ATTRIBUTES

"Cruelty has a human heart, and jealousy a human face;
Terror, the human form divine, and Secrecy the human dress."


There are 9 major Attributes in Neon Twilight. These are Intelligence, Perception, Strength, Toughness, Dexterity, Reflex, Charisma, Psyche and Willpower plus one derived attribute called Health.

Keep in mind that all attributes are important, not just the physical/ combat ones. For example: a Style + Charisma roll is required whenever first meeting a person to determine their initial reaction. This will modify all future social rolls with that person. Psyche is used to determine how 'human' (or humane) you are, and can also affect social interaction. Psyche as luck is rolled for all situations when chance is the only factor, such as games of chance or whether there is a variety store within yelling range. Perception is used to find clues or spot ambushes. Intelligence is used for figuring out puzzles and for dozens of knowledge skills. In other words, a good character is a balanced union of Mind, Body and Spirit.

Each attribute has a rating from -5 (pathetic) to +5 (amazing). Attributes are added to skill ratings and a d6 to determine the Action Total. Since there is no skill for lifting or breaking things, you add +5 to your Attribute, add the d6 as normal and try to beat the Difficulty. Resisting poison also falls into this category.

Intelligence
Covers general reasoning faculties, logical cognition, pattern-recognition and memory. Players should be encouraged to roleplay this attribute. Intelligence is used for most knowledge skills and even for some combat skills such as Tactics. Intelligence is probably the most important all-around attribute to have.

Toughness
Describes your physical size, body mass, stamina, endurance and constitution. Toughness is used to determine your Health points, resistance to disease, fatigue and physical damage. It serves as your armor when damage is inflicted.

Reflex
Indicates the reflex reactions of the body, your speed and hand-eye coordination. Reflex is used for quick movement decisions, such as swerving to avoid a car or drawing and firing a gun faster than your opponent. Reflex is often combined with the Alertness and firearms skills.

Dexterity
Dexterity deals with gross whole-body movements such as acrobatics or martial arts and with fine motor skills requiring the manipulation of small components. Dexterity is vital to skills such as surgery, photonics, and athletics.

Psyche
Describes your spiritual qualities and intangible essence. Psyche is your soulpower, luck, humanity and sanity. It is used when exercising leadership, sensing auras, resisting insanity, feeling other people's emotions, and holding a spiritual belief (true faith). Psyche is also your emotional power and ability to remain a human being despite torture, oppression, xenorganics and de-sensitizing brutality. If your Psyche ever drops to -5, you become a machine and are removed from the game.

Willpower
Covers your strength of mind, mental fortitude, stubbornness and ambition. Willpower is used to resist mental attack, to shape mental powers, to overcome exhaustion, to recover from mortal wounds, and to stare down your opponents. Similar to Cool in CP2020. Willpower also has one very important game use: whenever the GM rules that a PC must do something because of his nature, an addiction, or a flaw, the player can role on Willpower and, if successful, temporarily overcome the character's problem.

Charisma
Quantifies your charm, physical beauty, personal magnetism and general attractiveness. Charisma is crucial to making friends, impressing people, convincing others that what you're telling is the truth, and for seduction. Charisma can be raised by plastic surgery. Charisma is often used with skills such as subterfuge, politics, persuasion, style, and interrogation(interview).

Strength
Describes sheer muscular power as well as the ability to apply force properly. Used to lift heavy objects, throw them, crush items, force open doors, and to wield large guns such as minigatlings and flamethrowers. Also determines maximum encumbrance and Health points, and adds to damage in hand-to-hand combat.

Perception
Describes the quality of your six senses (yes, danger sense/intuition is included). Most often used with Alertness and Forensics, but also handy for Survival, Appraisal, Tracking, Navigation, and Aimed Shots in combat. Perception can be improved via surgery.


Health
Combine Strength + Toughness +10 to determine your Health points. Minimum Health is always 4 points. This may be doubled if you are playing a Cinematic campaign. These total Health points are then divided into roughly 4 categories: Light, Moderate, Serious and Critical. These denote four stages of damage. Each category has a penalty that represents the pain and handicaps of being wounded. The penalty applies to all die rolls until that character is healed.

A character also has Stun Health (equal to normal Health) points that represent the capacity to withstand stun damage, fatigue, and brawling. Stun Health also has categories and penalties, but Stun and Physical penalties are not cumulative. When a character loses all her Stun Health, she is knocked out (or collapses unconscious if fatigued) and any further damage takes points off Physical Health.

Physical Wound Categories
Light -2 Moderate -4 Serious -6 Critical -8

Stun Wound Categories
Light -1 Moderate -2 Serious -3 Critical -4

   Example: Thron has a Strength +2 and Toughness +1. 
   He would have 13 Physical Health and 13 Stun Health 
   points. Divided into four that would make the 
   categories = 4 / 3 / 3 / 3. Thron then takes 5 
   fatigue points from running around. He is now 
   Moderately stunned and takes a -2 penalty to 
   everything he does. Then he gets shot for 8 points 
   of damage. He is now physically Seriously wounded,
   so his penalty would be -6 on all actions.
	

Healing
Healing takes place at a rate of 10 + (2 x Toughness) % of total Health per day (minimum rate of 1/2 point per day). A normal person therefore heals completely in 10 days. This may seem unrealistic but, as every good GM knows, fast healing is essential to keeping the story going and no-one likes to sits around roleplaying recuperation in a hospital ward. If you prefer realism, change that to 1 + Toughness % per day. This is the only attribute requiring a calculator (;). Round off as normal. For Stun damage, the healing rate is per hour instead of per day. Everything all confused now? Good.

   Examples: Stan has a Toughness of +2 and Strength 
   of +1. He has 13 Health. His healing rate is 10+4 
   = 14% of 13 = 1.82 = 2 per day. Frank has Toughness 
   +2 and Strength +5. His healing rate is 10+4 = 14% 
   of 17 = 2.38 = 2 per day. Pussy has Toughness -3 
   and Strength -1. His healing rate is 10-6 = 4% of 6 
   = 0.24 = 1/2 a point per day. Warman has Strength +5 
   and Toughness +5. His healing rate is 10+10 = 20% 
   of 20 Health = 4 points per day.