Rule sets and options

A game system is your sim’s rule set. It holds the numbers for turns and rolls, and a long list of optional rules you switch on or off. Find them under Game Design › Combat & effects › Game systems.

Which game system plays

Your sim has a default game system, the combat-defaultGameSystem setting under Server › Settings. A group can have its own, chosen on its page under Staff › Groups. A fight uses the game system of its leader’s group, or the sim’s default. Outside fights, a character follows their group’s game system, or the default.

Each game system’s page says who uses it, such as the grid default or a group. Admins and effect system staff can change game systems. Everyone else with access can look.

What a game system sets

Fight Stages: the stages before Round 1, such as the Surprise Round and the Scatter Phase, each on or off and in your order. Standard Rounds always come last.
Initiative formula: what’s rolled for turn order when a fight starts.
PvP turn Energy and PvE turn Energy: the Action Points each turn brings, as a formula or a fixed amount.
Reactions per enemy turn: 0 turns reactions off.
Minimum damage per hit: a hit that lands always does at least this much.
The skills behind certain checks, such as the Medical skill for treating wounds and the Stealth skill for sneaking.
Dice checks: named rolls players see on the HUD’s Dice page, each built from a formula.

Dice base, Count successes and Crit mode are saved under Not Used Yet. The game doesn’t read them, so your formulas decide how dice are rolled.

The rule sets a new sim starts with

A new sim lists several game systems to start from. They hold rules and numbers, and your own abilities, classes and formulas fill them in:

Freeform: no mechanical rules, pure roleplay.
d20: the Black Box default with limits on stats, and a d20 fantasy set.
3d6 sci-fi: 3d6 plus a skill, rolled against the target’s cover.
3d6 medieval: 3d6 plus training, rolled against defence or ward, with magic.
d10 dice pools: roll a pool of d10s and count the successes.

You can edit any of them or add your own.

Optional rules

Each rule shows what it does and whether it’s on by default. Use Search rules and settings to find one, Changed from defaults to see what you’ve changed, and Jump to to move between sections. Some sections also have numbers to tune, such as penalties and ranges.

The page sorts the rules into groups:

Turns: Round Structure, such as team-alternating turn order, Go Last, no downing in round 1, and fights only staff can start. Action Economy, where Energy works as Action Points that refill each turn. Reactions, such as parries, dodges and opportunity strikes.
Positioning: Movement, such as tactical movement, where moving costs Action Points and a range ring shows how far you can go. Rows, Cover with cover ratings and flanking, Stealth, Climbing and Grapple.
Attacks & Gear: Weapons, such as range bands, gear requirements and slot rules. Rolls for saving throws and advantage. Quirks, Statuses, Armor and carry weight, Consumables, AoE for aimed areas that can drift off target, Drones and Emplacements.
Wounds & Aftermath: Wounds with tiers, healing and worsening over time, stabilising and paid treatment. Sparring, where nobody is wounded, Looting, Escaping and Scene Transitions.
Other: magic, such as concentration, counterspells, spell channelling and songs, plus class skills, traits, equipment passives, critical damage and XP for fights against NPCs.

The Other group also holds the switches for systems outside fights, such as item wear and repairs, the crafting roll, work hours, gathering limits, the auction house, crafting orders, player stalls, pickpocketing, community projects and lawful zones. Players only see these on the HUD when the game system they play under has them on.

Experience

The Experience rules and numbers decide where XP comes from. Levels and XP sets them up step by step, with the level chart, roleplay rewards, awards and the tasks that pay XP.

PvE Fight XP: players get XP when they beat NPCs. With Split, each monster is worth its own XP, shared by the players who beat it.
PvE Fight XP: Creature Level: each NPC is worth XP by its level against the player’s, as PF2e does. It’s 40 at the same level, rising to 160 at four levels above and falling to 10 at four below. Anything lower is worth nothing. Set an NPC’s level on its character. The XP is for a group of Party size players (4), so a smaller group gets more each and a bigger one less. This replaces Split.
Crafting XP: every item a craft makes gives the crafter XP per item crafted, up to Crafting daily cap a day (0 = no cap).
XP Grows With Level: XP is measured in medium encounters at the character’s level, as 5e does. A medium encounter is 50 XP at level 1 and 5,700 at level 20, so each source stays worth the same share of a level as characters grow. Set:
- XP rate: multiplies every source (1 = plain 5e);
- Emote session worth: how many medium encounters a full emote session is worth;
- Weekly fight cap: the most fight XP a week, in medium encounters (0 = no cap).
- For quests, use the XP for their level effect; see Quests and NPCs.
XP for Time on Sim: everyone on the sim earns XP for their active character each hour, up to Hours on sim a week. Nobody earns it while set to AFK, and only the regions your emote rewards count in are counted. Schedule the OnSimXp task under Server › Settings › Cron, every hour.

Emote rewards stop being worth as much past their weekly cap, rather than stopping outright. Tune the cap under Server › Settings › Globals:

rp-weekly-exp-cap sets where it starts;
rp-weekly-softcap-bonus and rp-weekly-softcap-span set how much more the week can still give and how fast;
rp-weekly-softcap-floor is the least, as a %, that extra roleplay still earns.