Hi there!

First off, a little update to this quickstart. A few big changes:

• Gaining your Background doesn’t give you a smattering of Attributes anymore. Instead, you get to grab another Trait. This can be another Profession’s thing, something from things that hint at a less savory Profession, or things that indicate where you came from.
  • To support the latter two categories, there’s 7 more traits now. More Attributes is something you’ll gain by proper leveling later past this level-0 quickstart.
• Escalation and combat have a different interaction. Escalation now adds to all Toughness-coded actions and subtracts from all Focus-coded actions (which was in v3) but crucially, all combat actions are coded to Toughness (melee by default), Reflexes (ranged by default), or Focus (usually “steady aim” style weapons).
  • You’re not trained soldiers by default, you’re regularish people, being good at shooting isn’t a thing that adrenaline helps you with. If it’s something that means your hands have to be steady, it’s probably the opposite! One of those aforementioned Background traits (Combat training) makes it work the old way again: if you ARE a trained soldier, well, that’s a bit different, isn’t it.
• Energy Harm/Resistance no longer exists. Anything that was Energy is now just a gun (laser pistol -> pistol), is now a smaller amount of Hazard Harm (Supercharger used as a weapon), or is now Kinetic (Peacekeeper.)
  • This one is for a handful of reasons: it had a huge overlap with Hazard conceptually and having too many Harm types made getting resist armor a little cheaper. If someone has Kinetic or Ballistic Resist armor now, it means a bit more as a result, and Hazard Resist/Vulnerability is going to come up in combat more as well: if someone has a big laser now, it’s an immediate threat, as a big laser should be in a hard-ish sci-fi setting!

Secondly, a third quickstart has landed, courtesy of the Indie NASA TTRPG Adventures and Sci-Fi One-Shot Jams! Escape from the surface of Europa as the twin forces of corporate maneuvering and corporate malfeasance threaten to squeeze you out.

Have fun!