors 
  to the PCs who remain static while the PCs grow to 
  sufficient strength to oppose them. If it’s the former, 
  just give them the exact same skill distribution the 
  PCs currently have. If it’s the latter, give them enough 
  skills to go at least two higher than whatever the 
  current skill cap is for the game.
  So, if the PCs are currently capped at Great (+4), your 
  NPC mastermind should be able to afford a couple of 
  Fantastic (+6) skills.
  Likewise, a particularly significant NPC might have 
  more than five aspects to highlight their importance 
  to the story.
  Playing The Opposition
  Here are some tips for using the opposition characters 
  you create in play.
  
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  Right-sizing
  Remember, you want a balancing act between 
  obliterating the PCs and letting them walk all over your 
  opposition (unless it’s a minion horde, in which case 
  that’s pretty much what they’re there for). It’s important 
  to keep in mind not just the skill levels of the NPCs in 
  your scenes, but their number and importance.
  Right-sizing the opposition is more of an art than a 
  science, but here are some strategies to help.
  • Don’t outnumber the PCs unless your NPCs 
  have comparatively lower skills.
  • If they’re going to team up against one big 
  opponent, make sure that opponent has a peak 
  skill two levels higher than whatever the best PC 
  can bring in that conflict.
  • Limit yourself to one main NPC per scene, unless 
  it’s a big climactic conflict at the end of a story 
  arc. Remember, supporting NPCs can have skills 
  as high as you want.
  • Most of the opposition the PCs encounter 
  in a session should be nameless NPCs, with 
  one or two supporting NPCs and main NPCs 
  along the way.
  • Nameless and supporting NPCs means shorter 
  conflicts because they give up or lose sooner; 
  main NPCs mean longer conflicts.
  Creating Advantages 
  for NPCs
  It’s easy to fall into the default mode of using the 
  opposition as a direct means to get in the PCs’ way, 
  drawing them into a series of conflict scenes until 
  someone is defeated.
  However, keep in mind that the NPCs can create 
  advantages just like the PCs can. Feel free to use 
  opposition characters to create scenes that aren’t 
  necessarily about stopping the PCs from achieving 
  a goal, but scouting out information about them and 
  stacking up free invocations. Let your bad guys and 
  the PCs have tea together and then bring out the 
  Empathy rolls. Or instead of having that fight scene 
  take place in the dark alley, let your NPCs show up, 
  gauge the PCs’ abilities, and then flee.
  Likewise, keep in mind that your NPCs have a home 
  turf advantage in conflicts if the PCs go to them in 
  order to resolve something. So, when you’re setting 
  up situation aspects, you can pre-load the NPC with 
  some free invocations if it’s reasonable that they’ve 
  had time to place those aspects. Use this trick in 
  good faith, though—two or three such aspects is 
  probably pushing the limit.
  Change Venues of Conflict
  Your opposition will be way more interesting if they try 
  to get at the PCs in multiple venues of conflict, rather 
  than just going for the most direct route. Remember 
  that there are a lot of ways to get at someone, 
  and that mental conflict is just as valid as physical 
  conflict as a means of doing so. If the opposition has 
  a vastly different skill set than one or more of your 
  PCs, leverage their strengths and choose a conflict 
  strategy that gives them the best advantage.
  The Fate Fractal
  The Fate Fractal is not new to the Fate system, but 
  it is arguably one of its greatest strengths. The idea 
  behind it is that anything— absolutely anything— can 
  be made into a character. Now that doesn’t mean that 
  you have to give it full aspects, a complete skill column, 
  and spend points on stunts and super-powers. What 
  it means is that you can stat anything in the game to 
  provide dramatic opposition to the players instead of 
  just giving them a passive opposition to overcome.
  Daring Comics already hinted at this in the rules. 
  For example, in the Special Situations section of 
  the Comic Book Action chapter, we talked about 
  fire being given a skill rating between Mediocre (+0) 
  and Fantastic (+6), and then maybe giving it a couple 
  of Stress boxes and treating its singular skill like 
  Physique to see if it received additional boxes.
  But you don’t have to stop there. As a matter of fact, 
  you could grant a raging inferno even more!
  Ranging Inferno
  Aspects: Intense Heat, Extremely Thick Smoke, 
  Weakening Structure
  Skills: Physique (+4), Provoke (+5), Fight (+6)
  Stunts: Face the Pain (The fire can consume more 
  fuel from the burning structure when it starts to get 
  weakened. Once per scene, the GM may spend a fate 
  point and remove a check mark from its 1-Stress or 
  2-Stress box).
  
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  Powers: Fire Blast 3
  Physical Stress: 4 Boxes
  Mental Stress: Zero boxes
  Consequence Slots: 1 Mild, 1 Moderate, 1 Severe
  So now that we’ve built the raging inferno as a 
  character to oppose the heroes, let’s examine what 
  we gave it. 
  We gave it three aspects to represent the nature of 
  the intense fire as well as the weakening building 
  structure. We have it a high Fight skill since the fire 
  is huge and everywhere within the structure, and 
  anyone racing inside of it is up for a real struggle. We 
  then gave it the Physique skill to represent how hard 
  it will be to extinguish. Just for the sake of using the 
  Create an Advantage action to really push the players 
  by creating situation aspects representing innocent 
  people in danger, we gave it a decent Provoke skill.
  For stunts, we gave it one of the example stunts under 
  Physique to represent an ability to get damaged, but 
  at least get a surge once during the scene.
  The Blast power represents any explosions that might 
  happen as things combust. Since we didn’t give it the 
  Accuracy skill, and caused it to default to Mediocre 
  (+0), we’re saying the explosions are unlikely to be 
  very accurate.
  We originally gave it 1-Point and 2-Point stress 
  boxes, and thanks to its Physique skill it also gets a 
  3-Point and 4-Point box. That’s already saying the fire 
  will not go down quickly. It’s an inferno, though. It’s 
  large, and powerful, and we’re also giving it all three 
  consequence slots.
  UniStar Industries
  Aspects: Vast Political Influence, Cutting Edge 
  R&D, Global Reach
  Skills: Fight (+4), Technology (+5),  Resources (+6), 
  Contacts (+7)
  Stunts: Big Influence in Politics, Money Talks 
  Image Stress: 4 Boxes
  Holdings Stress: 4 boxes
  Consequence Slots: 1 Mild, 1 Moderate, 1 Severe 
  (plus one extra Mild Consequence slot each for Image 
  related consequences)
  In the second example, we decided to do a quickie 
  fractal for a world-wide conglomerate with deep 
  political ties and vast resources. The Fight skill 
  represents anything from its own private security 
  force, to perhaps privately owned mercenary units. 
  Since physical and mental stress tracks didn’t really 
  make sense for a corporation, for this one we decided 
  to change the stress tracks. We gave it an Image 
  Stress representing its corporate reputation, and 
  decided that extra stress boxes or consequence slots 
  would be granted by the Contacts skill. We also gave 
  it a Holdings Stress track, representing its corporate 
  financials and business investments, and modified by 
  the Resources skill. Both of those change the tempo 
  of confronting the corporation, and indicate that 
  pure physical assaults are likely to have little to no 
  effect. If the heroes are going to oppose such a global 
  business entity, they’re going to have to find a way to 
  target the company’s reputation and finances.
  You don’t have to use the existing skills, either. You 
  can create unique skills for any fractal. Matter of fact, 
  if you look at the Expanded Super-Teams section 
  in the Appendix: Turning the Dials, you’ll see that’s 
  exactly what we did.
  The Fate Fractal is a powerful dramatic tool to use 
  in any Daring Comics series. With it, you can make 
  characters out of anything. The only limit is your own 
  imagination.
  
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  Chapter 14: Telling Stories 
  the Comic Book Way 
  Most importantly, understand their concepts. A good 
  super-hero adventure should feel uniquely suited to 
  the heroes involved and speak to their powers, their 
  weaknesses and their concepts. If you have a super-
  hero team consisting of a One Man War on Crime, a 
  Blind Avenger of the Streets, a Supernatural Spirit of 
  Vengeance and a Genetically Engineered Super Spy 
  Defector, then your plot featuring an Earth Controlling 
  Servant of a Force of Nature seeking cosmic artifacts 
  on Earth may not be the most suitable story hook 
  for those guys. Similarly, drug dealers, gun thugs 
  and police corruption are not the best elements for 
  an adventure built around cosmic heroes trapped on 
  earth. 
  There is nothing inherently wrong with either of the 
  above plots, but your job is going to be a lot easier if 
  By now, you and your group have created the heroes, 
  established the world they inhabit, and set all the 
  basic assumptions for the series you’re going to 
  play. Now you have a pile of aspects and NPCs, all 
  of it brimming with dramatic potential and waiting to 
  come to life.
  What do you do with them?
  It’s time to get into the real meat of the series: creating 
  and playing through story arcs the comic book way.
  Know Your Heroes
  Perhaps the most important element in creating super-
  hero adventures is this: Know your heroes. Study their 
  character sheets. Note their powers and abilities. 
  
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  you are giving your heroes (and their players) hooks 
  that they can really sink their teeth into. The more you 
  can personalize a hook, the better. If you want to run 
  an adventure with police corruption, see if any of your 
  heroes are connected to the local police force. If there 
  is a Masked Adventure who has a grudging, respectful 
  relationship with a police detective, that adds an 
  additional element to play with: When the Masked 
  Avenger thwarts a police extortion shakedown, 
  maybe they are left wondering if their detective pal is 
  involved, or if they are aware and turning a blind eye. 
  Maybe the detective comes to them first, knowing 
  that they are dealing with rampant corruption that 
  is beyond what one cop can deal with, and so they 
  need the heroes to help them drag the skeletons out 
  of the closet. Make sure that approaching alien army 
  isn’t hitting just any planet: Point it at the homeworld 
  of the Cosmic Sentinel PC in your game, to give them 
  extra incentive make sure the line is drawn in the sand. 
  If the adventure feels like any character could have 
  been dropped in to deal with it, then it’s probably not 
  a strong hook anyway.
  Once you feel confident that you have a good fit for 
  your heroes and the plot, you also need to be aware 
  of the heroes’ abilities and how it may impact the 
  adventure. Mutant Psychics are great characters, but 
  are going to overly complicate your murder mystery 
  adventure unless you address how their psychic 
  powers are not unraveling the plot five minutes into 
  the adventure. This is a double-edged sword, as well, 
  because you want to challenge your players and their 
  characters, but you don’t want to constantly block 
  their best powers and abilities, either.
  Use all of their traits to guide you in establishing 
  just how they are most likely to interact with your 
  adventure and how it “speaks” to them. During 
  character creation, your players are giving you 
  guidance on what kind of adventures appeal to them 
  by the kinds of characters they are making, so go 
  with that. Give them what they want. Have vengeful 
  villains kidnap their old high school buddy. Reveal 
  their bullying stepbrother as being in league with the 
  alien invasion threatening to engulf Earth. A little basic 
  research (and a refresher, even after the game has 
  been going on for a few sessions) can go a long way 
  towards keeping the players invested and making the 
  characters feel like real parts of the universe and not 
  just ciphers stepping into a role.
  This isn’t to say that you need to make the adventure 
  a cake walk for the heroes, not at all. You just need to 
  make the adventure relevant to the heroes, from the 
  hooks to the villains to the subplots to the challenges. 
  Similarly, this helps you avoid putting them in a 
  situation that they are incredibly ill-equipped to 
  solve— or even participate in (that aquatic adventure 
  to Atlantis seemed like a great idea at the time, until 
  the player playing a living fire elemental suddenly felt 
  kind of left out).
  Defining Story Arcs
  As mentioned in Chapter 13: Running the Game, a 
  story arc is a unit of game time usually lasting from 
  one to four sessions, and made up of a number of 
  discrete scenes. The end of a story arc should trigger 
  a significant milestone, allowing your heroes to get 
  better at what they do.
  In a story arc, the heroes are going to face and try 
  to resolve some kind of big, urgent, open-ended 
  problem (or problems). The GM will typically open a 
  story arc by presenting this problem to the players, 
  with subsequent scenes revolving around what the 
  heroes do to deal with it, whether that’s researching 
  information, gathering resources, or striking directly 
  at the problem’s source.
  Along the way, you’ll also have some NPCs who 
  are opposed to the heroes’ goals interfere with their 
  attempts to solve the problem. These could be your 
  traditional comic book physical confrontation, or 
  simply someone with different interests who wants to 
  negotiate with the heroes in order to get them to deal 
  with the problem in a different way.
  The best story arcs don’t have one particular “right” 
  ending. Maybe the heroes don’t resolve the problem, 
  or resolve it in such a way that it has bad repercussions. 
  Maybe they succeed with flying colors. Maybe they 
  circumvent the problem, or change the situation in 
  order to minimize the impact of the problem. You 
  won’t know until you play.
  Once the problem is resolved (or it can no longer be 
  resolved), the story arc is over. The following session, 
  you’ll start a new story arc, which can either relate 
  directly to the previous story arc or present a whole 
  new problem.
  
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  Creating A Story Arc: 
  Step By Step
  • Find Problems
  • Ask Story Questions
  • Establish the Opposition
  • Set the First Scene
  Find Problems
  Creating a story arc begins with finding a problem for 
  the heroes to deal with. A good problem is relevant 
  to the heroes, cannot be resolved without their 
  involvement, and cannot be ignored without dire 
  consequences.
  That may seem like a tall order. Fortunately, you 
  have a great storytelling tool to help you figure out 
  appropriate problems for your game: aspects.
  Your heroes’ aspects have a lot of story built into 
  them. They’re an indication of what’s important about 
  (and to) each character, they indicate what things in 
  the game world the heroes are connected to, and 
  they describe the unique facets of each character’s 
  identity.
  You also have the aspects that are attached to your 
  game—all your current and impending story arcs, 
  location aspects, and any aspects you’ve put on any 
  of your campaign’s faces. Riffing off of those helps to 
  reinforce the sense of a consistent, dynamic world, 
  and keep your game’s central premise in the forefront 
  of play.
  Because of all these aspects, you already have a ton 
  of story potential sitting right in front of you— now, 
  you just have to unlock it.
  You can look at an aspect-related problem as a very 
  large-scale kind of event compel. The setup is a little 
  more work, but the structure is similar—having an 
  aspect suggests or implies something problematic 
  for the PC or multiple heroes, but unlike a compel, 
  it’s something they can’t easily resolve or deal with in 
  the moment.
  You Don’t Always Have 
  To Destroy The World
  As you will see from the examples, not all 
  of our urgent, consequential problems 
  necessarily involve the fate of the world or even 
  a large portion of the setting. Interpersonal 
  problems can have just as much of an impact 
  on a group of heroes as stopping this week’s 
  bad guy— winning someone’s respect or 
  resolving an ongoing dispute between two 
  characters can just as easily take the focus 
  for a story arc as whatever grand scheme 
  your mastermind villain is cooking up.
  Problems and 
  Character Aspects
  When you’re trying to get a problem from a character 
  aspect, try asking the following questions:
  • Who might have a problem with the character 
  because of this aspect?
  • Does the aspect point to a potential threat to that 
  character?
  • Does the aspect describe a connection or 
  relationship that could cause trouble for the 
  character?
  • Does the aspect speak to a backstory element 
  that could come back to haunt the character?
  • Does the aspect describe something or someone 
  important to the character that you can threaten?
  Problems and Game Aspects
  Problems you get from a game’s current and 
  impending story arcs will be a little wider in scope 
  than character-driven problems, affecting all your 
  heroes and possibly a significant number of NPCs 
  as well. They’re less personal, but that doesn’t mean 
  they have to be less compelling (pardon the pun). Just 
  as with character aspects, when using series aspects 
  to create the story’s problem, as one or more of the 
  following questions:
  • What threats does the story arc present to the 
  heroes?
  • Who are the driving forces behind the story arc, 
  and what messed up thing might they be willing 
  to do to advance their agenda?
  
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  • Who else cares about dealing with the story arc, 
  and how might their “solution” be bad for the 
  heroes?
  • What’s a good next step for resolving the story 
  arc, and what makes accomplishing that step 
  hard?
  Put A Face On It
  While not all of your story arc problems have 
  to be directly caused by an NPC who serves 
  as a “master villain” for the heroes to take 
  down, it’s often easier if they are. At the very 
  least, you should be able to point directly 
  to an NPC who benefits a great deal from 
  the story arc problem not going the way the 
  heroes want it to go.
  Problems and Aspect Pairs
  This is where you really start cooking with gas. 
  You can also create problems from the relationship 
  between two aspects instead of relying on just one. 
  That lets you keep things personal, but broaden 
  the scope of your problem to impact multiple 
  characters, or thread a particular PC’s story into 
  the story of the game.
  Ask yourself:
  • Do the two aspects put those characters at odds 
  or suggest a point of tension between them?
  • Is there a particular kind of problem or trouble 
  that both would be likely to get into because 
  of the aspects?
  • Does one character have a relationship or a 
  connection that could become problematic 
  for the other?
  • Do the aspects point to backstory elements that 
  can intersect in the present?
  • Is there a way for one PC’s fortune to become 
  another’s misfortune, because of the aspects?
  How Many Problems 
  Do I Need?
  For a single story arc, one or two is sufficient, 
  trust us. You’ll see below that even one 
  problem can create enough material for two 
  or three sessions. Don’t feel like you have to 
  engage every PC with every story arc. Never 
  hesitate to rotate the spotlight around a little 
  so that they each get some spotlight time, 
  and then throw in a story arc related story arc 
  when you want to concentrate on the larger 
  plot of the game.
  Ask Story Questions
  Now that you have a really grabby problem, you can 
  flesh the situation out a little and figure out precisely 
  what your story arc is intended to resolve— in other 
  words, what are the really grabby questions at the 
  heart of this problem?
  That’s what you’ll do in this step: create a series of 
  questions that you want your story arc to answer. 
  We call these story questions, because the story will 
  emerge naturally from the process of answering them.
  The more story questions you have, the longer your 
  story arc’s going to be. One to three story questions 
  will probably wrap up in a session. Four to eight might 
  take you two or even three sessions. More than eight 
  or nine, and you might have to save some of those 
  questions for the next story arc, but that’s not a bad 
  thing at all.
  We recommend asking story questions as yes/
  no questions, in the general format of, “Can/Will 
  (character) accomplish (goal)?” You don’t have to 
  follow that phrasing exactly, and you can embellish 
  on the basic question format in a number of ways, 
  which we’ll show you in a moment.
  Every problem you come up with is going to have one 
  very obvious story question: “Can the heroes resolve 
  the problem?” You do need to know that eventually, 
  but you don’t want to skip straight to that— it’s your 
  finale for the story arc, after all. Put other questions 
  before that one to add nuance and complexity to the 
  story arc and build up to that final question. Figure 
  out what makes the problem difficult to solve.
  To come up with story questions, you’re probably 
  going to have to embellish on the problem that you 
  
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  came up with just a bit, and figure out some of the 
  W-How (who, what, when, where, why, how) details. 
  That’s also fine, and part of what the process is for.
  Too Many Story 
  Questions
  If you end up with a really large number of 
  story questions (like eight or more), keep 
  in mind that you don’t necessarily have to 
  answer them all in one story arc. You can bring 
  up the questions you don’t answer, either as 
  foreshadowing or to set up stuff you’re going 
  to do in the following story arc. In fact, that’s 
  exactly how you make strong arcs: you have 
  a pile of related story questions, and you take 
  two or three story arcs to answer them all.
  Choosing the Opposition
  As a rule, your adventure needs an opposing force. 
  Sometimes the opposing force is an obvious, 
  overwhelming evil, sometimes it is an uncaring, 
  unfeeling force of nature, and sometimes it is actually 
  another well-meaning presence, such as the police, 
  the military, or even another super-hero or team. It is 
  important to note that the opposition is not always the 
  mastermind. Sometimes the opposition are minions, 
  henchmen and mercenaries serving a smarter and 
  more capable villain. Sometimes they are hapless 
  pawns, being used by the true villain in order to 
  distract the heroes.
  We Meet Again
  Odds are, the heroes either have a few villains in their 
  backstory, or will pick up a few villains pretty quickly. 
  Super-heroes tend to combat a lot of familiar faces, 
  no matter what kind of asylum or prison they lock 
  those villains away in. In fact, the heroes (and their 
  players) can expect to face off with archenemies again 
  and again, or they wouldn’t be archenemies. When 
  deciding to use an archenemy in your adventure, 
  there are a few ways to approach this:
  • Revenge: If this isn’t the first time the hero and 
  archenemy have crossed paths, whether from 
  a prior adventure or from an event in the hero’s 
  backstory, then the villain could always be 
  seeking revenge. Perhaps they form a new super 
  team of bad guy to take on the heroes, especially 
  if they aren’t powerful enough to combat the 
  whole squad instead. The archenemy could 
  be sending other villains after the heroes while 
  waiting in the background. Bigger, dumber, more 
  powerhouse villains tend to simply rampage in the 
  streets to draw out their heroic counterparts (like 
  Marvel’s Juggernaut and Rhino), while villains like 
  Sabretooth tend to stalk their adversary directly 
  and make it very personal.
  • Fate: Some heroes and villains just seem like their 
  fates are intertwined. Whether it is fate, or it’s just 
  professional courtesy, other heroes tend to miss 
  the archenemy’s evil deeds, leaving the heroes to 
  save the day in repeated clashes. In this case. The 
  reaction from the villain can range from outrage 
  (“Why must you keep interfering in my plans?!”) to 
  a sense of playful respect (“You won this round… 
  but I will find a way to escape prison once more, 
  and we will dance our dance again!”
  Regardless of the plan that brings the archenemy into 
  conflict with the heroes, be wary of the encounters 
  becoming repetitive. If The Multi-Armed Mad Genius 
  is robbing a bank AGAIN, it can get tiresome for the 
  players. Give the villain a new scheme to follow, or 
  even new tactics. By that third or fourth time the 
  PCs have fought and defeated the archenemy, any 
  villain worth their salt will be making preparations 
  for the heroes and their unique powers and abilities, 
  absolutely convinced that— this time— they will 
  thwart the heroes once and for all. Regardless, when 
  facing archenemies, the familiarity and ongoing 
  struggle between the heroes and their foes should 
  be a central element, whether it is manifesting as 
  unrelenting hatred or grudging respect.
  New Faces
  Fighting the same villains all the time is no fun, so 
  you should mix it up now and then. A few ideas for 
  introducing new villains for your heroes to fight are 
  provided below:
  • Copycat: Some heroes can’t shake a villain’s 
  legacy, no matter what. Whether the villain is 
  dead or retired, the heroes find a new villain 
  has stepped into their shoes, carrying on their 
  name and brand of evil (and occasionally taking 
  it to frightening new depths). These villains are 
  sometimes relatives seeking revenge, but some 
  copycats are created because a small time crook 
  happened to find a supervillain’s hidden cache 
  and assumed their identity. If the original villain is 
  around, they may consider that a form of flattery 
  and team up with the newcomer, but in other 
  cases, the heroes can find themselves caught in 
  the middle of a villainous war.
  
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  • Revenge: The villain created by a hero’s 
  negligence is a well-worn trope of super-hero 
  stories. A hero’s reckless use of their powers 
  maybe led to an accident involving a criminal (or 
  maybe a relatively innocent bystander) who find 
  themselves transformed in a way that they don’t 
  approve of. These villains tend to be promoted to 
  recurring villain status pretty quickly, since folks 
  who become supervillains in the first place aren’t 
  prone to forgiveness.
  • New Dance Card: Sometimes a hero finds 
  themselves fighting another hero’s rival. 
  This can be for any number of reasons, but 
  common causes include the hero being recently 
  deceased, the hero being off world (perhaps as 
  part of a Crisis Crossover, with this being the 
  player character heroes’ first sign of a larger 
  cosmic crisis brewing), or the other hero simply 
  being busy. Many times, these are one shot 
  conflicts, but occasionally these clashes turn 
  incredibly personal and the villain in question 
  is all too happy to put their new enemy on their 
  future revenge list.
  Forces of Nature
  Your opposition doesn’t have to be something that 
  can be talked to or reasoned with. Powerful forces of 
  nature make for interesting opponents, even though 
  they lack that human element. In these cases, the 
  heroes may even face threats that they can’t just 
  punch or blast (or it may be all they can do). Some 
  applications of Forces of Nature include:
  • Natural Disasters: Sometimes a natural disaster 
  is spawned directly from the efforts of another 
  adversary. An enraged Lord of the Underground 
  type may trigger a fault line, whether using 
  innate abilities, super-science, a mystic artifact 
  or a minion with such powers, and the heroes 
  have to focus on the destruction, saving lives 
  and infrastructure before they can hunt the true 
  villain. The natural disaster may be completely 
  naturally occurring. After all, hurricanes and 
  earthquakes do happen, as does flooding and 
  wildfires. Super-heroes who are explorers first 
  and face-punchers second may discover a rift in 
  reality that threatens to consume their dimension 
  if they don’t stop it, which often requires 
  breaking the laws of physics…again. In each 
  of these cases, the focus is on saving lives and 
  damage control, and the heroes will likely have 
  to utilize their powers and abilities in new and 
  unique ways in order to succeed.
  • Giant Monsters: Monsters as opposition doesn’t 
  always spring to mind when designing super-hero 
  adventures, but super-hero comics and stories 
  over the years have had many nods to both 1950s 
  giant atomic monsters, as well as more traditional 
  horror. A rampaging Kaiju like Godzilla, played 
  completely straight, is practically like dealing 
  with a natural disaster. A giant monster like that 
  is going to be very difficult to just “punch out”, 
  so the heroes will need to focus at least as much 
  energy on saving lives and diverting damage as 
  they will in combat. Lovecraftian Elder Gods are 
  another form of Giant Monster, typically having 
  even harder to understand motivations than the 
  “common” Kaiju. 
  • Invading Forces: A full blown invasion by troops 
  looking to overwhelm with numbers instead 
  of fighting a real war are another example of a 
  Force of Nature in conflict. The Chituari in the 
  Avengers movie were not a functional military 
  unit, alien or otherwise, they were wave after 
  wave of ferocious alien warriors who exhibited no 
  range of emotion (and even included Big Giant 
  Monsters to get knocked out). Super-heroes in 
  a zombie apocalypse (large scale or small scale) 
  will be similar to this. Hordes of oncoming, brain-
  eating beasties who know no fear or hesitation 
  presents a very different challenge than a super-
  powered thief out to rob a luxurious penthouse or 
  a maniacal masked terrorist with designs on ruling 
  the world. Legions of faceless terrorist mooks 
  generally do not fall into this category because 
  a) they tend to be weaker and less capable 
  than zombies/aliens/robot armies and b) they 
  tend to have more human motivations and self-
  preservation instincts.
  Other monsters, such as vampires, mummies, 
  and werewolves, are often insanely powerful, 
  but usually have clearer motivations and greater 
  cunning or intelligence.
  Good Friends, 
  Better Enemies
  It is an incredibly common trope in super-hero stories 
  for the heroes to find themselves battling other heroes 
  for any number of reasons.
  • Misunderstanding: This is incredibly common 
  if one or both of the parties involved tend to be 
  “darker”, more “monstrous” or antiheroes. In 
  this scenario, one or both sides involved in the 
  conflict are searching for a villain on the loose 
  
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  and believe they have found the villain when 
  they have actually stumbled across the other 
  hero(es). The fight usually lasts until one side 
  says something that clues the other in on why 
  they are fighting, and the heroes then team up 
  and go hunting for the villain. Another common 
  set-up for this scenario involves a villain actively 
  manipulating the sides into fighting, either by 
  framing one side or— embarrassingly enough— 
  just pointing one group at the other and letting 
  human nature take its course. How the heroes 
  react to each other after fighting can vary wildly. 
  Sometimes they become vitriolic best buds and 
  sometimes those tempers flare wildly whenever 
  they come face to face in the future.
  • Mind Control: Facing a mind controlled hero is 
  uniquely difficult, in that the non-controlled hero 
  usually doesn’t actually want to hurt the mind 
  controlled hero, whereas the mind controlled hero 
  generally has no such qualms. A challenge like this 
  leaves the heroes on the defensive against their 
  mind controlled comrade, who may be every bit 
  as powerful (or even more so) as they are. Bonus 
  points if they mind controlled hero is capable 
  of taunting their foe, mentioning a deep seeded 
  wedge issue between them (such as assumed 
  position on a team roster, or even a romantic 
  conflict). Expect the mind controlled hero to 
  vehemently insist that they are not controlled, but 
  are “showing (their) true self at last!” Using mind 
  controlled heroes can lead to great subplots after 
  the fact, especially if something happens during 
  the fight to truly test the friendship.
  • Opposite Sides of the Line: There are those 
  occasions in which heroes fight and there is no 
  mind control, misunderstanding or manipulation 
  involved. Philosophical divides lead to heroes 
  coming to blows more often than is probably 
  healthy, whether it is something as simple as 
  an obnoxious jerk getting punched out by a 
  teammate, to profound disagreements in crime 
  fighting methods placing heroes at odds, to 
  full blown civil wars over whether or not super 
  beings have the right to fight crime without 
  government oversight. These conflicts tend to 
  have the longest lasting ramifications on the 
  heroes and their world, as friendships can be 
  strained or even severed, and public perception 
  of some or all involved can be drastically 
  transformed by their actions.
  When using hero versus hero conflict in a super-hero 
  RPG, you also have to consider whether the opposing 
  heroes are all NPCs, or if the player character group 
  is facing a conflict that is coming to blows. Intraparty 
  conflict with the wrong group of players can destroy a 
  game, but can be a compelling and interesting session 
  (or series of sessions, depending on the scope of the 
  situation) if all of the players involved are capable of 
  handling the conflict in its intended spirit. As always, 
  it is best to know your players before you put them in 
  situations such as this.
  Organizational Issues
  Whole organizations can provide interesting conflict 
  for your heroes as well. While there will almost certainly 
  be one or more distinct personalities at the head of 
  the organization that the heroes will eventually have 
  to deal with, the bulk of the conflict is going to be with 
  numbers of faceless mooks. As noted above, what 
  separates foot soldiers of organizations from an Alien 
  Robot Zombie army is the presence of more human 
  thinking, coordination and tactics, as well as self-
  preservation instincts, though there is certain to be 
  some crossover in the feel of the opposition groups.
  • Wrong Side of the Law: This scenario puts the 
  heroes squarely in the crosshairs of one or more 
  law enforcement agencies, military branches, or 
  multinational paramilitary organizations named 
  after weapons and/or defensive implements. 
  Sometimes this is because the organization in 
  question is inherently corrupt. This happens a lot 
  with police departments in crime-ridden cities. 
  That’s the best scenario for heroes to deal with, 
  because their opposition are at least bad guys, 
  even if they still have legal authority. It gets 
  trickier when the rank and file of an organization 
  are well-meaning individuals trying to do their 
  duty, but the leadership has become corrupted. 
  This places the heroes in the unique position of 
  having to survive and avoid the enforcement arm 
  of the organization, while targeting the corrupt 
  head of the opposition and hopefully exposing 
  their insidious nature. The most complex 
  scenario involves the heroes being hunted by 
  the organization for legitimate reasons, either 
  because they have been framed for a crime, 
  or because they have crossed a boundary, 
  perhaps in pursuit of another villain. In this case, 
  cutting loose against their opposition is almost 
  impossible to do and still save face. Murdering 
  a villain and then killing the cops trying to arrest 
  you pretty firmly takes you out of hero territory.
  • Terrorists: Luckily for super-heroes, terrorist 
  groups in a world of superpowers tend to not 
  
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  be very subtle or complicated. Whether trying 
  to overthrow world leaders, acquire alien tech 
  or eradicate life on Earth, terrorist groups 
  super heroes face gravitate towards menacing 
  acronyms (often invoking spiders, snakes and 
  the like) and colorful uniforms that clearly mark 
  them all as being members of the same evil 
  organization. Members of these organizations 
  tend to have an overreliance on technology, 
  and are commonly serving supervillains who 
  care little for their safety. It is not uncommon 
  for leadership in these groups to change from 
  time to time, as a new villain wrests control from 
  the previous leader. Ninja clans also fall into 
  this category, as they like to attack heroes en 
  masse and are treated as little more than cannon 
  fodder by heroes and villains alike. Terrorist 
  groups tend to have confusing alignments as 
  well, and heroes are just as likely to find a group 
  of deranged scientists at war with an ancient 
  ninja clan as they are to see the two groups in 
  an (uncomfortable) alliance brokered by their 
  leadership (at least one of whom has only 
  recently assumed power). Anti-superhuman hate 
  groups are also going to fall under this category.
  • Crime Doesn’t Pay: Gangs and organized crime 
  can also provide a suitable threat for heroes. 
  Unlike acronym terrorist groups and color coded 
  ninja clans, their methods and schemes tend to 
  be more direct and more grounded, with less 
  emphasis on giant freeze rays and alien artifacts 
  and more emphasis on racketeering and drug 
  running. What they lack in tactics and zealotry, 
  they make up for in ferocity and a sense of loyalty 
  that a hooded terrorists tend to lack. The big 
  bosses of crime rings may have super powers, 
  but even if they don’t, they tend to employ at one 
  or more lieutenants who are either superhuman 
  or straddling the line between peak human ability 
  and superhuman ability. It is a common trope for 
  any crime boss worth their salt to have friends in 
  high places to make things difficult for any heroes 
  looking to shut down their operation.
  Using organizations like these can be useful in making 
  the heroes feel like the powerful beings that they are, 
  given that most of the foes they encounter are going 
  to be largely outmatched unless they are fielding 
  either truly overwhelming numbers, or extremely 
  advanced tech. Battling a whole organization will 
  have a completely different feel than taking on a 
  supervillain team, much less a single powerful villain, 
  even if the organization has a few super-powered 
  beings on retainer to join in the fight.
  Plotting the Course
  Super-hero adventures, more so than most, tend to be 
  more reactive than proactive. Generally a villain has a 
  plan, they begin to enact that plan, and the super-hero 
  gets involved. Sometimes, the villain goes hunting 
  for the hero specifically. Depending on your heroes 
  and their method of operation, they may be more 
  
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  proactive than reactive (Marvel’s X-Force, in most of its 
  incarnations, being a prime example of this).
  There are few plots that are outright inappropriate for 
  supers games, given the broad nature of the genre. A 
  “typical” supers universe can easily handle any, or all, 
  of the following (and, depending on how you handle 
  it, maybe even all of them in the same campaign):
  • Atlantis invading the mainland in response to 
  global pollution.
  • An immortal Nazi gathering the relics of Hitler’s 
  lost occult collection.
  • A sentient machine seeking to obliterate human 
  life in order to “preserve” the planet.
  • A super-powered bank robbery.
  • A drug kingpin launching a gang war in the 
  streets.
  • A cosmic force of nature venturing to earth in 
  order to devour the planet’s energy and sate its 
  infinite hunger.
  The first key towards selecting the plot is to make 
  sure that it makes sense in the context of the setting. 
  If it was established three sessions ago that an 
  international peacekeeping force has placed an 
  energy field around earth, then be prepared to explain 
  to your players why an alien ship has suddenly 
  appeared over New York. Don’t have Megalomaniacal 
  Dictators with Magic Powers robbing the downtown 
  bank, or a villain that the heroes spent half a dozen 
  adventures reforming go on a murderous rampage 
  unless you have amazing reasons to explain these 
  inconsistencies. If you do happen to run a plot that 
  the contradicts past adventures, and your players call 
  you out on it, call an audible: A major villain has been 
  locked up in a maximum security prison for crimes 
  against humanity, and there is virtually no chance 
  that he could have escaped without every hero with 
  a connection to government and law enforcement 
  knowing about it? What if it’s an imposter? Or a 
  clone? You are playing in a big, wacky, wondrous 
  sandbox. Don’t be afraid to use all the toys.
  A Sense of Scale
  Be aware of the scope of your plot. If you are running 
  a gritty, street level game, then a European dictator’s 
  quest to free his mother’s tortured soul from Hell might 
  not be an appropriate adventure for your heroes. 
  Same with mad scientists attempting to use a super-
  science tractor beam to pull the moon into the Earth, 
  or a rogue AI’s plan to overwhelm the planet with 
  an army of machines. Your team of super-powered, 
  interdimensional explorers may have bigger fish to 
  fry than a counterfeit jewelry ring. Revealing that the 
  leader of that jewelry ring is an insane, cosmic titan 
  who worships death doesn’t prove that the scope is 
  global or galactic...it just means you have set yourself 
  up for a very hard sale with your players.
  • Personal scale adventures are appropriate for 
  any heroes or villains. A God who has fallen in 
  love with a mortal woman who is dying of cancer, 
  and his quests to save her, is a personal scale 
  adventure, just the same as a gun toting vigilante 
  who is trying to save his estranged daughter from 
  a psycho predator before she runs out of time. 
  Villains for personal scale adventures can be 
  of any power level or capability, they really just 
  need the means to threaten the hero (whether 
  with physical damage or the ability to upend their 
  lives, by endangering loved ones or perhaps 
  even having the ability to ruin their reputation or 
  livelihood) and a reason for doing so.
  • Street level adventures are generally geared 
  towards lower powered, unsanctioned masked 
  vigilantes, martial artists and antiheroes who have 
  less flashy powers, though some supernatural 
  characters and lower-end super-powered beings 
  may find themselves embroiled in street level 
  plots. These adventures usually only threaten 
  a neighborhood or two, but can extend to 
  threatening a whole city. Heroes embroiled in 
  these missions are apt to run afoul of (and maybe 
  even work with) the police (whether corrupt or 
  not), as well as street gangs and organized crime. 
  Streel level adventures with a supernatural flavor 
  may involve vampires stalking neighborhoods or 
  minor demons preying on the weak. Street level 
  conflict doesn’t have to be violent and gritty, it just 
  isn’t likely to have ramifications to throughout the 
  world, or even the region. One-trick, gimmicky 
  villains are every bit at home here as drug dealers 
  and vampires are.
  • City scale adventures can occupy a similar 
  space with street level, though the possibility of 
  wider-spread damage tends to be much higher. 
  Rampaging muscle men, destructive super 
  groups, powerful superhuman leaders and their ilk 
  threaten to eradicate a whole city, or murder large 
  segments of the population. If mobsters or street 
  gangs are involved, then they are either fielding 
  super-powered soldiers or massive numbers, 
  leading to full-scale, open warfare that can level 
  
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  buildings and rack up a large body count. To 
  use a comic book example, Daredevil is typically 
  trying to protect Hell’s Kitchen…Batman is 
  generally trying to protect Gotham City.
  • Regional threats endanger more than just a 
  city. Large segments of the population are at 
  risk, and it is very likely that either a full team 
  is required in order to cover the necessary 
  ground, or fairly strong movement powers (such 
  a flight, teleportation or super speed). As threats 
  get larger, the likelihood of other heroes being 
  called to the action increases, especially if the 
  player character heroes are in danger of being 
  overwhelmed. The villains behind these threats 
  are either naturally powerful, or have access to 
  destructive weaponry. Failing to stop a regional 
  scale threat will dramatically alter the area, such 
  as when Mongul destroyed Coast City in the 
  Reign of the Supermen arc.
  • Global scale threats endanger the entire world 
  (not surprisingly). Whether these are full blown 
  invasions, or mass mind control plots, these 
  conflicts go far beyond the borders of a single 
  nation and typically require considerable 
  resources in order to cover the necessary ground 
  to end the villain’s schemes. Property damage 
  the likes of which disaster films are made of 
  tend to be the order of the day, and the entire 
  world will be irrevocably altered if the heroes 
  fail (and maybe if they succeed). Team-ups with 
  other heroes are extremely common, due to the 
  cataclysmic nature of hazards on this scale. It is 
  not uncommon for the heroes to be approached 
  by one of their villains, extending an olive 
  branch in order to prevent the mastermind of 
  the scheme from succeeding, especially if there 
  is a chance of a large body count. This doesn’t 
  necessarily mean the villain has turned over a 
  new leaf, just that they have a vested interest in 
  stopping the opposition’s plan. Once the threat 
  of imminent danger has passed, the villain is very 
  likely to go back to their own nefarious schemes 
  and cross paths with the heroes later – or seize 
  control of whatever terrible force the opposition 
  was bringing to bear and turn it on the heroes.
  • Cosmic scale threats can endanger anything 
  from the galaxy to the universe to the multiverse 
  to reality itself. The heroes are almost certainly 
  going to require assistance, though whether that 
  manifests itself in the form of a grand coalition 
  of heroes, or in the aid of a cosmic entity looking 
  out for the well-being of the universe (and there 
  is nothing keeping both from happening), the 
  heroes are rarely expected to counter these 
  threats on their own.  After all, thwarting the 
  opposition in a Cosmic scale threat almost 
  always requires some combination of space 
  travel and dimensional travel, and time travel 
  can even prove to be a necessity here. At least 
  one villain is almost guaranteed to offer their 
  assistance, but the likelihood of betrayal is even 
  higher. When cosmic entities are involved in 
  events, they often had indecipherable motives 
  and it can make telling the good guys from the 
  bad guys maddeningly difficult, which makes 
  teaming with an enemy who has clearer motives 
  a much more appealing idea. For a change of 
  pace, you may split the heroes into groups with 
  other, NPC heroes, and allow the players to take 
  control of those NPCs to experience playing a 
  different character for a change of pace.
  Don’t be afraid to play around with the tropes and 
  expectations. If you are running a gritty, street level 
  game set in a “standard” super-hero universe, you 
  can show the fallout of larger scale events, affecting 
  the ground level, something Marvel Comics has done 
  a nice job of in the last eight years or so. If demons are 
  ripping through reality, your street level vigilantes may 
  have to team up against a lone demon that slipped 
  away from the main conflict. 
  Remember that, no matter the power level of your 
  heroes, not every event or conflict has to be world 
  shaking or earth shattering in order to be entertaining 
  to your players and relevant to your heroes. Quite the 
  opposite, in fact: Too many repeated global or cosmic 
  threats, and it can become exhausting for everyone 
  involved, as “event fatigue” sets in. It can even have 
  the interesting side effect of making your heroes lose 
  sight of why they are heroes, when crisis after crisis 
  makes them forget about the reasons they became 
  heroes in the first place.
  Baiting the Hook
  How do you convince the heroes to take the hook? 
  Bait it. This can be the easiest thing in the world in 
  a supers game, if the players are fully invested in 
  playing super-heroes.
  • Super-heroes, by their nature, tend to be roving 
  crusaders who patrol nightly and rush to the site 
  of danger when folks call for help. Street level 
  heroes often do this at the expense of their social 
  life, putting considerable strain on their personal 
  relationships in order to fight crime. Heroes with 
  this level of overdeveloped responsibility make 
  
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  it extremely easy to involve in the plots…all they 
  need is a report of a supervillain, or an innocent 
  in danger, and they are on their way, especially if 
  they are already on patrol and looking for criminal 
  activity in the first place.
  • Government sponsored heroes, or any hero 
  with legal authorization, can simply be assigned 
  missions. Heroes of this sort have some form 
  of commanding officer or handler who can 
  point them in the direction of the nearest plot 
  hook (often like a loaded gun). The whole thing 
  can even scream “bad idea”, but heroes in 
  this position tend to have little room to refuse 
  or negotiate. These heroes usually get a full 
  debriefing to go along with their orders, but 
  the agency intelligence is sometimes suspect, 
  either due to intelligence gaps or due to law 
  enforcement agencies in super-hero universes 
  having the unfortunate habit of being infiltrated 
  and corrupted (the large the agency, the more 
  likely it will become compromised over the course 
  of the campaign. Depending on the nature of the 
  mission and the sponsoring agency, the heroes 
  may find themselves with troublesome directives, 
  or even outright conflicting orders.
  • Supernatural heroes are often drawn to 
  trouble. A Hellish Spirit of Vengeance may 
  sense when innocent blood has been spilled 
  and find themselves rushing headlong into the 
  fray. Alternately, the heroes could be cursed 
  so that they are drawn together against their 
  will whenever trouble is brewing, whether they 
  actually get along with one another or not. The 
  common thread that heroes drawn in this way 
  share is that they often don’t have a choice, as 
  mystical forces forcibly dictate them into action. 
  Heroes beholden to mystical forces that use 
  them like pawns and foot soldiers have been 
  known to go too far in attempting to stem the 
  flow of darkness around them so they can cease 
  their team-ups. A hi-tech variant of this would 
  be an advanced satellite detection system that 
  draws the hero that controls it into the conflict 
  after the latest round of villainous deeds, though 
  the High Tech Hero usually has the ability to 
  refuse the call, whereas mystical beings are often 
  forced into conflict by the powers they serve.
  • Heroes have connections. Villains can target 
  those connections, accidentally or intentionally. 
  A bank robbery is a standard super-hero 
  scenario. A bank robbery with a hostage 
  situation certainly complicates things. If the 
  hostage is the spouse or significant other of 
  one of the heroes, the whole mess becomes 
  more sensitive. Even calm and reserved 
  heroes are more apt to get emotional and 
  make mistakes, because the consequences 
  of failure have a much bigger price. A brutal 
  villain targeting a police officer is enough to 
  make any decent hero’s blood boil, but when 
  the officer that is down happens to be the one 
  friend the heroes have on the force, the villains 
  will almost certainly invoke the ire of their more 
  even-tempered counterparts. These situations 
  are all incidental, but common. Imagine a villain 
  who intentionally targets a friend, ally or loved 
  one of the heroes. The reason many heroes 
  have secret identities is so that their loved 
  ones can be protected from the psychos and 
  villains they commonly face. When one of those 
  psychos realizes that the attractive couple in 
  the community pages of the newspaper is a 
  super-hero and her “normal” spouse, they may 
  well decide to target the hapless husband. Just 
  be careful not to overdo this trope. You don’t 
  want to punish your players for having human 
  connections to their characters. While tragedy 
  is a common motivator for super-heroes, it’s 
  also one that’s largely better off left to backstory 
  instead of an in-game misery tour.
  • The hero can become the target themselves. 
  Whether blatant (a villain emerges, or returns, 
  and wreaks havoc, directly calling the heroes 
  out) or subtle (a villain in the background sends 
  hired guns after the hero, perhaps to strike 
  during the conflict), you can take the guesswork 
  out of it by making it very personal and direct 
  and urgent. Having the team headquarters 
  bombed after a stressful mission is going to put 
  your heroes on high alert against your villains, 
  no doubt.  Consider the personality of your 
  villain when you utilize this option: Are they the 
  type to play mind games? Do they have all the 
  subtlety of a sledgehammer? Do they want 
  to kill the hero, or are they more interested in 
  destroying everything the hero believes in? 
  The villain’s mindset goes a long way towards 
  helping you determine just how they would 
  attack your heroes. Marvel’s Sabretooth used to 
  stalk Wolverine on his birthday and tear out his 
  throat, forcing his healing factor to save him, just 
  to prove a point. The Red Skull wasn’t content 
  with killing Captain America at the end of Civil 
  War, he needed the gun shots to come from 
  Cap’s brainwashed girlfriend. Doctor Doom is 
  more concerned with humiliating Reed Richards 
  
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  than he is killing him, and so on. If your villain is 
  going to outright target the hero, make sure their 
  methods are consistent with their personalities.
  Ultimately, the better the bait you provide to the 
  heroes, the more invested they feel and the less 
  likely they are to feel like you are just pushing them 
  in a certain direction. Give them a reason to want 
  to interact with the plot, above and beyond “so you 
  have something to do”. 
  Location, Location, 
  Location
  When you know who is involved (the heroes and their 
  opposition), what is going on (the plot) and why the 
  heroes care (the hook), put some thought into the 
  where. Location can make an encounter every bit as 
  memorable as the villains or the plots. Many powers 
  and abilities can become more useful, or more 
  problematic, depending on the locations the heroes 
  are visiting over the course of the adventure, and 
  some locations may play into specific weaknesses of 
  the heroes or villains involved.
  • City Streets: Fighting on city streets is incredibly 
  commonplace stuff in super-hero adventures, 
  daytime or night time. Most city streets offer 
  interactive elements such as cars, lamp 
  posts, street signs and manhole covers for 
  the characters to use. Crowds can become an 
  issue, especially when a fight first begins. If the 
  hero is pursuing a villain through a crowd, then 
  flashy displays of power in order to stop them is 
  liable to lead to collateral damage. Hostages are 
  also in abundant supply for villains needing an 
  advantage. The skies are usually open enough 
  that fliers and the like can jockey for prime 
  position, and multiple fliers can find themselves 
  in a dogfight pretty quickly.
  • Dogfighting: Flying characters don’t have to 
  limit themselves to hovering a few feet above 
  the ground, in arm’s reach of their opponents. 
  What’s the fun in that? Whether the characters 
  are wearing flying powered armor, are propelled 
  by cosmic energy or have bonafide wings, they 
  can take the fighting high above ground in a 
  battle of aerial superiority. The skies can be fairly 
  wide open, but a cunning fighter can pull the 
  fight near building tops and use those structures 
  
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  to gain the upper hand. One huge danger of 
  fighting in the skies is that the landing is typically 
  long and rough, and a hero or villain defeated in 
  the sky many not have the strength or capability 
  to soften their landing.
  • Under the Sea: On or below sea level can 
  make for a change of pace, for sure. Characters 
  with connections to undersea kingdoms are 
  occasionally underestimated, but an aquatic 
  character fighting a land dwelling character 
  can have a huge advantage, as a land dwelling 
  character will need special equipment in order 
  to breath underwater, or superpowers that allow 
  them to survive without air, and even then they 
  are less likely to have the freedom of movement 
  that an aquatic hero does. The deeper the fight 
  goes underwater, the more visibility is reduced 
  (at least for those not used to it) and the greater 
  the chance of a powerful underwater creature 
  or two getting involved…and that’s not taking 
  into account an aquatic character being able to 
  control the animals themselves.
  • Urban Combat: Dark alleyways and abandoned 
  warehouses tend to be the order of the day for 
  gritty, street level combat, and we are discussing 
  them together because they share certain 
  similar characteristics. For one, the police are 
  rarely quick to respond, and they are not always 
  working on the side of law and order when 
  they do. Visibility tends to be low, between the 
  darkness and the claustrophobic arrangement of 
  the area. This allows stealthy melee characters 
  opportunities to create ambush situations 
  against their opponents, and skilled heroes or 
  villains can eliminate a numbers disadvantage 
  by utilizing the environment. Enhanced senses 
  can help a hero avoid surprises, but big, flashy 
  powers are going to either be limited in their 
  effectiveness or do a lot of property damage.
  • Mystic Sites: A villain looking to acquire 
  ancient power can lead the heroes to mystical 
  sites of power, creating a fantasy cat and 
  mouse game. Magical temples of lost societies 
  are often filled with traps both mundane 
  and mystical, leaving the heroes to dodge 
  poisonous darts and infernal fire alike. Dormant 
  guardians may come to life and seek to destroy 
  all intruders, or the villain may have already 
  acquired the means of controlling the guardians 
  (or at least becoming invisible to them). Mystic 
  sites, especially older ones, can be particularly 
  unstable, and extended conflicts can lead to the 
  whole area caving in around them, which can 
  be hazardous for all parties. Some sites are also 
  connected to other dimensions, and the super 
  powers adventures could tear a hole in reality, 
  leading to any number of complications.
  • Other Dimensions: Venturing to another 
  dimension, by choice or by accident, can prove 
  to be a grab bag of new elements for the heroes 
  to deal with. Whole new, unrecognizable species, 
  powers acting in usual manners (like a character 
  with magnetic or gravity control powers learning 
  that those forces are dramatically altered in 
  another dimension, for better or for worse), 
  spontaneous eruptions of magic or energy. 
  These are the kinds of hazards that dimension 
  hopping heroes may face. Dimensions that 
  are very similar to their own may actually be 
  alternate realities, where they meet familiar faces 
  in unfamiliar roles. Whole campaigns can be set 
  in alternate dimensions, with the heroes being 
  pulled from individual realities and shuffling 
  through time and space, never knowing what 
  strange twist awaits them in their travels as they 
  try to get back home.
  • Wilderness: This really applies to any area that’s 
  not heavily settled. From tracking rampaging 
  green goliaths into desert nuclear testing sites 
  to hunting furry, cannibalistic creatures into 
  the Canadian wilderness, not every adventure 
  has to feature the bright lights of the big city. 
  Hunting a villain in subzero temperatures before 
  they can reach their hidden superweapon in the 
  Arctic Circle can make for every bit as intense 
  and memorable of an adventure as a fight 
  through downtown Washington D.C. Heroes 
  tend to have less collateral damage to worry 
  about in these areas, though eco-conscious 
  characters will want to avoid wrecking the local 
  eco system by throwing around radioactive 
  blasts and destroying creature habitats. This 
  level of damage tends to get hand-waved unless 
  the hero and/or villain are particularly nature or 
  industry focused, for some reason.
  Don’t be afraid to take advantage of the fact that super-
  hero games envelope a large range of genres and 
  subgenres and let the locations for your adventures 
  reflect that. Using wide spread of environments can 
  force your heroes into using their superpowers in 
  new ways, developing new tactics to account for 
  the unusual circumstances, helping each encounter 
  stand out in their minds and challenging their players 
  to find new ways to approach situations.
  
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  Meanwhile, Back At The…
  A good super-hero story is about more than just guys 
  in spandex beating each other up, and the same thing 
  is true of super-hero games. The best heroes tend to 
  have lives and loves and troubles and struggles. It 
  matters that your hero can’t pay the bills, and they are 
  about to have their electricity cut off because they got 
  fired from their fourth job in six months. Sometimes, 
  these outside commitments intersect with the 
  primary conflict (like when a supervillain happens to 
  accidentally pick out the hostage that’s married to a 
  super-hero), but plots like these tend to be secondary 
  to the alien invasions, super-prison breakouts and 
  interdimensional struggles.
  Many times, Subplots are personal storylines 
  that help the heroes become three dimensional 
  characters, rather than cardboard cutouts with 
  colorful costumes and flashy powers. Thematically, 
  they often run alongside the main plot in a 
  complementary manner. Other times, subplots can 
  be slow-brewing schemes by villains that grow into 
  major plots in later adventures. The importance of 
  subplots, as well as the types of subplots used in 
  your games, should be dictated by the interests of 
  you and your players. More so than any other aspect 
  of a super-hero adventure, a subplot should be 
  constructed with your specific heroes in mind, but 
  there are some common ideas that can be used:
  • Bad, Bad Bosses: If a hero in your game has 
  a day job, they could easily have the boss 
  from Hell. Just how horrible is up to you. They 
  could just constantly hound the hero at their 
  day job, giving them work assignments that 
  make it difficult to slip away and fight crime, 
  or constantly hounding them for disappearing 
  on the job. In these cases, the boss isn’t a 
  bad guy per se, as they are merely living up 
  to their responsibilities, but they do become 
  an antagonist by default, as they are actively 
  impeding our heroes. One payoff to this scenario 
  may see the boss learning of the hero’s double 
  life and deciding to help them fulfill their societal 
  responsibilities. Another outcome could see 
  the boss reveal themselves as a villain in their 
  own right and try to destroy the hero upon 
  discovering their identity. Alternately, there may 
  not be anything remotely subtle about the bad 
  boss at all. They spend their days railing on 
  about horrible the hero and their allies are, and 
  maybe even bankroll the very supervillains that 
  attack and attempt to kill the hero, unaware that 
  they are employing the very focus of their anger. 
  In cases like this, it is much harder for the hero 
  and Bad Boss to come to terms, but stranger 
  things have happened.
  • Home is Where the Heart Is: Heroes with 
  a family have an extra layer of responsibility. 
  As discussed above, heroes with family 
  members can find those attachments targeted 
  (accidentally or on purpose), but that is hardly 
  the extent of the complications a family can 
  add to a hero’s life. Super Parents have all 
  the anxiety of parenting, combined with 
  constantly fighting supervillains. In a super-
  powered world, drug dealers don’t try to hook 
  your kid on marijuana, they try to hook them 
  on Meta Human Hormones that give users 
  super powers and rage problems. Spouses 
  who are constantly being abandoned so their 
  significant other can fight giant monsters and 
  alien invasions are likely going to have their 
  patience tested after a while, even though their 
  super-spouse is simply trying to secure a world 
  for their family. Depending on how superpowers 
  are treated in your campaign, a young wife who 
  finds herself pregnant with a superhuman’s 
  baby could provide for a whole other type of 
  “Mom-to-be” nerves.
  • The Dating Game: Romance can be a touchy 
  subject in tabletop games, with some groups 
  steering around out, some groups lightly 
  touching on it, and some groups embracing it 
  fully. It is a very common trope in super-hero 
  stories, and so it merits discussion here. At its 
  simplest, this subplot involves the hero trying to 
  balance dating and being a hero, with the hijinks 
  of having to run off in the middle of a date – or 
  ditch the date altogether – in order to fight crime. 
  The typical resolutions either involve the date 
  getting fed up with the treatment and growing 
  cold towards the hero, or the date discovering 
  the hero’s identity (and accepting or rejecting 
  the hero at that point). Other times, the flirtation 
  begins with another hero. This can have an 
  adverse effect on the team’s dynamic, especially 
  if (would be) couple begin ignoring orders 
  or altering tactics because of their romantic 
  interest. It can get incredibly tense if two heroes 
  on a team begin dating and it doesn’t work 
  out. A third variant can have a hero becoming 
  attracted to a villain. Played out over time, this 
  can lead to the hero’s judgement involving the 
  villain being questioned, or the villain intervening 
  to assist the hero on occasion. Eventually, the 
  hero and villain have to decide if their goals and 
  
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  desires are compatible, or if they are doomed 
  to be enemies. A final variant has a romantic 
  interest revealed as a villain, who may or may 
  not have been aware they were dating a hero. 
  This can be shocking and unnerving for both 
  sides, realizing they have been sleeping with the 
  enemy. Using romance in a game can be tricky 
  and your players may want nothing to do with 
  it. Be open about the possibility of romantic 
  subplots and handle with care.
  • A Phantom Menace: Maybe you have a 
  cool, new villain you want to use (or a cool, 
  old villain to bring back). Maybe you don’t 
  want to just spring the villain on the heroes 
  just like any other adventure. One subplot 
  destined to become a full blown A plot is the 
  rise of a powerful villain. This can be handled 
  in a number of ways, such as the heroes 
  clashing with the villain’s agents, or another 
  powerful villain falling prey to the new rising 
  power. Clues and signs about the villain can 
  be sprinkled across multiple adventures, 
  subtle at first, then growing in prominence so 
  the heroes can both dread and anticipate its 
  arrival. Another variation of this is to provide 
  the heroes with a series of seemingly unrelated 
  adventures, only to reveal that they were all 
  linked to the plans of a villainous Mastermind. 
  In that event, be prepared to have the villain 
  explain exactly what he did and when, 
  especially if the heroes inadvertently helped 
  him by taking out the competition.
  Regardless of the subplot, or subplots, that you 
  employ, they should enhance the game experience 
  for player and GM alike. If you and your players want 
  a heavy focus on super-hero slugfests, and identities 
  and characterizations are low priority for everyone, 
  then don’t include ‘em. There have been several 
  successful comic books that have been story-lite and 
  action heavy and that’ alright: There is no wrong way 
  to play unless people aren’t having fun.
  What A Twist!
  Sometimes, when you scratch the surface of 
  a situation, you find more surface underneath. 
  Sometimes, you find something dark and dangerous 
  and completely unexpected. Plots often have twists, 
  and this is true in fiction and roleplaying games. Plot 
  twists can keep your players on their toes, and turn 
  a predictable situation on its ear. Some common plot 
  twists have been discussed above, but there are 
  many ways to surprise your players and their heroes:
  • Discovering that a fellow hero is another 
  supporting character that the heroes are already 
  connected to, especially if the supporting 
  character is a love interest, or a typically 
  antagonistic character.
  • Learning the identity of a villain and discovering 
  that they are already connected to the villain, 
  especially if it is a friend or love interest.
  • Discovering that the villains the heroes are battling 
  are in the thrall of another, more powerful villain, 
  who has organized them for a sinister purpose.
  • Investigating a series of crimes and discovering 
  that the authorities have named the hero the 
  prime suspect: Due to evidence that points firmly 
  in their direction.
  • A character is revealed as having been replaced 
  by a shapeshifter or decoy (robots, aliens and 
  shapeshifting characters all apply).
  • The villains are being backed by government 
  entities. Bonus points if it’s not a shadow 
  government, but the actual authorities funding 
  villains to attack the heroes.
  • As the heroes are outmanned and outgunned, 
  they are rescued by a known supervillain who 
  fends off their foes and offers them escape. The 
  villain gives their reasons for helping, and it’s up to 
  the heroes to decide if they can trust the villain.
  • A character appears who claims to be the 
  long lost parent of one of the heroes (or the 
  true parent, if both biological parents are 
  accounted for).
  • A character appears who claims to be one of 
  the heroes from the future, sent back to avert a 
  horrible catastrophe.
  • One or more of the heroes is revealed to be an 
  alien/clone/robot and was unaware of it all along. 
  Be incredibly careful with this one, unless you 
  know your players incredibly well.
  • A hero’s business or place of employment has been 
  bought out in a hostile takeover… by a businessman 
  that the hero knows is actually a supervillain.
  Twists for twists sake aren’t recommended. If you 
  have a perfectly good plot and twist, and the players 
  figure it out early on, it may be that you did a good job 
  of setting clues, and they picked up on them. Kudos. 
  Don’t then throw in a nonsensical twist for the purpose 
  of getting one up on them. There is nothing wrong 
  
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  with giving the players what they expect, and giving 
  them what they expect (and making it make sense) is 
  always preferable to throwing them a curveball that is 
  completely out of left field, all in the name of surprise. 
  Set Up The First Scene
  Start things off by being as unsubtle as possible: take 
  one of your story questions, come up with something 
  that will bring the question into sharp relief, and hit your 
  players over the head with it as hard as you can. You 
  don’t have to answer it right off the bat (though there’s 
  nothing wrong with that, either), but you should show 
  the players that the question demands an answer.
  That way, you’re setting an example for the rest of the 
  session and getting the momentum going, ensuring 
  the players won’t dither around. Remember, they’re 
  supposed to be super-heroes; give them something 
  to be proactive about right from the get-go.
  If you’re in an ongoing series, you might need the 
  first scenes of a session to resolve loose ends that 
  were left hanging from a previous issue. It’s okay to 
  spend time on that, because it helps keep the sense 
  of continuity going from issue to issue. As soon as 
  there’s a lull in momentum, though, hit them with your 
  opening scene fast and hard.
  GM Trick: Powerful 
  First Scenes
  Asking the players to contribute something 
  to the beginning of your first scene is a great 
  way to help get them invested in what’s going 
  on right off the bat. If there’s anything that’s 
  flexible about your opening prompt, ask your 
  players to fill in the blanks for you when you 
  start the scene. Clever players may try to use 
  it as an opportunity to push for a compel and 
  get extra fate points right off the bat—we like 
  to call this sort of play “awesome.”
  Defining Scenes
  A scene is a unit of game time lasting anywhere from 
  a few minutes to a half hour or more, during which the 
  players try to achieve a goal or otherwise accomplish 
  something significant in a story arc. Taken together, 
  the collection of scenes you play through make up a 
  whole issue of play, and by extension, also make up 
  your story arcs, arcs, and campaigns.
  So you can look at it as the foundational unit of game 
  time, and you probably already have a good idea of 
  what one looks like. It’s not all that different from a 
  scene in a comic book— the main characters are 
  doing stuff in continuous time, usually all in the same 
  space. Once the action shifts to a new goal, moves 
  to a new place related to that goal, or jumps in time, 
  you’re in the next scene.
  As a GM, one of your most important jobs is to manage 
  the starting and ending of scenes. The best way to 
  control the pacing of what happens in your session 
  is to keep a tight rein on when scenes start and end. 
  Let things continue as long as the players are all 
  invested and enjoying themselves, but as soon as the 
  momentum starts to flag, move on to the next thing. 
  Starting Scenes
  When you’re starting a scene, establish the following 
  two things as clearly as you can:
  • What’s the purpose of the scene?
  • What interesting thing is just about to happen?
  Answering the first question is super-important, 
  because the more specific your scene’s purpose, 
  the easier it is to know when the scene’s over. A 
  good scene revolves around resolving a specific 
  conflict or achieving a specific goal. Once the 
  heroes have succeeded or failed at doing whatever 
  they are trying to do, the scene’s over. If your scene 
  doesn’t have a clear purpose, you run the risk of 
  letting it drag on longer than you intended and slow 
  the pace of your session down.
  Most of the time, the players are going to tell you what 
  the purpose of the scene is, because they’re always 
  going to be telling you what they want to do next as a 
  matter of course. So if they say, “Well, we’re going to 
  the thugs apartment to see if we can get some dirt on 
  him,” then you know the purpose of the scene, and 
  it’s over when the heroes either get the dirt, or get into 
  a situation where it’s impossible to get the dirt.
  Sometimes, though, they’re going to be pretty vague 
  about it. If you don’t have an intuitive understanding 
  of their goals in context, ask questions until they state 
  things directly. So if a player says, “Okay, I’m going to 
  the nightclub to meet with my contact,” that might be 
  a little vague— you know there’s a meeting, but you 
  don’t know what it’s for. You might ask, “What are you 
  interested in finding out? Have you negotiated a price 
  for the information yet?” or another question that’ll 
  help get the player to nail down what he’s after.
  
  218
  Also, sometimes you’ll have to come up with a scene’s 
  purpose all on your own, such as the beginning 
  of a new story arc, or the next scene following a 
  cliffhanger. Whenever you have to do that, try going 
  back to the story questions you came up with earlier 
  and introducing a situation that’s going to directly 
  contribute to answering them. That way, whenever 
  it’s your job to start a scene, you’re always moving 
  the story along.
  The second question is just as important. You want 
  to start a scene just before something interesting 
  is going to take place. Comic books are especially 
  good at this— usually, you’re not reading for more 
  than a couple of pages before something happens to 
  change the situation or shake things up.
  “Cutting in” just before some new action starts helps 
  keep the pace of your session brisk and helps hold 
  the players’ attention. You don’t want to chronicle 
  every second of flying or running across town to get 
  to the thug’s apartment. You want to start as they 
  have already arrived, and are now involved in the 
  action of trying to get inside.
  If you get stumped by this question, just think of 
  something that might complicate whatever the 
  purpose is or make it problematic. You can also use 
  the GM trick mentioned earlier and ask the players 
  leading questions to help you figure out the interesting 
  thing that’s about to happen.
  If you have a clear purpose going into every scene 
  and you start just before some significant piece of 
  action, it’s hard to go wrong.
  Ending Scenes
  You can end scenes the way you start them, 
  but in reverse: as soon as you’ve wrapped up 
  whatever your scene’s purpose was, move on, 
  and shoot for ending the scene immediately after 
  the interesting action concludes.
  A lot of your scenes are going to end up the same 
  way. The heroes might win a conflict or achieve a 
  goal, but there’s likely something else they’re going 
  to want to do afterward.
  Instead of lingering at that scene, though, suggest that 
  they move on to a new one, which helps answer one 
  of the unresolved questions from the current scene. 
  Try to get them to state what they want to do next, 
  and then go back to the two questions for starting 
  scenes above—what’s the purpose of the next scene, 
  and what’s the next bit of interesting action to come? 
  Then dive right into that.
  The one time you should exhibit restraint is if it’s 
  clear that the players are really, really enjoying their 
  interactions. Sometimes people just want to yammer 
  and jaw in character, and that’s okay as long as 
  they’re really into it. If you see interest starting to flag, 
  though, take that opportunity to insert yourself and 
  ask about the next scene.
  Hit Their Aspects
  Another good way to figure out the interesting action 
  for a scene is to turn to the heroes’ aspects, and 
  create a complication or an event-based compel 
  based on them. This is especially good to do for 
  those heroes whose aspects did not come into play 
  when you made up your story arc problem, because 
  it allows them to have some of the spotlight despite 
  the fact that the overall story does not focus on 
  them as much.
  The Story Arc In Play
  So, now you should be ready to begin: you have a 
  problem that can’t be ignored, a variety of story 
  questions that will lead to resolving that problem 
  one way or another, a core group of NPCs and their 
  motivations, and a really dynamic first scene that will 
  get things cooking.
  Everything should be smooth sailing from here, right? 
  You present the questions, the players gradually 
  answer them, and your story rolls into a nice, neat 
  conclusion.
  Yeah... trust us, it’ll never happen that way.
  The most important thing to remember when you 
  actually get the story arc off the ground is this: 
  whatever happens will always be different from what 
  you expect. The heroes will hate an NPC you intended 
  them to befriend, have wild successes that give away 
  a bad guy’s secrets very early, suffer unexpected 
  setbacks that change the course of their actions, or 
  any one of another hundred different things that just 
  don’t end up the way you think they should.
  Notice that we don’t recommend predetermining 
  what scenes and locations are going to be involved 
  in your story arc— that’s because we find that most 
  of the time, you’re going to throw out most of that 
  material anyway, in the face of a dynamic group of 
  players and their choices.
  Not all is lost, however. Tthe stuff you have prepared 
  should help you tremendously when players do 
  something unexpected. Your story questions are 
  
  219
  vague enough that there are going to be multiple 
  ways to answer each one, and you can very quickly 
  axe one that isn’t going to be relevant and replace it 
  with something else on the fly without having to toss 
  the rest of your work.
  Also, knowing your NPCs’ motivations and goals 
  allows you to adjust their behavior more easily than 
  if you’d just placed them in a static scene waiting for 
  the heroes to show up. When the players throw you 
  a curveball, make the NPCs as dynamic and reactive 
  as they are, by having them take sudden, surprising 
  action in pursuit of their goals.
  Resolving The Story arc
  A story arc ends when you’ve run enough scenes 
  to definitively answer most of the story questions 
  you came up with when you were preparing your 
  story arc. Sometimes you’ll be able to do that in a 
  single session if you have a lot of time or only a few 
  questions. If you have a lot of questions, it’ll probably 
  take you two or three issues to get through them all.
  Don’t feel the need to answer every story question 
  if you’ve brought things to a satisfying conclusion— 
  you can either use unresolved story questions for 
  future story arcs or let them lie if they didn’t get a 
  whole lot of traction with the players.
  The end of a story arc usually triggers a significant 
  milestone. When this happens, you should also see if 
  the game world needs advancing too.
  Using the Rogues Gallery 
  and Supporting Cast
  When creating an issue or story arc, never forget 
  the Rogues Gallery and Supporting Cast members 
  the players chose for their characters during the 
  character creation process.
  Although you need not always use them, the Rogues 
  Gallery are villains specifically tailor-made to oppose 
  their heroic counterpart (and as the GM, you should 
  be completing the Rogue’s character sheet as a Main 
  NPC to reflect exactly that). Each rogue automatically 
  knows one of the hero’s character aspects, and once 
  per Issue the rogue can invoke (for a +2 bonus) or 
  compel that aspect against the hero at no fate point 
  cost. Yes, the hero can resist the invocation or compel, 
  but doing so costs a fate point from the player that 
  goes into the GM fate pool at the end of the scene.
  Supporting cast members are another way to make 
  a storyline personal for one or more heroes. These 
  were the NPCs the players created during character 
  creation to become a part of their hero’s personal 
  world and story. It might have been a wife or husband, 
  a teenaged son or daughter, an elderly aunt, an astute 
  family butler, or any other type of character they could 
  come up with. Use the Supporting Cast members 
  the players created to not only ground them into the 
  story world through interesting role-playing scenes, 
  but to also provide all sorts of obstacles. Maybe the 
  elderly aunt suffers a heart attack and is placed in the 
  hospital, and their health and possible death weighs 
  on the hero. If the hero doesn’t have a character 
  aspect representing the supporting cast member (and 
  having one is not required), then make that a situation 
  aspect at just the right moment. That way, either way 
  it’s handled, the hero will be able to use that aspect to 
  drive himself harder, or compel it against him to have 
  it cause a dramatic complication for him. Perhaps he 
  suddenly gets a fear of his aunt’s death, hesitates, 
  and the villain manages to escape.
  The point is, make sure to use the heroes’ Rogues 
  Gallery and Supporting Cast, if not as the inspiration 
  for an Issue’s storyline, then at least as a scene or 
  two within an Issue. Doing so makes the story more 
  personal for the player and character, and invokes 
  that sense of taking part in an unfolding comic book 
  series. Of course, not every Issue or storyline needs 
  to focus on a Rogue or Supporting Cast member, and 
  as a matter of fact, they shouldn’t. But when used 
  occasionally throughout a series, they’re guaranteed 
  to add a sense of personal investment and continuity 
  into the series.
  Putting It All Together
  Having discussed some of the various elements that 
  go into creating a super-hero adventure, we now 
  have to put all of those elements together to make an 
  adventure. The level of writing you do is going to be 
  up to you, and some would argue that there is such a 
  thing as too much preparation.
  One of the simplest approaches to take with writing 
  a super-hero adventure is to ignore the heroes. 
  That may not make much sense at first, but villains 
  tend to be the main drivers of conflict in super-hero 
  adventures. Heroes are rarely for hire (though there 
  are some notable exceptions), and are not visiting 
  ancient temples and dungeons to take their treasures 
  for their own. Start with your villain and detail their 
  plans. Take the heroes into account only as far as 
  
  220
  the villain is likely to. If the villain is the archenemy 
  of the heroes, they practically expect the heroes to 
  try to thwart them, so put some thought into any 
  realistic countermeasures. If the villain has never 
  crossed paths with the heroes before, then it may 
  not make sense for them to have countermeasures 
  in place. Once this is complete, identify the likely 
  point in the plan in which the heroes will become 
  aware of the villain’s plot. If it makes sense, apply 
  a strong, baited hook here (such as the villains 
  attacking the office building of a hero’s loved one). 
  Otherwise, let the villain’s plot run and allow the 
  heroes to react when they become aware, while 
  they are doing other things (out on patrol, stopping 
  muggings, on dates, having a poker game with their 
  super-hero buddies). This approach may provide a 
  somewhat looser narrative, and will likely require 
  decent improvisational skills from the GM.
  You can tightly script a super-hero adventure, with 
  scene by scene breakdowns that helpfully walk the 
  characters through the plot. One advantage to this 
  is that you can build in scenes and situations that 
  specifically play to the heroes’ strengths and test 
  their weaknesses. Extra planning and forethought 
  allow you to ensure that no one is left out and let 
  you identify potential trouble areas that the heroes’ 
  powers and skills may exploit in the adventure. One 
  downside to this is that folks who tightly script their 
  adventures often feel bound to that script, which 
  is a dicey proposition in any roleplaying game, but 
  can be particularly constricting in the gonzo genre 
  stew that is super-hero RPGs. Getting too hung up 
  on the “right” way to resolve a conflict can rob you 
  and your players of some brilliant stories as super-
  hero characters often have the ability to not only think 
  outside the box, but to teleport the box to another 
  dimension and blow it up. 
  This kind of rigid thinking can also lead to “railroading”, 
  in which player choice is largely removed and they 
  are directed from one scene to the next. Now, this 
  is not an indictment of railroading. Again, this is a 
  “know your players” thing. Some groups are happy 
  to buckle up and take a ride, as long as the view is 
  good. Others want to know that they are influencing 
  the direction the story is going in. Tightly scripting 
  while avoiding railroading can be done by scripting 
  scene to scene and plotting multiple directions for an 
  adventure to take. The downside to this is that you 
  are likely to create material that will never actually 
  be used in play, which can seem wasteful (though a 
  really good idea left unused can always be dusted off, 
  reworked and plugged into a later scenario).
  A third method involves loose outlining. This is similar 
  to the first method, but more emphasis is placed on 
  the overall adventure and what the heroes are or are 
  not doing, rather than just on the villain’s plans and 
  leaving it up to the heroes to disrupt. This method 
  tends to allow for fewer surprises than the first, but 
  leaves more spontaneity in play than the second 
  does. This can be more easily done if you know your 
  players and their playstyles well, by anticipating their 
  likely reaction to situations to allow you to focus on 
  adventure areas they are more likely to be drawn to.
  When planning the 
  adventure, 
  think 
  ahead: 
  Are 
  you 
  intending 
  to 
  run 
  more 
  adventures, 
  or is this a one 
  shot? If it’s a one 
  shot, don’t give the 
  villain quite as many 
  escape 
  options, 
  so 
  the 
  adventure 
  has 
  a 
  better 
  chance of having 
  a more satisfying 
  conclusion. 
  If 
  adventure 
  is 
  part 
  of 
  an 
  ongoing 
  campaign, you can 
  keep your options 
  open and give the 
  villain more potential 
  
  221
  “outs”, as the heroes are more likely to see them 
  again in the future. 
  Don’t be afraid to let your heroes be awesome. Super-
  heroes are cool and powerful and tough. Let them be 
  cool and powerful and tough. Give them challenges 
  that they excel in, and legions of mooks that can’t 
  withstand their might. Let them be the heroes of 
  their own story, even if they are not necessarily the 
  strongest or most powerful heroes in the game world.
  This doesn’t mean you can’t challenge them, or that 
  things should never go wrong. Quite the opposite. If 
  the heroes have suffered a crushing setback, it is all 
  the more important that they get the chance to show 
  off and make an impact. If the last adventure ended 
  in horrible tragedy and the villain beat them down and 
  got away, then it might be a great time to work in a 
  rescue scenario so people they are saving can remind 
  them that they are larger than life beings to them. They 
  don’t have to win all the time, but if every adventure is 
  a losing proposition, then the heroes aren’t going to 
  feel very heroic.
  Be prepared, but be flexible. Super-hero adventures 
  are notorious for being easy to shred due to 
  unforeseen consequences of how certain powers 
  interact with certain situations. When you are 
  planning an adventure, you are trying to account 
  for the capabilities of every hero in your game. The 
  individual players are only looking at each situation as 
  it applies to their hero, so they are generally way more 
  focused on how their ability to control mammals can 
  help them solve a situation than you are because their 
  character is their sole interface with the situation you 
  have crafted for a whole group. That’s okay. Super-
  heroes break limits and bend the laws of reality all 
  the time. Your players are almost certainly going to 
  surprise you with what they do and how they do it. 
  That’s generally a good thing. Don’t punish them for 
  being creative, but let villains adapt to their tactics if 
  they use the same ones over and over.
  Remind the heroes they are part of a larger universe 
  (unless, of course, they aren’t), and let them see the 
  impact of their actions. Having a “cold open” of an 
  adventure involve the heroes and an NPC guest star 
  teaming up to take down a fairly strong, but minor, 
  villain can be a nice touch that keeps them invested 
  in the game world, especially when that villain comes 
  seeking revenge, or that hero becomes bait for one of 
  your hooks in the future.
  For all the advice about making sure heroes “make 
  sense” for an adventure, don’t be afraid to discard 
  it all in the name of something fun and interesting. 
  The X-Men were, and are, an allegory for civil rights, 
  but they have had multiple iconic adventures in 
  outer space. The Punisher recently took advantage 
  of Earth’s heavy hitters leaving planet Earth to stop 
  an invading force by targeting the hidden leaders 
  of New York’s mob scene, knowing no one was 
  going to be around to stop him from turning it into 
  a massacre if he needed to. Most folks recall Hulk’s 
  various “Leave me alone!” battles with the military 
  and other heroes, but did you know he was involved 
  in Desert Storm-like conflict to overthrow a brutal 
  Middle Eastern dictator?
  Super-hero adventures are science fiction, fantasy, 
  horror, crime drama, comedy, soap opera, wuxia 
  and political thriller all in one. They are big, sweeping 
  epics, but they work best when grounded in quiet 
  character moments. It is not only possible to 
  embrace the absurdity of telepathic gorillas trying 
  to take over the world, possibly while aligned with 
  mind controlling star fish, but to play that absurdity 
  completely straight. Batman takes his maniacal, 
  clown-faced archnemesis as seriously as he does 
  the undead creature that haunts his city’s swamps, 
  and he treats them both with the same gravity that 
  he does white-skinned Martian invaders. There is 
  literally no limit to the elements that can be believably 
  introduced into a “standard” super-hero adventure, 
  as long as it is fun and interesting.
  
  222
  Chapter 15: Advancing the series
  and ends (and that can be helpful), but you really only 
  need to plan a volume at a time.
  See, the players are so prone to shaking things up 
  and changing things on you that planning more than 
  one volume at a time is often frustrating and futile. 
  Planning the second volume of a series based on 
  the events of the first volume, how it turned out, and 
  what your players did, though— well, that can make 
  for very satisfying play.
  Defining Volumes
  When you sit down to play Daring Comics, you might 
  just play a single Issue. That’s a viable way to play 
  the game, but let’s assume that you want it to go a bit 
  longer. What you need, then, is a volume.
  A volume is a complete storyline with its own themes, 
  situations, 
  antagonists, 
  innocent 
  bystanders, and endgame, told in 
  the span of a few Issues (somewhere 
  between three and six, usually). You 
  don’t need to have everything planned 
  out (in fact, you probably shouldn’t, given 
  that no meticulously planned story ever 
  survives contact with the players), but 
  you need to have an idea of where things 
  begin and end, and what might happen 
  in the middle.
  Think of a volume the same way you 
  would when reading a comic book 
  volume (also called graphic novels, 
  nowadays). It tells its own story and ends 
  when it’s done; you provide some form 
  of closure and move on. Sometimes 
  you move on to another story, and 
  sometimes your volume is just the first 
  in a series of volumes. That’s when you 
  have a series.
  Defining Series
  When you have multiple volumes that 
  are connected and told in a sequence, 
  and that have an overarching story or 
  theme that runs through all of them, you 
  have a series. series are long, taking 
  months or even years to complete (if 
  you ever do).
  Of course, that doesn’t need to be as 
  scary as it might sound. Yes, a series is 
  long and large and complex. You don’t, 
  however, need to come up with the 
  whole thing at once. As with a volume, 
  you may have an idea where it begins 
  
  223
  Building A Volume
  The easiest way to build a volume is not to build one, 
  we suggested that if you have a lot of story questions, 
  you can reserve some of them for the next volume. 
  Then, in your next volume, add some new questions 
  to go with the unanswered ones. Keep going along 
  that route, and you’ll have material for three or four 
  volumes without doing that much additional work. 
  In addition, that lets you incorporate changes to the 
  characters’ aspects organically, rather than making a 
  plan and having it disrupted.
  That said, we know some GMs want to have a greater 
  sense of structure for the long run. We recommend 
  using the same method for building volumes in the 
  previous chapter to build volumes, but changing 
  the scope of the story questions you come up with. 
  Instead of focusing on immediate problems for the 
  PCs to solve, come up with a more general problem, 
  where the PCs are going to have to solve smaller 
  problems first in order to have a chance at resolving 
  the larger one.
  The best places to look for volume-sized problems 
  are the current or impending problems of places or 
  organizations that you came up with during series 
  creation. If you haven’t made any up yet for a particular 
  place or group, now might be a good time to do that, 
  so you have material for the volume.
  Then go through the same process of picking 
  opposing NPCs, keeping in mind that their influence 
  is supposed to be more far-reaching in a volume than 
  in a single volume.
  Building A Series
  Again, the easiest way to do this is not to bother— just 
  let your ideas and story questions flow from one to 
  the other and create the series story for you. Human 
  beings are pattern-making machines, and it’s very 
  likely that you’ll naturally pick up on what the long-
  term plot devices of your series need to be by keying 
  into unanswered questions as the Issues progress.
  However, if you want to do a little bit of focused 
  planning, the advice is the same as for a story arc, 
  except you’re generalizing even more. Pick one story 
  question to answer, which the PCs will spend their 
  issues building to. Then, jot down some notes on 
  what steps will lead to answering that question, so 
  you have material for storylines to come.
  The very best aspects to look at for a series-level 
  problem are your setting’s current or impending 
  problems, because of their scope.
  Advancement And Change
  Your characters aren’t going to remain static 
  through the entire series. As their stories play out, 
  they’ll have the chance to grow and change in 
  response to the events that happen in play. The 
  conflicts they face and the complications they 
  overcome will alter your sense of who they are and 
  push them toward new challenges.
  In addition to your characters, the game world will 
  change also. You’ll resolve threats as you play, 
  or change the face of a location, or make such 
  an impact on the world that one of the issues 
  may need to change. We’ll get more into world 
  advancement later.
  Character advancement in Daring Comics comes in 
  one of two flavors: either you can change something 
  on your sheet to something else that’s equivalent, 
  or you can add new things to your sheet. The 
  opportunities you get to do this are collectively 
  called milestones.
  Defining Milestones
  A milestone is a moment during the series where you 
  have the chance to change or advance your character. 
  We call them milestones because they usually happen 
  at significant “break points” in the action of a game— 
  the end of an Issue, the end of a story arc, and the 
  end of a volume, respectively.
  Usually, those break points immediately follow 
  some significant event in the story that justifies your 
  character changing in response to events. You might 
  reveal a significant plot detail or have a cliffhanger at 
  the end of an issue. You might defeat a major villain or 
  resolve a plotline at the end of a story arc. You might 
  resolve a major storyline that shakes up the series 
  world at the end of a volume.
  Obviously, things won’t always line up that nicely, so 
  GMs, you have some discretion in deciding when a 
  certain level of milestone occurs. If it seems satisfying 
  to give out a milestone in the middle of an Issue, go 
  ahead, but stick to the guidelines here to keep from 
  handing out too many advancement opportunities 
  too often.
  
  224
  Milestones come in three levels of importance: minor, 
  significant, and major.
  Minor Milestones
  Minor milestones usually occur at the end of an Issue 
  of play, or when one piece of a story has been resolved. 
  These kinds of milestones are more about changing 
  your character rather than making him or her more 
  powerful, about adjusting in response to whatever’s 
  going on in the story if you need to. Sometimes it 
  won’t really make sense to take advantage of a minor 
  milestone, but you always have the opportunity if you 
  should need to.
  During a minor milestone, you can choose to do one 
  (and only one) of the following:
  • Switch the rank values of any two skills, or 
  replace one Average (+1) skill with one that isn’t 
  on your sheet.
  • Change any single stunt for another stunt, or 
  a single power or special effect for another of 
  equal or lesser cost (and yes, you get back any 
  unused Hero Points, which you can immediately 
  spend).
  • Purchase a new stunt, power, or special 
  effect, provided you have the refresh to do so. 
  (Remember, you can’t go below 1 refresh.)
  • Rename one character aspect that isn’t your 
  Concept.
  This is a good way to make slight character 
  adjustments, if it seems like something on your 
  character isn’t quite right— you don’t end up using 
  that stunt as often as you thought, or you resolved 
  the Revenge Against the Terenza Family that you 
  had and thus it’s no longer appropriate, or any of 
  those changes that keep your character consistent 
  with the events of play.
  In fact, you should almost always be able to justify the 
  change you’re making in terms of the game’s story. 
  You shouldn’t be able to change Hot Tempered to 
  Staunch Pacifist, for example, unless something 
  happened in the story to inspire a serious change of 
  heart. GMs, you’re the final arbiter on this, but don’t 
  be so much of a stickler that you sacrifice a player’s 
  fun for consistency.
  Significant Milestones
  Significant milestones usually occur at the end of a 
  story arc or the conclusion of a big plot event (or, 
  when in doubt, at the end of every two or three Issues). 
  Unlike minor milestones, which are primarily about 
  change, significant milestones are about learning 
  new things— dealing with problems and challenges 
  has made your character generally more capable at 
  what they do.
  In addition to the benefit of a minor milestone, you 
  also gain both of the following:
  • One additional skill point, which you can spend 
  to buy a new skill at Average (+1) or increase an 
  existing skill by one rank.
  When you spend your skill point, it’s worth one 
  step on the ladder. You can use it to buy a new skill 
  at Average (+1), or you can use it to increase an 
  existing skill by one step on the ladder—say, from 
  Good (+3) to Great (+4).
  You might notice that this means that the further you 
  get up the ladder, the harder it is to quickly advance 
  your skills. This is intentional, no one is going to be 
  able to get to the point where they’re awesome at 
  everything, all the time. 
  When increasing skills, though, make sure you abide 
  by the skill column.
  Major Milestones
  A major milestone should only occur when something 
  happens in the series that shakes it up a lot— the end 
  of a volume, the death of a main NPC villain, or any 
  other large-scale change that reverberates around 
  your game world.
  These milestones are about gaining more power. The 
  challenges of yesterday simply aren’t sufficient to 
  threaten these characters anymore, and the threats 
  of tomorrow will need to be more adept, organized, 
  and determined to stand against them in the future.
  Achieving a major milestone confers the benefits of a 
  significant milestone and a minor milestone, and all of 
  the following additional options:
  • If you have an extreme consequence, rename it to 
  reflect that you’ve moved past its most debilitating 
  effects. This allows you to take another extreme 
  consequence in the future, if you desire.
  • Take an additional Hero Point, which allows you 
  to purchase a new Stunt, a new Power, a special 
  effect for a power, or even increase your Refresh 
  by one. You can also bank the Hero Point until 
  you reach future Major Milestones, if a stunt, 
  
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  power, or special effect costs more than one 
  point (though it’s probably better to just drop it 
  into your Refresh until that time).
  • Advance a skill beyond the series’ current skill 
  cap, if you’re able to, thus increasing the skill cap.
  • Rename your character’s Concept if you desire.
  Reaching a major milestone is a pretty big deal. 
  Characters with more stunts are going to have a 
  diverse range of bonuses, making their skills much 
  more effective by default. Characters with higher 
  refresh will have a much larger fountain of fate points 
  to work with when issues begin, which means they’ll 
  be less reliant on compels for a while.
  GMs, when the player characters go past the skill 
  cap, it will necessarily change the way you make 
  opposition NPCs, because you’re going to need foes 
  who can match the PCs in terms of base competence 
  so as to provide a worthy challenge. It won’t happen 
  all at once, which will give you the chance to introduce 
  more powerful enemies gradually, but if you play long 
  enough, eventually you’re going to have PCs who 
  have Epic and Legendary skill ratings— that alone 
  should give you a sense of what kind of villains you’ll 
  need to bring to get in their way.
  Most of all, a major milestone should signal that lots 
  of things in the world of your game have changed. 
  Some of that will probably be reflected in world 
  advancement, but given the number of chances the 
  PCs have had to revise their aspects in response to 
  the story, you could be looking at a group with a much 
  different set of priorities and concerns than they had 
  when they started.
  World Advancement
  The characters are not the only ones who change in 
  response to events in the game. Player characters 
  leave their mark on locations (and their faces) with 
  their passing. Things that were crises and major 
  issues at the start of a game get addressed, resolved, 
  or changed. Things that weren’t major problems 
  before suddenly blossom with new severity and life. 
  Old adversaries fall to the wayside and new ones rise.
  GMs, when the players are changing their characters 
  through milestones, you should also be looking at 
  whether or not the aspects you originally placed on 
  
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  the game during game creation need to change in 
  response to what they’ve done, or simply because of 
  lack of use.
  Here are some guidelines regarding each milestone.
  For Minor Milestones
  • Do you need to add a new location to the 
  game, based on what the PCs have done? 
  If so, come up with some NPCs to help give 
  more personality to the location and add an 
  issue to the place.
  • Have the PCs resolved a problem in a location? 
  Get rid of the aspect, or maybe change it to 
  represent how the problem was resolved.
  For Significant Milestones
  • Did the PCs resolve a problem that was on 
  the whole game world? If so, remove (or alter) 
  the aspect.
  • Did the PCs create permanent change in a 
  location? If so, create a new problem to reflect 
  this, for better or for worse.
  For Major Milestones
  • Did the PCs create permanent change in the 
  game world? If so, give it a new problem to 
  reflect this, for better or for worse.
  You don’t need to make these changes as precisely 
  or as regularly as the players do. If anything, you 
  should be as reactive as you can. In other words, 
  focus on changing those aspects that the player 
  characters have directly interacted with and caused 
  the most change to.
  If you have aspects you haven’t really explored yet, 
  keep them around if you think they’re just waiting their 
  turn. However, you can also change them in order to 
  make them more relevant to what’s going on in the 
  moment, or simply to give the PCs more of a sense of 
  being in an evolving world.
  Also, keep in mind that if the PCs remove an impending 
  problem, another one must arise to take its place. 
  Don’t worry about this immediately— you need to give 
  your players a sense of enacting permanent change 
  in the game world. But after a while, if you notice that 
  you’re low on impending problems, it’s probably a 
  good time to introduce a new one, whether on the 
  setting as a whole or on a specific location.
  Advancing Collateral 
  Damage Consequences
  Whenever there are Collateral Damage Consequences 
  left at the end of a story arc, as GM you have a little 
  creative work to do. Mechanically speaking, collateral 
  damage consequences should clear at the end of a 
  story arc, but naturally they just don’t simply go away. 
  Instead, they are combined (if there are more than 
  one) and moved into new series aspects. You can 
  either make them a new series aspect that the heroes 
  must somehow overcome, or combine them with 
  an already existing series aspect to show an overall 
  increase to an already existing problem.
  In the current series, which originally started 
  as an underworld street level tale and over 
  time has evolved into something larger, the 
  two series aspects are: Alien Shape-Shifting 
  Agents Amongst Us as the broad problem, 
  and Alien Infiltration of Law Enforcement as 
  the immediate problem.
  At the end of the current story arc, the 
  Collateral Damage Consequence of Heavily 
  Damaged Skyscrapers was left unresolved. 
  Mike looks at the consequence, and has a 
  choice to make. He could use to it make a new 
  location aspect for downtown representing 
  the massive damage and loss of business 
  operations (and potential jobs to the citizens). 
  He could also simply take such an aspect and 
  make it third new series aspect, something 
  like: Weakened City Economy or Citizens 
  Angry at the Super-Powered Population.
  His third option is to somehow take that 
  aspect, and weave it into one of the 
  already existing series aspects, thereby 
  broadening the problem.
  Mike decides to do just that, and takes the 
  Heavily Damaged Skyscrapers consequence 
  the Alien Infiltration of Law Enforcement series 
  aspect, and combine them into a slightly larger 
  problem. He calls the reworked series aspect 
  Law Enforcement Crackdown on Super-Hero 
  Activity, which represents both the original 
  series aspect as well as fallout for the collateral 
  damage the heroes caused.
  Dealing with NPCs
  Remember, GMs, when you add a new location to the 
  
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  setting, you want to add at least one new NPC to go 
  with it. Sometimes, that might mean moving a person 
  from a location you’re not going to use anymore.
  Likewise, when there’s a significant change in an 
  issue for a location or the setting, you 
  need to evaluate if the current NPCs 
  are sufficient to express that change. 
  If not, you might need to add one, or 
  alter an NPC you have in a significant 
  way— such as add more aspects or 
  revise existing aspects to keep that 
  character relevant to the problem at 
  hand.
  Most of the time, it should be pretty 
  obvious when you need a new face 
  for a location— when the old one 
  dies or is somehow permanently 
  removed from the series, or is boring 
  now, it’s probably time to change 
  things up.
  Recurring NPCs
  There are essentially two ways to 
  reuse NPCs. You can either use them 
  to show how the PCs have grown 
  since they started, or use them to 
  show how the world is responding to 
  their growth.
  With the former, you don’t change 
  the NPC, because that’s the point— 
  the next time the PCs meet them, 
  they’ve outclassed them, or they 
  have 
  new 
  worries, 
  or 
  they’ve 
  somehow grown past that NPC, 
  who remains static. Maybe you 
  even change the category they’re 
  in— where they were once a main 
  NPC, now they’re a supporting 
  NPC because of how the PCs have 
  grown.
  With the latter, you allow the NPC 
  to advance like the PCs have— 
  you add new skills, change their 
  aspects around, give them a stunt 
  or two, and otherwise do whatever 
  is necessary to keep them relevant 
  to the PCs’ endeavors. This kind of 
  NPC might be able to hang around 
  as a nemesis for several volumes, 
  or at least provide some sense of 
  continuity as the PCs become more 
  powerful and influential.
  
  228
  Appendix: Turning the Dials
  know this stuff, we also have to keep in mind that 
  some folks might be trying out the Fate system for 
  the first time through Daring Comics. If the variant 
  from another Fate game worked, we didn’t feel it was 
  a good idea to reinvent the proverbial wheel just for 
  the sake of doing so. The rules already worked, and 
  plugged right in to represent other facets of super-
  hero comic book concepts. Altering them just for the 
  sake of doing so, in our opinion, would have ignored 
  one of the core strengths of an OGL system.
  What this Appendix does is goes through the Daring 
  Comics rulebook chapter by chapter, and provides 
  some variations to the already established rules. 
  Not all chapters will see hacks in this Appendix, 
  and it would be impossible to cover every possible 
  variant that could be conceived. All we’re doing is 
  laying some groundwork to hopefully get your own 
  brainstorms brewing.
  As with any Fate game, when you start turning the 
  dials, especially if you turn too many at once, you will 
  The Daring Comics Role-Playing Game is designed 
  around the Fate system from Evil Hat Productions. 
  Being a Fate game, that means the system is easily 
  hackable to make new rules, create rules variations, 
  and pretty much make it do whatever you want at the 
  gaming table. Evil Hat Productions already provided a 
  lot of good, variant rules concepts in their Fate Toolkit 
  book, and there’s also a treasure trove of variants 
  posted across the internet by the Fate Community.
  Since Daring Comics is a toolkit system where we 
  expect you to hack the heck out of it to get the right 
  feel for your comic book series, we’re also going 
  to help out along those lines in this final chapter. 
  Throughout the next several pages, we’re going to 
  provide you with some of our hacks for the game, and 
  hopefully inspire you to create some of your own and 
  share them with the larger Fate Community.
  Fate Veterans will recognize some of these variants 
  from other Fate games. That’s unavoidable, though. 
  While we expect the veterans out there to already 
  
  229
  probably find some balance issues during play as 
  you start mixing and matching more and more ideas. 
  Don’t worry too much about that. Simply find the right 
  combination that works best for your group, that you 
  consider fun, and get out there fighting for justice.
  Chapter 3: Series Creation
  By default, Daring Comics assumes that every hero 
  on the team (i.e. the player-characters) will be of the 
  same Series Level and Experience Level. But that 
  doesn’t necessarily be the case, especially since it is 
  rarely the axiom in comic books.
  The following variant allows for creating a super team 
  with player-character heroes of different Series and/
  or Experience levels.
  Different Series Levels
  Teams in comic books very often run with characters 
  that would fit into very different Series Levels. The Off 
  the Charts alien who can move mountains, the Urban 
  Protector with an armory of devices and highly trained 
  skills, the man in power-armor, and even a guy with 
  just extensive training and a quiver of trick arrows.
  In Daring Comics, you are not required to run a 
  game with each member of your team having the 
  same number of Hero Points. Mix it up. The Series 
  Level is there to provide a benchmark, to show you 
  in the numbers how powerful one member is in 
  relation to the others.
  But when running a team of different Series Level 
  characters, consider the following option to give a 
  little extra push to those of lesser Hero Points. Keep in 
  mind that this is an option, and the GM is not required 
  to employ it.
  When running a series (or even a single Issue) with 
  different Series Levels of player-characters, take 
  the highest Series Level and compare it to the rest 
  of the characters. For each step another player-
  character is below that Series Level, they start the 
  Issue with an extra fate point. This does not affect 
  their Refresh, it’s just a free fate point or two to 
  make sure they get their share of the Oooomph! 
  that everyone gets in a comic book.
  Phalanx is a character that falls into the Off 
  the Chart category. He’s a major heavy-hitter 
  capable of taking on galactic level threats.
  All the other members except one other, fall 
  under the Earth’s Mightiest level.
  Meanwhile, Sure-Shot is an Urban Protector 
  kind of guy. Sure, anything is a bullet in his 
  hands, but outside of that and some training, 
  he really isn’t super-powered.
  Whenever Sure-Shot is on a team with Phalanx, 
  he gets three extra fate points at the start of 
  the Issue. All the other members get one extra 
  fate point when working with Phalanx.
  Different Experience Levels
  You could also do the same for members of different 
  Experience Levels— granting an extra fate point for 
  each step lower in Experience Level the hero is to the 
  most experienced hero on the team.
  Using the Series Level example, if Sure-Shot’s 
  experience level was Know the Ropes and Phalanx 
  was Highly Experienced, Sure-Shot would gain an 
  additional two free fate point under this option, 
  granting him a total of five extra fate point s at 
  the beginning of an Issue where he was working 
  directly with Phalanx.
  Or perhaps you’d prefer to do it for variant Experience 
  Levels, but not Series Levels. The choice of whether 
  or not to use the extra fate point options, and how to 
  use them, is completely up to you. Figure out what’s 
  the most fun for you, and have at it.
  
  230
  Different Team 
  Experience
  If you want to represent a super team with a 
  lot of experience, or very little experience, the 
  guideline below gives a suggested modifier 
  to the number of Team Points. The modifier 
  is not per player, it is a flat modifier to the 
  Team Points they already receive.
  For teams with members of different 
  experience levels, use the highest experience 
  level. Although it’s usually argued that a team 
  is only as strong as its weakest member, 
  we’re talking super-heroes— where the 
  experienced mentor or member usually has 
  the biggest impact on what a team can do.
  New/Young Heroes: +0
  Know the Ropes: +1
  Been Around the Block: +2
  Highly Experienced: +3
  Chapter 4: Character 
  Creation
  Want to change character creation around a bit? 
  Try these hacks to get you started. The first covers 
  running a short origin story for each player-character, 
  while the second option shows a quick-and-dirty 
  method of making characters quickly for a one night 
  pick-up game.
  Origin Story
  Origin stories are a staple of super-hero comic books, but 
  don’t always translate as well at a gaming table. Naturally, 
  that’s all dependent on the dynamics and playstyle of the 
  group, but we thought we’d offer it as an option.
  Starting the Origin Story
  An origin story is a great way to start character 
  creation with a bang by using vignettes that target 
  each player. It’s just like playing a normal game of 
  Daring Comics, but focuses on helping each player 
  define their character. Most players will have at least 
  a general idea of who they want to be, but they may 
  be fuzzy on the details.
  Start in medias res— when you start with action, you 
  give the player opportunities to make choices about 
  their character.
  A character starts her origin story with one fate point 
  and their Concept aspect already chosen.
  Choosing New Skills
  During the origin story, call for a lot of skill rolls. 
  Whenever the player must make a skill roll and doesn’t 
  want to roll at Mediocre (+0), he can assign that skill 
  to one of him empty slots. Once assigned, it’s part of 
  the character.
  Choosing New Aspects
  Throw the player into a variety of different situations, 
  pit him against a variety of different difficulties. When 
  the player runs into trouble, when he needs a +2 or 
  a reroll for example, suggest an aspect to him. If he 
  takes you up on your suggestion or comes up with 
  his own aspect, let him invoke it once for free and 
  give him a fate point!
  Choosing New Stunts
  You can offer the player new stunts the same way 
  you offer him new aspects— offer him something that 
  might get him out of a tight spot, or allow him to do 
  something he needs to do. Once the player uses a 
  stunt, it becomes part of his character and costs the 
  required Hero Points.
  Choosing Powers
  This is also a good time for the player to have his 
  character thrust into situations that will start to define 
  his power sets, or run a scene for the character showing 
  his true origin and source of gaining his powers. As 
  with stunts, place the character into situations where 
  the player can start deciding on some base powers to 
  add to the character. Once the player uses a power, 
  it becomes part of one of the character’s power sets 
  and costs the required Hero Points.
  Involving the Other Players
  Playing a character’s origin story is a communal 
  activity! Other players can jump in to play NPCs— you 
  can suggest they do this, too, if you need someone 
  to play a particular character. They can even jump 
  in with their own characters, whether or not they’ve 
  gone through their own origin story yet.
  Other players can also suggest aspects, but only if 
  those aspects define a relationship with their own 
  characters. If the two players define a relationship 
  
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  during an origin story, they both get an aspect and 
  a fate point— which the other player can use in his 
  own origin story!
  Ending an Origin Story
  Follow an origin story to an appropriate conclusion, 
  but try not to let it last longer than fifteen or twenty 
  minutes before you move on to the next origin story. 
  The idea is to play through an origin story for each 
  player at the table during a single session. Once the 
  origin stories are completed, the players can spent 
  any remaining Hero Points, skill slots, and aspect 
  slots, to finish up character creation.
  Pick-Up Style for 
  Beginning a Series
  The pick-up style of starting a game can also 
  be used when creating a Series, which offers 
  a less math option for getting started, since 
  slots and points can be spent during play. 
  The only difference is that if using this style 
  to create a Series, make sure to go through 
  the Series Framework steps. 
  Players still do not need to create their 
  Rogues Gallery and Supporting Cast before 
  the first Issue, and may indeed encounter 
  such creative choices during play and flesh 
  them out between gaming nights. If that 
  option is used, the player simply marks the 
  awarded skill point or Hero Point with the 
  rest he has in the bank.
  The Pick-Up Game
  The pick-up game is simply a one-shot gaming 
  session where you and your friends decide to play a 
  game of Daring Comics with pretty much zero prep 
  time. It’s for those nights where you’re all wondering 
  what to do, and decide to do a little role-playing at 
  the last minute.
  Typically, Daring Comics requires a lot of creative 
  thought to get started. The entire group sits down 
  at the table, determines all the different tones and 
  levels of the Series they want to play, determines their 
  aspects, skills, stunts, and powers, and can take an 
  entire game night— or maybe two nights, depending 
  on the size of the group.
  At the same time, nothing in Daring Comics says that 
  every part of character creation much be done before 
  the first Issue. There is absolutely nothing wrong 
  with a player banking an Aspect slot or two, some 
  skill slots, and some Hero Points and filling in those 
  blanks during actual play.
  The principle is the complete basis of a pick-up 
  game as well.
  Pick a Series Type
  First, pick the Series Level, Series, Tone, and 
  Experience Level. This should go quick— what type 
  of story do you want to tell? It also governs a couple 
  points of consequence recovery, beginning Refresh, 
  and allots the skill points and Hero Points.
  Since this is a one-shot game, don’t worry about 
  going through the steps for designing the Setting. 
  The GM will use only what comes to mind and what 
  he needs for the one-night story, plus the players 
  using the Create an Advantage action in play will help 
  define individual scenes and encounters as needed.
  The Five Aspects
  At this stage, you only need your Concept aspect. If 
  you can think of a Motivation aspect as well, that’s 
  even better, but don’t sweat it right now. You can 
  figure that out in play.
  For the remaining three aspects, if you have them 
  in your head, don’t hesitate to put them on the 
  character sheet. If not, some or all of them will come 
  to you during play.
  Skills, Powers & Stunts
  At this stage you’ll have your starting skill points and 
  Hero Points. Skills still use the column method, and 
  the skill chapter gives some column breakdowns 
  based on skill points and what you want your apex 
  skill to be ranked.
  Jot down a couple of skills you feel the character 
  would definitely have in the column. Once again, you 
  don’t have to spend every point or fill every slot at this 
  point, just make sure you follow one of the example 
  columns in the skills chapter.
  Do the same for your Hero Points. If you know a 
  couple of powers or stunts your character would 
  have, make the purchases. 
  Make sure you make note of your remaining skill 
  points and Hero Points so you can spend them as 
  needed during play.
  
  232
  Rogues Gallery and Supporting Cast
  Since this is a quick-and-dirty, one-shot gaming 
  session, a pick-up game doesn’t use a Rogues 
  Gallery and Supporting Cast. That’s not to say you 
  can’t create them if you can do it quickly, but they’re 
  far from necessary.
  Play the Session
  The GM has a story notion, the players have at least 
  beginning details of their characters, and now it’s 
  time to start the Issue. During the session, the players 
  will fill in any remaining aspect slots, skill slots, and 
  spend Hero Points. It’ll mostly be composed of the 
  character facing a certain obstacle in the story, and 
  the player determining at that moment whether or not 
  the character would have an aspect, skill, stunt, or 
  power, that would assist. If so, the slot is filled in or 
  the points spent, and it becomes part of the character.
  Pick Up Game vs 
  Convention or 
  Demo Game
  The difference between a pick-up game and 
  a convention or demo game is in the prep 
  time. A pick-up game has pretty much zero 
  prep time— it’s a spur of the moment decision 
  to play a session of Daring Comics, and it 
  meant to last just one-night. That means that 
  it’s idea to start the story with a few parts of 
  the character, and fully expected to discover 
  the rest as needed during the session.
  For a convention or demo game, the person 
  running the game should have the player-
  characters already pre-made to hand out 
  to players, and already have something of 
  a setting in mind for the story, including at 
  least one Series Aspect to tell the players 
  what the theme of the story is intended to 
  be. Like with a pick-up game, the players 
  won’t be worrying about creating parts of 
  the setting— it’s still a one-shot story. But 
  they should have fully created characters 
  given to them so that they can see how 
  Daring Comics plays.
  Step Three: Supporting 
  Cast and Rogues Gallery
  Originally, each supporting cast member a player 
  creates grants them an additional skill point, while 
  each Rogue grants them an additional Hero Point. 
  But what about those series where the heroes are 
  more skill or power based? If it works better at your 
  table, use the following variant.
  For those power-heavy games, instead of a supporting 
  cast member granting an additional skill point, both 
  supporting cast members and Rogues grant the 
  player an additional Hero Point. Likewise, for a skill-
  heavy series, the inverse is also true: both supporting 
  cast members and Rogues grant an additional skill 
  point.
  The GM can either set either variant as a series 
  whole, meaning it applies to every player uniformly, or 
  can assign a variant as needed on a player-by-player 
  basis, as long as the entire group agrees. What the 
  means is that one player might use the core rules 
  version, while another might have both types of NPCs 
  grant them a Hero Point, while a skill-heavy street 
  vigilante or scientist type might have both types of 
  NPCs grant additional skill points.
  Chapter 6: Super-Teams
  The Super-Team chapter explained how to create a 
  super-team that focuses on the player-characters, 
  their adventures, and how having a super-team can 
  benefit them during play.
  But what about the robust and large super-teams we 
  see in comic books? The ones with a dozen, or even 
  dozens, of heroes on the roster?
  Daring Comics handles them as a separate character, 
  but also something of a minor character. For those 
  familiar with the Fate system, you’ll recognize this 
  method as the Fate Fractal. 
  The Expanded Super Team
  The expanded super-team represents the heroes 
  outside of the main characters (i.e. the player-
  characters). Except for when the players had taken a 
  Super-Team stunt such as Reverse Member, the team 
  is considered an abstraction when it comes to the 
  narrative. That means that the specific members need 
  not be determined and created; the team works as a 
  single unit and the details are created on a narrative 
  basis as needed.
  
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  This expanded super-team, though likely comprised 
  of many heroes, is considered a single character.
  Required Stunt
  Using an expanded super-team in your Daring Comics 
  series requires the players to take the following super-
  team stunt when building the core team.
  Robust Team
  The super-team is more than just a small handful 
  of heroes— it’s an expansive and diverse roster 
  that can both assist and hinder the core team 
  throughout the series.
  Stress and Consequences
  The expanded super-team begins with a number of 
  stress boxes equal to the Series Tone. It begins with 
  one of each type of consequence slots, except that it 
  cannot take an extreme consequence.
  Expanded Team Aspects
  The core super-team aspects created by the players 
  represent how the concept of the team functions for 
  them as the story’s main characters. For the expanded 
  super-team, the players should create two entirely new 
  super team aspects, which can represent absolutely 
  anything about the team. These two aspects are used 
  only during the Expanded Team Adventures detailed 
  later, and are not used by the player-characters in their 
  stories. Likewise, the expanded super team can only 
  use these two team aspects and cannot use the two 
  that are part of the player-characters’ core super-team.
  The Skills
  Unlike full characters, super-teams only possess four 
  skills to use in their peripheral scenes. All of the skills 
  can use any of the Four Action types, however is 
  needed for the scene, though the GM has the right to 
  call for only a specific skill to be rolled.
  The four skills are:
  Combat: This skill covers the full range of normal 
  combat, from fist fights, gun play, to using weapons. 
  It handles both the offensive and defensive portions 
  of conflicts, and includes super-powers.
  Expertise: How much knowledge can the expanded 
  team bring to bear, whether through investigation 
  and clue analysis, science or sorcery, or even general 
  academic subjects? This skill represents such things.
  Social: The Social skill covers interacting and dealing 
  with others, whether through getting them on your 
  side and willing to assist the team, intimidating them 
  into submission, or even calling upon allies and 
  contacts the team might possess.
  Undercover: This skill deals with being stealthy, 
  breaking into places, using disguises, and all the other 
  actions in the scene that mean the team doesn’t want 
  to be discovered.
  The expanded super-team rates each skill from 
  Mediocre (+0) to Good (+3), and each step on the 
  ladder can only be used once.
  Skill Points and 
  Hero Points
  After the two aspects are decided and the four skills 
  have been assigned a place on the ladder, the players 
  can now do a little team advancement.
  The team has 3 skill points with which to increase 
  skills. Each additional step on the ladder costs one of 
  the three points.
  The players also has 10 Hero Points with which to 
  create stunts for the team, or purchase a specific 
  super-power or two. By purchasing a super-power, 
  the players are saying that these specific powers 
  provide a true benefit when the team is on an 
  adventure. Obvious choices would be powers like 
  Blast, Hardiness, Invulnerability, and Melee Attack, 
  but truly creative players will discover a lot of options. 
  Refresh
  The team begins with a refresh based on the Series 
  Tone. Like with a normal character creation, beginning 
  Refresh can be spent to gain additional Hero Points.
  Advancing the 
  Expanded Team
  The expanded super-team advances under the same 
  rules as the core super-team. When the players reach 
  a milestone and are awarded a skill point and/or hero 
  point, each player must decide whether to apply 
  the reward to their own character, to the core team 
  (in the case of the Hero Point), or to the expanded 
  team (in the case of the skill point or Hero Point). 
  The same principle applies as already mentioned in 
  the Super-Team chapter: you are putting aside your 
  individual needs in exchange for focusing on making 
  the entire team better.
  
  234
  Super Team Adventures
  An adventure for the expanded super-team is a 
  periphery scene that should take no more than 15 
  to 20 minutes to play. These adventures can only 
  happen once per Issue, and can be called for by the 
  players or the GM.
  Defining the Adventure
  An expanded super-team adventure must somehow 
  link to the main storyline of what the player-characters 
  are going through. It could be secondary raids on 
  villain safe houses that were discovered, the tracking 
  down and questioning of a particular suspect, or 
  even the analysis of strange technology that was 
  discovered and taken back to the base.
  While it might be attractive for players to focus on 
  the Combat skill as the Apex skill for the expanded 
  team, the GM should be sure to run these little side 
  adventures in such a way that the same skill isn’t 
  always used from one to the next. 
  Beginning the Adventure
  During an Issue, the players or GM can call for an 
  expanded super-team adventure simply by stating 
  that they want one, and then defining the purpose of 
  the adventure. The GM has final authority on whether 
  or not the adventure will take place for the proposed 
  reason. For example, the players might propose one 
  for hunting down and questioning a suspect in an 
  ongoing investigation into new, alien-tech weapons 
  coming into the city. The GM, however, might veto the 
  proposal because he already has a dramatic scene 
  planned for that part of the story, and he specifically 
  wants the player-characters involved.
  The Adventure: An 
  Important Point
  The important thing to remember is that the adventure 
  is meant to be an abstract representation of the 
  background members of the super-team. That means 
  that the exact who and what of the membership is 
  not vital. Cover the member descriptions, the types 
  of powers going off under the Combat skill, and the 
  details from a narrative perspective.
  Running the Adventure
  Running an expanded team adventure comes into 
  two types: the Conflict and the Contest.
  The Conflict Adventure
  The conflict adventure is exacting what it sounds like: 
  the team’s heroes are taking on villains in a flashy, 
  and often environmentally lethal, braw-for-all.
  Creating the Opposition
  The GM creates the opposition the same as the 
  players created their expanded team. He chooses two 
  aspects, assigns the four skills, and takes some stunts 
  and powers. Unlike the players, however, the GM 
  doesn’t have to worry about specific skill points or Hero 
  Points— he creates a representation of the opposition 
  that is enough to provide a suitable challenge.
  Resolving the Conflict
  Conflict is resolved the same as any other conflict scene 
  in Daring Comics. It’s broken down into exchanges, 
  with the change that initiative is determined solely by 
  the Combat skill. Collateral Damage Consequence 
  slots are not available to the expanded super-team.
  Once the conflict is over, the player-characters or GM 
  get a reward. These reward is to be used in the main 
  brunt of the story— in other words by or against the 
  main player-characters at some point in the Issue.
  Villains Concede: The GM gets a Fate Point, but 
  players get a situation aspect representing what the 
  expanded team achieved that can be used at any 
  point during the Issue, and can only be invoked or 
  compelled by the player-characters. There is no roll 
  needed to place the aspect when the players decided 
  to finally bring it into play.
  Villain gets Taken out: The players get a situation 
  aspect the same as above, plus each player-character 
  receives a fate point.
  Heroes Concede: Each player gets a fate point for 
  their main-character, but the GM gets to place a Boost 
  on one of the characters, with no roll necessary, at 
  some point during the Issue.
  Heroes get Taken Out: The players don’t get any 
  additional fate points, and the GM gets a situation 
  aspect at some later point in the Issue, with one free 
  invocation, that only his NPCs can invoke or compel.
  The Contest Adventure
  The contest adventure is great for what the expanded 
  super-team has to achieve an objective, but direct 
  conflict is not involved. Examples might include 
  tracking down a suspect or interrogating someone, 
  
  235
  trying to uncover the secrets of a piece of alien tech 
  before something happens, and so forth.
  These adventures are run exactly as a normal Contest.
  The Opposition
  The GM decides what skill is to be used by the team, 
  and chooses a skill and rank for the opposition. In 
  this instance, the GM does not need to create the 
  opposition as per a Conflict Adventure (though he 
  can if he wants to), but only needs to pick a skill and 
  assign it a rating.
  Resolving the Contest
  Resolve the contest as normal, with the first side to 
  get three or more victories declared the winner.
  Based on the results of the contest, the player-
  characters or GM receive the following rewards.
  Team Failure: If the players fail the contest, regardless 
  of whether it allowed the opposition a success or 
  success with style, the GM gets a relevant situation 
  aspect to bring into play later that only his NPCs can 
  invoke or compel.
  Team Success: If the team succeeds, the player-
  characters get a single situation aspect that only they 
  can invoke or compel placed on a scene at some 
  later point in the issue. 
  Player Success with Style: For a success with style, 
  the players get the situation aspect as above, and 
  each player-character also receives a free invocation.
  Chapter 7: Skills
  For those series where the heroes can’t take as much 
  damage as their traditional four-color counterparts, 
  Physique and Will do not add extra stress boxes or 
  consequence slots to the character. In order to get 
  the extra stress boxes and consequence slots, the 
  character must possess levels in the Hardiness power.
  Chapter 9: Powers
  This section provides a few examples of how to hack 
  the pre-built powers to change how they function 
  in the game at their base level. Whether or not your 
  Series will use these examples of the powers or the 
  versions contained in the Powers chapter should be 
  discussed as a group. These example are not meant 
  to be exhaustive, as trying to accomplish that could 
  entail reprinting the entire Powers chapter with new 
  designs and ideas. This is just meant to give you a 
  starting point for your own variants.
  When looking at Blast, Invulnerability, and Melee 
  Attack, both of which have a Variant #1 and Variant 
  #2, it’s ideal to have the variant types play together. In 
  other words, those powers should use either the core 
  version, Variant #1,or Variant #2, together. 
  Adoptive Muscle Memory (4)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You’re able to mimic the movement, such as 
  fighting ability, acrobatics, and so forth, of people 
  you’ve observed.
  To use the power, you must first observe the target in 
  action (such as in combat) for at least a full minute. At 
  the end of that minute, make a an Overcome action. 
  You gain the target’s rating in Accuracy, Athletics, 
  Fight, or Weapons, as well as associated Stunts 
  (whichever skills and Stunts you observed them 
  using), until the end of the scene.
  If you are watching a group of people, you can mimic 
  the skills (highest rating) and Stunts of everyone you 
  are watching, but your attention is not as focused 
  and your opposition to do so increases by +1 per 
  each additional person.
  Although you do not maintain the skills for good, 
  you do continue to receive a long lasting bonus. 
  Whenever you face an opponent whose movements 
  you’ve duplicated in the past and you use the Create 
  an Advantage action representing that fact, you gain 
  a +2 bonus to the roll.
  Special Effects
  Advanced Muscle Memory (1): You can view and 
  mimic your target faster. Each time this applied to 
  the power, your required time to view the target is 
  reduced –1 step on the Time Increment table. 
  
  236
  Hey! I Know you!
  For Adoptive Muscle Memory, when you 
  meet an opponent for the first time in play, 
  you may spend a fate point to add a story 
  detail that you’ve observed him in the past, 
  and therefore take the Create an Advantage 
  action as mentioned in the power description. 
  This isn’t a simple matter of spending the 
  point and jumping forward, but you must 
  actually narrate something of how you last 
  met, or what you did to observe the character. 
  The GM has veto power if the previous 
  encounter doesn’t make sense in the context 
  of the story.
  Animal Mimicry (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  The character can mimic the powers of animals up 
  to one zone away by making an Overcome action. 
  Add +1 to the opposition for each additional zone 
  between the animal and the character.
  There are no hard and fast rules on what powers a 
  particular animal possesses, and the GM and player 
  should assign them as makes sense. For each Shift 
  generated on the roll, the hero may add one Power 
  Level of ability from that animal. 
  For example, a hero who gains three Shifts on a roll 
  to mimic the traits of an elephant might spend those 
  Shifts on Super-Strength 1, Unstoppable 1, and 
  Density 1.
  The character can cancel mimicked traits at any 
  time, but the traits last no longer than the end of 
  the current scene. 
  Special Effect
  Menagerie (1): The character can mimic the traits of 
  more than one animal at a time, but each additional 
  animal imposes a cumulative +1 to the opposition.
  Blast (1-6), Variant #1
  Design Notes: This power works almost the same 
  as the core version. The primary difference is that a 
  Blast can do zero damage on a tie. The effects of the 
  various blast types listed in the core rules remain the 
  same, except where noted below.
  Skills: Accuracy
  You can fire some sort of distance attack, whether a 
  plasma beam, concussive force, ice shards, fireballs, 
  or even spikes. Each power level grants you +1 to 
  your Accuracy rolls when using the power, up to a 
  maximum of +6, and has a range of: power level +1 
  zones away from the character.
  Applying special effects to the power customizes it to 
  fit the type of blast your character can fire. Below are 
  examples of how to create various types of Blast with 
  one or two special effects. Use them as examples for 
  building your own, or apply them to your character for 
  a ready-to-play power. Simply purchase your levels of 
  Blast, and then add the cost below to the final total.
  Concussive (2): One a successful hit, for each Shift 
  you reduce your damage, you knock your target back 
  two zones instead of the normal one. You also gain a +2 
  bonus when using your blast to Create an Advantage, 
  such as Stunned, or Weakened Structure.
  Energy (1): One a successful attack, for each Shift 
  you reduce your damage, you extend the range of 
  your blast by an additional zone. 
  Blast (2), Variant #2
  Design Notes: This version is a lot more muted as 
  far as overall combat effect goes, and is really idea 
  for combining with the No Crunch Gear method 
  mentioned later in the Appendix. The effects of the 
  various blast types listed in the core rules remain the 
  same, except where noted below.
  Skills: Accuracy
  You possess some sort of awesome ranged attack, 
  whether it’s beams from your eyes, mouth, hands, or 
  even a device.
  Instead of invoking your Power Set Aspect for 
  free once per scene only for a reroll, you may now 
  invoke it once per scene for free for a reroll or a +2 
  bonus to the roll.
  Additionally, all Accuracy rolls while using your power 
  receive +2 to the roll.
  Applying special effects to the power customizes it to 
  fit the type of blast your character can fire. Below are 
  examples of how to create various types of Blast with 
  one or two special effects. Use them as examples for 
  building your own, or apply them to your character for 
  a ready-to-play power. Simply purchase your levels of 
  Blast, and then add the cost below to the final total.
  
  237
  Concussive (2): One a successful hit, for each Shift 
  you reduce your damage, you knock your target back 
  two zones instead of the normal one. You also gain a +2 
  bonus when using your blast to Create an Advantage, 
  such as Stunned, or Weakened Structure.
  Energy (1): One a successful attack, for each Shift 
  you reduce your damage, you extend the range of 
  your blast by an additional zone. 
  Duplication Variant 
  and other Minion 
  Summoning Powers
  The Duplication variation can also be used 
  to create a variant of similar powers, such as 
  Animal Summoning, Animate, and Summoning.
  Duplication (3)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You are never truly alone, and have the ability to make 
  more of— you!
  The Duplication power allows you to make a number of 
  exact copies of yourself. To call forth your duplicates, 
  make a skill roll. You gain one temporary aspect 
  related to your duplicates for each Shift generated 
  on the roll, and get one free invocation (in total, not 
  per aspect). The exact number of duplicates are not 
  determined by the roll, and are a narrative feature.
  The Shifts can also be used to gain additional free 
  invocations as well. To do so, apply the extra Shifts 
  beyond the first to free invocations instead of gaining 
  additional temporary aspects.
  To combat and remove the duplicates from the scene, 
  your opponents must roll against passive opposition 
  equal to your Controlling skill plus one for every 
  Shift you gained on the roll. In other words, if your 
  Controlling skill is Fair (+2) and you gained two Shifts 
  on the roll, the passive opposition to remove your 
  temporary aspects (i.e. destroy your duplicates) is 
  Great (+4). On a success a single aspect is removed. 
  On a success with style, the aspect is removed and 
  the opponent gains a boost. 
  Duplicates last until the aspects are removed, or until 
  the end of the scene. To control them longer than a 
  scene without an additional roll, you must spend a 
  fate point at the beginning of the scene.
  By spending a fate point, you can also invoke your 
  aspect for a narrative effect, such as going off on their 
  own to investigate a clue at another location or tailing 
  someone. If a skill roll would be needed during the 
  “away scene,” use the skill ranking of your character 
  since the duplicates are the same as you.
  Your duplicates do not possess their own 
  Duplication power.
  Special Effects
  Damage Soaking (3):  Once per issue, the hero can 
  “absorb” a duplication aspect to automatically heal 
  Consequences. It takes one temporary aspect to heal 
  two points of consequences, so a Mild Consequence 
  would require absorbing one aspect, a moderate 
  consequence requires two aspects, and a severe 
  consequence requires three aspects. 
  Sacrificial Lamb (2):  The hero can spend a fate point 
  to transfer any damage suffered by himself to one or 
  more of his duplicates (i.e. aspects). Each aspect 
  absorbs 2-Hits before it is removed from play. Any 
  damage that cannot be applied to a duplicate is taken 
  by the hero.
  Limits
  Shared Damage (–1):  Any time an aspect is removed 
  by an opponent, the hero takes 2-Hits of damage. 
  Invulnerability does not negate this damage.
  Psychic Feedback (–1):  Whenever an aspect is 
  removed by an opponent, the hero must make a Will 
  roll against Opposition equal to the number of Shifts 
  gained on the opponent’s roll to remove the aspect, 
  or fall unconscious for the remainder of the conflict.
  
  238
  Duplicate Duplication
  We’ll put this Special Effect as a side idea, 
  only because we’ve seen it in comic books. 
  Allowing this option can greatly affect the 
  balance of a game, however, and requires 
  additional paperwork for the player if used. 
  So, include it as a playable option with care.
  Duplicate Duplication (5): Your duplicates 
  possess the Duplicate power the same as 
  you do, and can continue to make copies of 
  themselves ad infinitum. Keep a separate 
  record of which duplicate (i.e. aspects) have 
  also created their own aspects. If you, the 
  player, have maintained your sanity by the 
  end of the scene, you’ve accomplished an 
  incredible feat.
  Invulnerability (1-
  6), Variant #1
  Skills: None
  The hero is resistant to damage. Additionally, all 
  Defend rolls where your Invulnerability power would 
  apply receive +1 per power level, to a maximum of +6.
  Special Effect
  Absorption (1): Your Invulnerability also has the 
  ability to absorb and channel either physical (kinetic) 
  or energy damage as per the Absorption power. For 
  each 2-Hits of the energy type you absorb (round up), 
  you gain +1 to Attack and Overcome actions, but the 
  energy must be used by your next turn or it dissipates.
  To possess expanded absorption abilities, purchase 
  Absorption special effects at the normal cost.
  Unstoppable (2): Once the hero gets moving, he 
  adds his Invulnerability level as a bonus to resist other 
  characters attempting to stop his momentum. The 
  hero can automatically break objects with a Material 
  Strength up to twice his Invulnerability level simply by 
  purposefully ramming into them.
  Invulnerability 
  (2), Variant #2
  Skills: None
  Instead of invoking your Power Set Aspect for free 
  once per scene only for a reroll, you may now invoke 
  it once per scene for free for a reroll or a +2 bonus to 
  the roll on Defend actions where your Invulnerability 
  would have an effect.
  Additionally, all Defend rolls where your Invulnerability 
  power would apply receive +2 to the roll.
  Special Effect
  Absorption (1): Your Invulnerability also has the 
  ability to absorb and channel either physical (kinetic) 
  or energy damage as per the Absorption power. For 
  each 2-Hits of the energy type you absorb (round up), 
  you gain +1 to Attack and Overcome actions, but the 
  energy must be used by your next turn or it dissipates.
  To possess expanded absorption abilities, purchase 
  Absorption special effects at the normal cost.
  Unstoppable (2): Once the hero gets moving, he 
  adds a +4 bonus to resist other characters attempting 
  to stop his momentum. The hero can automatically 
  break objects with a Material Strength up to twice his 
  Physique plus four by purposefully ramming into them.
  Melee Attack (1-6), Variant #1
  Design Notes: This power works almost the same 
  as the core version. The primary difference is that a 
  Melee Attack can do zero damage on a tie. The effects 
  of the various Melee Attack types listed in the core 
  rules remain the same, except where noted below.
  Skills: Fight
  Your hero has some sort of powerful, up close and 
  personal attack, whether claws, flaming hands, 
  ice encased fists, even concussive force punches, 
  or even a weapon that’s beyond the scope of the 
  mundane. Each power level grants you +1 to your 
  Fight rolls when using the power.
  Applying special effects to the Melee powers 
  customizes it to fit the type of attack he uses. Below 
  are some ready-made, low cost examples of how to 
  create some types of Blast with one or two special 
  effects. Use them as examples for building your own, 
  or apply them to your character for a ready-to-play 
  power. Simply purchase your levels of Melee Attack, 
  and then add the cost below to the final total.
  The bonus from Melee Attack does not stack with 
  the bonus from Super-Strength (see Super-Strength, 
  Variant #1). Instead, you use the greater of the two 
  (though you still purchase a secondary effect from the 
  Melee Attack power).
  Energy (2): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack, you may spend a fate point to ignore a target’s 
  
  239
  imperviousness, as well as gain +2 Hits on your 
  attack. If the target is not Impervious, you gain +3 
  Hits.
  Melee Attack (2), Variant #2
  Design Notes: This version is a lot more muted as 
  far as overall combat effect goes, and is really idea 
  for combining with the No Crunch Gear method 
  mentioned later in the Appendix. The effects of the 
  various blast types listed in the core rules remain the 
  same, except where noted below.
  Your hero has some sort of powerful, up close and 
  personal attack, whether claws, flaming hands, ice 
  encased fists, even concussive force punches, or even 
  a weapon that’s beyond the scope of the mundane.
  Instead of invoking your Power Set Aspect for 
  free once per scene only for a reroll, you may now 
  invoke it once per scene for free for a reroll or a +2 
  bonus to the roll.
  Additionally, all Fight rolls while using your power 
  receive +2 to the roll.
  Applying special effects to the Melee powers 
  customizes it to fit the type of attack he uses. Below 
  are some ready-made, low cost examples of how to 
  create some types of Blast with one or two special 
  effects. Use them as examples for building your own, 
  or apply them to your character for a ready-to-play 
  power. Simply purchase your levels of Melee Attack, 
  and then add the cost below to the final total.
  The Fight bonus from Melee Attack stacks with the 
  bonus from Super-Strength, Variant #2.
  Energy (2): When you succeed with style on an 
  attack, you may spend a fate point to ignore a target’s 
  imperviousness, as well as gain +2 Hits on your attack. 
  If the target is not Impervious, you gain +3 Hits.
  Shapeshift (2)
  Skills: Magic, Mental, or Power
  You can shapeshift into any animal or inanimate 
  object. For the ability to shapeshift into other people, 
  add Chameleon to your power set.
  To shapeshift, make an Overcome action. You gain 
  one temporary aspect related to the new form 
  you’ve assumed for each Shift generated on the 
  roll, and get one free invocation (in total, not per 
  aspect). To gain additional free invocations, Shifts 
  can be applied to additional free invocations instead 
  of gaining additional aspects. 
  The aspects last until the end of the scene, and 
  should represent something from the particular form, 
  such as Agility of a Monkey, Strength of a Rhino, 
  Fly like a Falcon, and so forth.
  The aspects are assumed to carry the appropriate 
  narrative context along with them, such as using 
  Agility of a Monkey to easily maintain balance.
  Special Effect
  Menagerie (1): The character can mimic the traits of 
  more than one animal at a time, but each additional 
  animal imposes a cumulative +1 to the opposition.
  Rapid Power (1): The roll to use the power counts as 
  a free action instead of a normal action.
  Super-Strength (1-
  6), Variant #1
  Skills: None
  You are stronger than mere mortals, able to 
  achieve feats of strength and hit with a force 
  others usually only imagine.
  Each level in Super-Strength provides you with +1 to 
  Fight for melee attacks, and a +1 to Physique rolls 
  that involve a raw application of strength, such as 
  and breaking things or making or breaking grapples, 
  but not to lifting things. 
  The general lifting ability of super-strength is shown 
  on the Super-Strength Lifting Benchmark table 
  below. To lift a weight, make a roll using Mediocre 
  (+0) skill rating plus your Super-Strength bonus in an 
  Overcome action against the indicated opposition. 
  When lifting weight limits found on the normal Lifting 
  Benchmark table, no roll is necessary.
  
  240
  Super-
  Strength
  Lifting 
  Benchmark
  Mediocre (+0)
  Lifting a car is no problem
  Average (+1)
  Semi trucks are weapons 
  in your grasp
  Fair (+2)
  You could lift a fully 
  loaded jet fighter
  Good (+3)
  Modern tanks are not a 
  weight problem for you
  Great (+4)
  You can heft a small building
  Superb (+5)
  You can move large buildings
  Fantastic (+6)
  With your strength, 
  Battleships  can be carried
  Epic (+7)
  You are strong enough to 
  rais an aircraft carrier
  Legendary (+8)
  At this levelm your strength 
  can lift a sky scraper
  Monstrous (+9)
  You could lift the Great 
  Pyramid of Giza
  Colossal (+10)
   You can move mountains
  Unearthly (+11)
  You could lift an island
  inconveivable (+12)
  Your strength is a plot 
  device, congrats!
  Special Effects
  Enhanced Lifting (1): You add your Physique to 
  lifting rolls involving Super-Strength.
  Ground Slam (2): The hero can strike the ground and 
  hit everyone in the zone. Doing so means using a 
  Create and Advantage action with +2 bonus to place 
  an Off-Balanced, Staggered, or similar situation 
  aspect on them. They can Defend against the attempt.
  Super-Strength (2, 
  3, 4), Variant #2
  Skills: None
  You are stronger than mere mortals, able to achieve 
  feats of strength and hit with a force others usually 
  only imagine.
  You gain +2 bonus to Fight when using Super-
  Strength in melee combat. Additionally, you gain +2 
  to all Physique rolls that involve a raw application of 
  strength, such as and breaking things or making or 
  breaking grapples, and lifting things. 
  The general lifting ability of super-strength is shown 
  on the Super-Strength Lifting Benchmark table 
  below. To lift a weight, make a Physique roll plus your 
  Super-Strength bonus in an Overcome action against 
  the indicated opposition. When lifting weight limits 
  found on the normal Lifting Benchmark table, no roll 
  is necessary.
  This power can be taken up to three times, with each 
  additional application adding an additional +2 bonus 
  to the Physique rolls, but no additional bonus to the 
  Fight roll. In other words, purchasing Super-Strength 
  three times would cost 4 Hero Points, provide a +2 
  bonus to Fight when using Super-Strength in melee 
  combat, and a +6 to all Physique rolls that involve 
  a raw application of strength, such as and breaking 
  things or making or breaking grapples, and lifting 
  things.
  
  241
  Super-
  Strength
  Lifting 
  Benchmark
  Mediocre (+0)
  Lifting a car is no problem
  Average (+1)
  Semi trucks are weapons 
  in your grasp
  Fair (+2)
  You could lift a fully 
  loaded jet fighter
  Good (+3)
  Modern tanks are not a 
  weight problem for you
  Great (+4)
  You can heft a small building
  Superb (+5)
  You can move large buildings
  Fantastic (+6)
  With your strength, 
  Battleships  can be carried
  Epic (+7)
  You are strong enough to 
  rais an aircraft carrier
  Legendary (+8)
  At this levelm your strength 
  can lift a sky scraper
  Monstrous (+9)
  You could lift the Great 
  Pyramid of Giza
  Colossal (+10)
   You can move mountains
  Unearthly (+11)
  You could lift an island
  inconveivable (+12)
  Your strength is a plot 
  device, congrats!
  Special Effects
  Ground Slam (2): The hero can strike the ground and 
  hit everyone in the zone. Doing so means using a 
  Create and Advantage action with +2 bonus to place 
  an Off-Balanced, Staggered, or similar situation 
  aspect on them. They can Defend against the attempt.
  Special Effect Variants
  For those most part, little to no change is needed for 
  special effects. If Blast or Melee Attack Variant #1 is 
  used, simply adjust any indicated Weapon Rating to 
  a +1 bonus to the relevant attack skill roll per level.
  In the case of those powers using Variant #2 in your 
  games, the following Special Effects and Limits are 
  also adjusted.
  Concussive (1)
  For each Shift you reduce your damage, you knock your 
  target back two zones instead of the normal one zone.
  Extended Range (1)
  For each Shift that you reduce your damage, you 
  extend the range of your attack by an additional zone.
  Impervious (1/2)
  This special effect is optional and requires GM and 
  group consensus before being added to a campaign. 
  It applies to the Invulnerability power.
  Although Daring Comics allows any character to risk 
  injury if the opponent can generate enough Shifts 
  on an attack, sometimes in comic books certain 
  characters are just completely immune to a type of 
  damage up to a certain threshold.
  A character with the Impervious special effect is 
  immune to all damage of a particular type. It could 
  be applied to energy damage, physical damage (such 
  as blades, bullets, and low-yield explosives), mental 
  damage, or even damage from arcane spells (such as 
  a mystic themed blast
  At the Low Impervious level, the character negates the 
  first 3-Hits of damage from attack of the appropriate 
  type. At Highly Impervious, he negates the first 
  4-Hits of damage from attack of the appropriate type.
  Sometimes, an attack will fall between the cracks 
  and will have to be judged on a case-by-case 
  basis. A Concussive Force blast against a character 
  Impervious to Weapon Rating in energy attacks could 
  be argued to be a physical attack, but as shown in 
  comics it might sometimes affect the character as 
  though it were an energy based attack.
  Regardless of whether or not a character is 
  Impervious, they can still suffer knockback from an 
  attack as normal, even if they can’t be damaged by it.
  Mega-Attack (1/2)
  Typically, this special effect is found in power-armor 
  themed powers, but can be applied to just about any 
  type of character with the right explanation.
  Once per issue, you can double the damage of a 
  successful hit with an attack power. The increase 
  lasts for one attack only. There are two levels to 
  this special effect.
  
  242
  Basic: The power immediately shuts down after 
  the attack. Additionally, you take Stress, and then 
  Consequences if you don’t have enough Stress 
  boxes, equal to the number of levels the power was 
  enhanced. The Consequences must be repaired or 
  recovered as normal.
  For example, let’s say you hit with your Energy Beam 
  for 4-Hits of damage, and used the special effect 
  to increase that to 8-Hits. After the attack, Energy 
  Beam is shutdown. Additionally, since Energy 
  Beam damage was increased by 4 levels, you take 
  4-Stress. If you can’t cover the Stress, you take any 
  overflow as Consequences.
  Energy Beam is automatically recovered at the end 
  of the scene. To recover it during the scene requires 
  spending a round on an Overcome action against 
  an opposition equal to the amount of increase the 
  Hits received. In the above example, that would be a 
  Great (+4) Opposition.
  The recovery action, though, can only be attempted 
  once during the scene.
  To recover during a scene, roll whichever skill would 
  make narrative sense (such as a Controlling skill, 
  Physique Technology, or Will).
  Advanced: The power still shuts down after the attack, 
  but this version allows you to first apply those levels to 
  reduce your other powers, before you have to consider 
  Stress or Consequences. These changes last until the 
  end of the scene in which the special effect was used, 
  then your power levels return to normal.
  If you don’t have enough, overall power levels to 
  absorb the required reduction, then all your powers 
  are completely shut down and you take any overflow 
  as either Stress or Consequences.
  If a power does not have Power Levels (such as 
  Shrinking, Teleportation, and so forth), the power can 
  take 1 point of reduction and is shut down.
  Just as in the basic version, you can attempt to 
  recover the lowered powers during the scene. Doing 
  so requires an Overcome action with opposition equal 
  to the total number of reduced levels to be recovered. 
  However you decide to handle it, the recovery action 
  can only be attempted once during the scene. 
  Otherwise, all reduced power levels are automatically 
  recovered at the end of the scene.
  Americannon has Energy Blast, Flight 3, 
  Forcefield 3, and Hyper-sense 3 (Dark Vision, 
  Full Vision, Hyper-Hearing). He successfully 
  hits for 4-Shifts of damage and doubles that 
  for 1 action, making it a 8-Hits of damage.
  Afterward, he can either take 4-Stress, or 
  reduce some of his other powers by a total 
  of 4 levels. He reduces Hyper-Sense by 3, 
  and Flight by 1. 
  Penetrating (2)
  When you succeed with style on an attack, you may 
  spend a fate point to ignore a target’s imperviousness, 
  as well as gain +2 Hits on your attack. If the target is 
  not Impervious, you gain +3 Hits.
  Limits Variants 
  Damaging (–1) 
  Each round the hero uses the power, he takes 2-Stress. 
  Invulnerability does not help against the damage.
  Chapter 10: Devices and Gear
  The following Variant to the Devices and Gear chapter 
  shows how to keep normal, everyday gear and 
  weapons as aspects on the character sheet instead 
  of dealing with a skill bonus or weapon rating.
  This variant is really ideal when using Variant #2 for 
  the Blast, Invulnerability, and Melee Attack powers. 
  Building devices remains unchanged, since devices 
  use powers as their own power set, and power 
  variants have already been covered.
  No Crunch Gear Method
  In this variant, important everyday gear and weapons 
  are handled through aspects. A gear aspect can be as 
  generic or as descriptive as you desire. If you’re the 
  sort for whom guns are important but interchangeable, 
  maybe you just have a Revolver or a Sniper Rifle. 
  If you want to get a little more specific, maybe it’s 
  a Pristine Colt .45 or a Silenced XM21. Want to drill 
  down even more? Give yourself My Father’s Service 
  Pistol or My Well-Used, Modified XM21. The point 
  is that, if it’s important, it gets an aspect. Things like 
  your jacket and shoes, your sunglasses, your car 
  keys— maybe even your car— don’t need aspects, 
  unless they become important to the story.
  A gear aspect functions like any other aspect: you 
  can invoke it, and other people can compel it— or 
  
  243
  invoke it— against you. You can invoke a gear aspect 
  any time it would be useful: invoke your Press Pass 
  to get a little closer to that crime scene.
  An aspect on gear might also suggest the best 
  situation in which to use it or delineate what makes it 
  different from others of its kind (like a sniper rifle being 
  ideally suited For Long-Range Work or a particular 
  model that Never, Ever Jams).
  There’s one final rule when it comes to gear aspects, 
  GMs— you can take them away. If a hero is starting 
  to rely a little too much on a piece of gear, or if it 
  just feels like time to shake things up, find a reason 
  for that aspect to go away. Doing this is a compel, 
  so the player can refuse it— and that’s fine— you 
  don’t want to take away your players’ favorite parts 
  of the game. Also, getting rid of the aspect doesn’t 
  necessarily mean that the player loses that piece 
  of gear permanently. A Press Pass can lose its 
  aspect when the character gets suspended, and 
  a Revolver can be shut down when it runs out of 
  ammo. In both cases, there’s a narrative way to get 
  the aspect back, and sometimes that can kick-start 
  an adventure on its own!
  Obviously, too, under this variant the gear is not 
  assumed to have a Complication attached by way of 
  its normal nature. The Gear Aspect serves the same 
  function by being compelled.
  We recommend against going overboard with this and 
  giving every single item the character owns an aspect. 
  This is a game about your hero, not about his or her 
  stuff. For the most part, you should assume that if 
  your character has a particular skill, that includes the 
  appropriate stuff to use that skill effectively. Reserve 
  Gear Aspects for items that have actual story value. In 
  other words, a super-powered hero probably doesn’t 
  need gear aspects, but a vigilante who’s totally reliant 
  on his military-grade weapons and armor does.
  Too Many Aspects?
  If a hero has five aspects and maybe four 
  or five gear aspects, plus there are scene 
  aspects and consequences and what have 
  you, isn’t that too many aspects? It sure 
  can be! Here’s a secret: gear aspects are 
  basically portable situation aspects. As 
  such, they can do a lot of the heavy lifting 
  that situation aspects can, if you feel like 
  there’s too much going on in a scene. You 
  don’t want to eliminate situation aspects 
  altogether, but if each street vigilante player-
  character has a number of gear aspects, 
  start with fewer situation aspects.
  It’s also a good idea to limit the number of 
  gear aspects each hero has. Not every piece 
  of gear needs its own aspect, so limiting 
  them to three, two, or even one signature 
  piece of gear is perfectly fine.
  Adjusted Stunts
  If you decide to use the No Crunch Gear Method, then 
  the following example stunt from the Stunts chapter 
  should be modified as follows:
  Arsenal
  You begin the game with a small arsenal to wage 
  your war on crime. You begin play with Kevlar 
  armor and three types of weapons. Create 
  gear aspects to represent your main armor and 
  weapons, which can be as simple as Kevlar 
  Armor or Modified M-16 Rifle.
  Chapter 12: Comic 
  Book Action
  Below are two suggestions to help you make your 
  comic book battles last even longer.
  Check Two Stress
  This method allows for characters to survive 
  many more hits in a fight, but mimics some of the 
  extraordinary battles we’ve seen in comic books.
  Check up to two boxes at once, add their values 
  together, and reduce the hit by that many shifts. 
  So for example, a character with five stress boxes 
  
  244
  can take up to 9 shifts of harm in a scene without 
  resorting to a consequence.
  Extra Effort
  This option can have some wild effects on die rolls 
  in a Daring Comics game, and can even partially 
  underscore the fate point economy, but when 
  combined with the Check Two Stress option, is a bit 
  more manageable.
  Extra Effort means that the character is digging deep 
  within himself for an extra push to complete a certain 
  task— even attempting to land a serious blow in a 
  conflict. Voluntarily check a currently unused stress 
  box anytime for a bonus on a roll. The bonus equals 
  the value of the checked box. 
  Chapter 13: Running 
  Daring Comics
  Although the main portion of the Daring Comics rules 
  offers plenty of advice on creating different types 
  of NPCs, this following option allows for player-
  characters to possess their very own sidekick— a 
  significant NPC that is always at their side.
  Sidekicks 
  Sidekicks are a regular staple of super-hero comics. 
  From a boy-wonder to a kid super-speedster, older 
  heroes regularly mentor the younger, up-and-
  coming generation.
  The following guidelines are for creating NPC 
  Sidekicks for your hero. If another player is portraying 
  a PC sidekick, create the character normally.
  Paying for the Sidekick
  Gaining a sidekick comes with an inherent cost: the 
  Sidekick stunt. By purchasing the stunt, the player 
  is stating that his sidekick is not only a major part of 
  the story, but is a regular part of his main character. 
  Without the stunt, the sidekick should be treated as a 
  revolving supporting cast member— meaning the GM 
  decides when and if to use the sidekick in a storyline.
  Sidekick (Stunt, 4 
  Hero Points)
  Your hero has a sidekick that fights by his 
  side, trains under him, and for whom he is 
  responsible— not only for his safety, but for 
  turning him into the hero he’ll one day become.
  Creating the Sidekick
  Create the sidekick as outlined below: 
  • Three Aspects
  • Experience Level one or two levels below the hero
  • Series Level equal to or one level below the hero
  • Full allotment of series given stress boxes, and 
  one of each consequence type
  • Begins with half the refresh of the hero (round up).
  Playing the Sidekick
  When using the sidekick in play, it acts on the hero’s 
  initiative. To have the sidekick act on its own initiative, 
  the player must spend one of his hero’s fate points. 
  Otherwise, the sidekicks performs actions as normal, 
  and for all intents and purposes is treated the same 
  as any other character.
  Whenever the hero reaches a Milestone, so does the 
  sidekick, providing he took part in a majority of the 
  scenes in an Issue, Story Arc, or Volume.
  Death of a Sidekick
  A hero who’s sidekick is killed or murdered will find 
  himself in a very bad place. Losing a sidekick is like losing 
  the closest possible family member you can imagine.
  If a sidekick should die, the player must immediately 
  change out one of his aspects (except Concept and 
  Motivation) to represent the mental and emotional 
  trauma of the loss. 
  A sidekick should never be killed arbitrarily (thus the 
  required change of aspect) and should always be part 
  of a storyline agreed upon by both the GM and player. 
  As such, the player does not regain the 2 Hero Points 
  originally spent on the stunt.
  
  245
  OPEN GAME LICENSE Version 1.0a
  The following text is the property of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. and is Copyright 2000 Wizards of the Coast, Inc (“Wizards”). All Rights Reserved.
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  12 Inability to Comply: If it is impossible for You to comply with any of the terms of this License with respect to some or all of the Open Game Content 
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  becoming aware of the breach. All sublicenses shall survive the termination of this License.
  
  246
  14 Reformation: If any provision of this License is held to be unenforceable, such provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make 
  it enforceable.
  15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE
  Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
  Fudge System 1995 version © 1992-1995 by Steffan O’Sullivan, © 2005 by Grey Ghost Press, Inc.; Author Steffan O’Sullivan. 
  FATE (Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment) © 2003 by Evil Hat Productions LLC; Authors Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks. 
  Mutants & Masterminds, Second Edition, Copyright 2005, Green Ronin
  Publishing; Author Steve Kenson.
  Spirit of the Century © 2006, Evil Hat Productions LLC. Authors Robert Donoghue, Fred Hicks, and Leonard Balsera.
  Bulldogs! Copyright © 2011 Brennan Taylor/Galileo Games. All rights reserved. Bulldogs! created by Eric Coble, Chuck Cooley, Robert Cooley, 
  Nathan Crowder, and C. Austin Hogan.
  Mutants & Masterminds Hero’s Handbook, Copyright 2011, Green Ronin Publishing; Author Steve Kenson.
  Fate Core System and Fate Accelerated Edition © 2013 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. Developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, 
  Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue.
  Fate System Toolkit © 2013 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. Developed, authored, and edited by Robert Donoghue, Brian Engard, Brennan Taylor, 
  Mike Olson, Mark Diaz Truman, Fred Hicks, and Matthew Gandy.
  Daring Comics Role-Playing Game © 2016 by Daring Entertainment, LLC. Authors Tommy Brownell, Lee. F. Szczepanik, Jr, and Lee. F. 
  Szczepanik, III.
  
  247
  ID
  ASPECTS
  SKIlS
  STUNTS
  Name:
  Weight:
  Public
  Private
  Eyes:
  Refresh:
  Concept:
  Motivation:
  :
  :
  :
  Fantastic (+6):
  Superb (+5):
  Great (+4):
  Good (+3):
  Fair (+2):
  Average (+1):
  Power Set:
  Special Effects and Limits
  Aspect:
  Secret ID:
  Hair:
  THE SUPER-POWERED ROLEPLAYING GAME
  CHARACTER SHeT
  
  248
  Power Set:
  Special Effects and Limits
  Aspect:
  HEADQUARTERS
  Point Cost:
  Features:
  Mild Consequence
  Moderate Consequence
  Severe Consequence
  Aspect:
  Consequence
  Consequence
  Consequence
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  8
  9
  Physical Stress
  Mental Stress
  Complications
  
  249
  Series Name:
  Broad Problem Aspect:
  Immediate Problem Aspect:
  Series Level:
  Series Tone:
  Experience Level:
  THE SUPER-POWERED ROLEPLAYING GAME
  Series Workshet
  The Broad View:
  The Focused View:
  The people:
  
  250
  ASPECTS
  STUNTS
  Super Team:
  Charter:
  Friction:
  Team Rogues
  Headquarters
  Point Cost:
  Features:
  Aspect:
  THE SUPER-POWERED ROLEPLAYING GAME
  super team SHeT
  Team Emblem
  
  251
  SupPorting cast
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  SupPorting cast
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  SupPorting cast
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  SupPorting cast
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  Rogue
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  Rogue
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  Rogue
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  Rogue
  Name:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Aspect:
  Notes:
  THE SUPER-POWERED ROLEPLAYING GAME
  Suporting cast & rogue shet
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/FATE (fudge) [multi]/Daring Comics/Daring Comics - Digital Edition.pdf