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Active Exploits is the diceless roleplaying game from Politically Incorrect Games, and is available as both a free PDF and a perfect-bound softcover. The system is innovative, but also has a lot more in common with GURPS and Unisystem, rather than other diceless games such as Amber and Nobilis. It’s an interesting mix, but is it for you?
My Background
I’ve been a fan and customer of PIGames for a while, as an early adopter of their games and later writing an adventure scenario for their systems. Brett Bernstein, author of Active Exploits, offered printed copies of the latest release with hopes I would write a review.
That said, I will be looking at this game as critically as possible. While the game itself is free, I’ve spent my own money in purchasing supplements, as well as time spent in actual play and preparation. Active Exploits is far from perfect, and I hope to make clear which playstyles it supports, and which it does not.
Ultimately, Active Exploits is a solid system, and one I keep coming back to, even two years after I first read it and after experimenting with different styles of play. This game is worth the closer look.
System: the Basics
Characters are firstly defined by their Abilities, Skills and Aspects. Abilities reflect raw traits (such as “Reasoning”), while Skills reflect real-world knowledge. This is a rather traditional setup, but these stats are notably non-granular. Abilities usually range from -1 to +2 (where 0 is “average ability”), while Skills have just four levels (Unskilled, Novice, Proficient and Expert). This is a surprisingly coarse scale compared to other systems, But in play this is liberating in how clear a character’s definition can be. For example: an athletic and extremely brilliant academic who dabbles with motorcycles: Reasoning +2, Fitness +1, Expert in Academics, Novice with Motorcycles. There’s simply no room for hand-wringing about the stats.
This brings us to the very basis of the task-resolution system: add the ability and skill, and compare to a task number. This is very similar to the approach in many generic systems except that the luck of the die is removed entirely. This means that the task resolution system uses what John Tweet called Karma – that is, comparing your effectiveness and opposition in a non-random fashion.
The addition of Aspects adds resource management to mix. Aspects reflect some metagame or in-game rating (represented by a mutable number). Luck is the primary Aspect, and the most straight-forward: it presents a finite pool of points to be freely used to succeed at tasks. Luck points are only regained by GM-award for “good roleplaying”, or by accomplishing character goals. In this way, Luck forms the key reward and incentive for players.
Another important Aspect is Discipline. Use of your raw Abilities is considered “expending effort”; Discipline then represents a cap on how much effort you can spend towards a task without taking on fatigue, which shows up as either impairment or a lowered Discipline rating. This Aspect adds some strategic depth with the question: do you push for success now, at the risk of being less capable later?
The mix of Karma and resource management makes for different play results than diced play. Without randomness, players (and GMs) won’t be victim to random whiffs, but they won’t get those long-shot lucky rolls either. My actual play experiences showed that this effected things a great deal.
Actual Play 1: In Space!
The first time I played Active Exploits was for a homebrew space-opera campaign. I GMed for 4 players over 6 sessions.
Character creation was different from what I was used to, in that there were simply fewer points of contact to work with. The system didn’t have a lot of space for minutely tweaking your stats or balancing your merits and flaws. There were clear paths to an “optimal character build”, but with the simplicity of the system these came off as commonsensical, rather than broken.
One friend of mine played a sword-swinging mercenary type. While most of the other characters reflected an even spread of abilities, his was very much concentrated in the combat-relevant abilities. I began to wonder if his acute focus would stretch the system past its limits.
Digression: Interesting Choice of Stats
AE has a novel set of default Abilities: Reasoning, Fitness, Awareness, and Creativity, with the option of an Influence ability (reflecting wealth and/or social currency).
“Fitness” squashes together a lot of traditionally separate stats, such as Dexterity, Strength and Endurance. There’s also the conspicuous lack of a Charisma stat, while the Creativity stat – not present in most games – is up front as a full-fledged stat.
What this tells me is that, aside from narrative color, Active Exploits is not as interested in whether your character is super-strong or super-quick. What’s important is that your character is focused on accomplishing goals through physical feats. Meanwhile, the game suggests that the Creativity stat, if played right, can have as much influence on the game as the traditional Reasoning stat. For example, the rulest state that Creativity can be applied towards Feint attacks, meaning that a master fencer could succeed without being physically superior. In our own games, it was clear that the “jury-rigging” skill should be based on Creativity alone.
(I should note that there is an optional rule, “Flairs”, that allows for a more refined breakdown in Abilities. Many players may prefer this.)
Actual Play 1 cont’d
Returning to my friend and his sword-slinging mercenary: he quickly maxed out his score in Fitness, and chose to be an Expert with Melee combat. Because a level of excellence was already in reach via the game rules, the player did not try to stretch out his character definition with disadvantages or min-maxing. Instead, his stats reflected who he was portraying: a seasoned professional.
With all these stats in his favor, his combat scenes were a good reflection of Karma-style resolution at work. When his blade was ready, his abilities and skills easily dominated any contest. However, when he was outgunned or outnumbered, no lucky rolls were there to save his skin, so he had to hold off until he could regain the advantage. In contrast, the ship’s captain lacked real combat skills. Her physical confrontations were desperate and gritty, and unless she burned through her Luck points, she would be quickly overwhelmed.
These results were a shock to me at first. I had been expecting something similar to my previous RPG experiences: the captain could pull through with some lucky shots, while my carefully crafted pet NPCs would prevail against the swordsman, or at least deliver a mild thrashing. These were not results prodcued by the rules.
However, I found these surprising results to be a good thing. My cushion of luck could no longer rob the swordman of his glory, nor could the dice shield the captain from the consequences:of her choices. Players adapted their play as a result: they fought hard and struck first in order to come out ahead. If they were in a bad situation, they avoided trying to “hero it out” action-movie style, but instead concocted plans that could circumvent their own weaknesses. The game taught us all a great deal.
Another interesting effect of play was that the system really did “melt away” and become truly transparent to the players. Many gamers talk about wanting a system that feels “invisible”, but this ruleset is really the closest I’ve ever seen to that happening in practice.
For example: we played one of our sessions over lunch at a restaurant. We had no dice, no character sheets, no chits. You’d think we were free-forming, but there was in fact a clear system lying underneath. We had memorized their character sheets, I had internalized the simple resolution system, and I was able to resolve actions with almost zero transaction time in the process. This, I think, was one of the coolest parts of playing with Active Exploits.
Actual Play 2: Zombie Bugaloo!
More recently, I played in a survival horror one-shot (GMed by a friend). Character creation went smoothly, and gameplay confirmed a lot of what I’d seen before. The characters found the limits to what they could do, and had to be careful with their resources in order to survive. Task resolution was quick and transparent.
Having a finite Luck pool did encourage some desperate choices, perfect for survival horror. However, I found that the Discipline and fatigue mechanics simply did not come into play often. (My guess is that these would only come up in situations where there was already a threat of hostile impairments, probably via frequent combats.)
While it was good that the rules stayed out of the way, I also found that they didn’t do much to drive play forward mechanically, as some other games tend to do. The game’s direction came mostly from the GM, with the rules mediating along the way.
System: Tweakable Options
Active Exploits has a plethora of optional rules included. For example:
- more distinct Abilities (Flairs)
- Gimmicks (like merits/flaws, but without the bean-counting)
- streamlined LARP rules
- vehicle rules (using rules and stats analogous to those for characters)
- Threads, a mechanic for promoting inter-character relationships (one of the most enticing rules in the book)
The included Experience system is simple enough, and adds a little more tactical depth, since Experience points can be spent for short-term success (like Luck) or saved up for long-term skill advancement. However, the track to gaining Experience is rather linear; twenty points is always the threshold for increasing a Skill by one level.
Along with these rules, there are plenty of customized Abilities and Aspects for use in various settings, such as the supernatural (ESP, Revelation) and magical fantasy (Mana, Resonance). I think there’s real potential here; the Aspects and Abilities are so simple and modular that they simply beg to be tweaked. It helps that PIGames has a wiki-like Collaborative Site to promote the sharing of home-brewed content.
So What’s Going On Inside?
Active Exploits has a clear vision of how the game will be played. It expects a more traditional GM-player relationship, with a lot of trust in the GM’s authority as well as a strong cinematic aesthetic in the playgroup.
However, some of these directions go against what I’ve come to like in my own games. In supporting strong GM-authority, Active Exploits also supports techniques such as secretly setting difficulty numbers in order to keep things challenging. The awarding of Luck points for “good roleplaying” is very GM-centric, and is functional only at the GM’s own whim. The game has a virtue of flexibility, but in the process it too quickly seizes upon the idea of leaving out undesired rules or ignoring the resolution system altogether to fit the “needs of the story” – again, another GM-centric decision.
A lot of these techniques are nothing surprising or new, but simply reflect styles that I play less of now. I currently prefer games with a more narrow focus, with heavy mechanical influence driving the story, and this isn’t quite the experience that Active Exploits provides.
However, perhaps your players seeking something like this: a straight-forward task resolution mechanic, with room for rewarding positive player behavior; a system that doesn’t interfere with a successful social-dynamic with centralized trust/authority with the GM; transparent mechanics that get out of the way, and leave room for the players and GM to drive the story. And finally, a desire to dampen the less desirable outcomes of random chance.
Many of my roleplayer friends prefer this style of play, so the next time I’ll be gaming with them, Active Exploits will be at the top of my list. If you share these goals, then you’ll find this game to be a great match.
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