Core Book Chapter 1



“And here we go again,” - Jack Sikorsky.

“Once more into the breech,” - Samuel Zion.

“That’s Unto,” - Jack Sikorsky.

“Whatever, we going to blow him out of space or what?” - Samuel Zion.

“Sure why not then we can have a cook out,” - Jack Sikorsky.

Conversation held between Jack Sikorsky and Samuel Zion shortly before their disappearance aboard the TNS Ghost Of War. Okay just to give you an idea about our attitudes when it came to making this game; we didn’t want it to be the same old dry and cut dusty bones that most other games are. We wanted to instill a sense of humor and all expanding galactic wonder to it. As a warning to all who purchase this product the main creators of these books [mainly Josh, Campi, and Derrick] are all smart asses and can take sarcasm to extreme levels, so if anything we do or say in these books offends you; well too bad don’t buy the books. First off to give you a basic idea behind this campaign setting the year is 6200 and the last echoes of the 7th Pan-Galactic War are still reverberating throughout the galaxy as New Star Nations are created and others fall by the wayside, leaders are killed and replaced, new threats are created and old ones destroyed or just said to have been destroyed. High technology and space travel stand side by side with magic and mental powers and the various races pick up the pieces as hopefully no new disastrous threats loom on the horizon, of course this is a role-playing game so even more likely than not there is one looming on the horizon.

This game is set in a far flung future that could be our own with a few twists and turns as greed both human and non-human fight it out. There are three rules you need to keep in mind about the Merc.NET and all Bag of Hammers products -

1]. For one this is a game it is meant to be fun, so have fun otherwise you should just take this book and use it to steady that wobbly coffee table in the living room.

2]. The GM, DM, the Great Kazoo, or whatever you want to call him is pretty much God when it comes to BOH products [no not literally God, don’t get us started on that considering we have a Wiccan, a person that thinks the Catholic Church needs to have it’s ass kicked, and I think the other guy worships Satan or his neighbors dog or something; oh yeah and one of our main beta testers is Southern Baptist and another one is of Jewish descent, scary mix isn’t it].

Ahem ‘scuse me now getting back to the point, the GM as we’ll call him for the time being is pretty much god; although cut him some slack he has to put up with you guys after all. There is also the fact that while we give the GM the basics of a game setting he still has to do all the number crunching and heavy lifting so remember in the end don’t annoy the GM.

“And bribing him with fast food and soda or energy drinks is usually a good idea as well.” - Josh

3]. Rules lawyers are as bad and evil as real lawyers; so don’t start it and if you do stop it immediately. The company has an e-mail address that will be listed on the copyright page; so if you are being a rules lawyer your friends have the ability to contact us and we will show up at your door like Teddy Roosevelt and whack you upside the head a few times.

4]. Hah, fooled you there is actually four rules, the fourth and final rule -

'''This. Book. Is. Only. A. Guide.'''

If you do not like a rule in this book or any of our other products feel free to throw it out the window, our rules are not written in stone if you think something should be done differently go ahead and do it, hell e-mail us and we may make it part of the FAQ on the website. This is basically a futuristic setting of alien cuisine, Nanno-viruses, even more holy wars [since the old gods have returned], still stupid politicians, faster than light space travel, cool energy weapons, and lots of explosions are all included in this scenario.

This core book is not meant to be just for Merc.NET you can ignore the whole Merc.NET thing and use this as a source for your own futuristic game setting. We’ll also be publishing additional sourcebooks such as ones covering equipment [which means you’ll get to actually find out how much a futuristic socket set will cost], a weapons book covering large amounts of both futuristic fire-arms as well as melee weapons [including Elharnian Psi-Blades] and tons of weapons from various alien races from across our entire spiral arm of the galaxy.

So remember this is a futuristic game setting so there are Magi, Espers, and laser guns; sorry still no black hole projectors but Nicola Tesla might be showing up with a doomsday weapon. The human race has advanced far in the last 4200 years, technologically, morally, and everything else.

Food has a made a major advance as well as how you can prepare it, not only do we have our own Earth cuisine but foods from dozens of other races as well as food created from genetically enhanced foods from home strains; food preparation has been made easier with introduction of auto-chefs and auto-kitchens.

Home entertainment has taken on new dimensions with the introduction of the Holo-Tank and holographic projector as well as the use of full virtuality, you can literally see a movie from any angle in your living room and even re-enact a movie in your own private or a public Holo-room and with more brutal sports such as Grav-Disc, Laser Jet Ball, and Galactic Anti-Gravity Vehicle Racing.

Homes have become more comfortable with the introduction of self-conforming and adjusting furniture with things such as built in massage, heating, and cooling.

Clothing has become mostly tight with the introduction of things such as mono-film, Nanno-rubber, and Nanno-TEX, but fashion fads still come and go with bell bottoms unfortunately rearing its ugly head again and other materials such as Leather, Cotton, and Silk still are important.

Vehicles and travel have become easier to operate and can go far longer distances from your little flight capable city car you drive down the block to pick up the milk and eggs up to the humongous 25 kilometer long colony ships that travel untold light years to carry their cargo to new worlds.

Health care has become pretty universal in even the lowest planets with the availability of the TET or Telomere Enhancement Treatment that extends peoples lives to almost three quarters of a millennium. Obesity and child hood sicknesses has almost completely disappeared the only major problems in health care being Nanno-rejection syndrome and the use of Nanno-drugs.

Religion has gone kind of topsy turvey and all twisty since the return of the old gods and dozens of other individuals pretending to be gods and with churches and cults popping up all over the place. The old religions are still there. Once again we reiterate this is a game [we’ll probably say that numerous times throughout this chapter and maybe even other chapters] however you have to have an imagination or at least pretend you do, err, wait that doesn’t work because that would require you having an imagination to be able to pretend to have an imagination, talk about paradoxes. Okay moving on we ask that you not LARP any of our game settings or go off your nut and go around town killing people because you think they are a Quisling in disguise.

Okay as a player there is a bit of split personality to playing in a role playing game, there is you the player who discusses things out of game with your other fellow players and the GM, and then there is you the PC or Player Character that takes actions in the storyline of the game whether it is running from hordes of aliens or standing your ground to impress the hot chick [and yes this will probably still be a problem in the future and which unfortunately they are still rarely ever impressed].

Generally a sci-fi type of game setting is filled with different races either trying to live together or to kill each other on a daily basis and to conquer or defend territory for themselves or their star nation and even nature and space has a bad tendency to be against you on a day to day basis and going to bed hungry, wet, and cold isn’t all that uncommon. This section tells you what you need to play this game.

1]. This book and its rules, don’t even ask why we put this one in the list since if you didn’t have the book you wouldn’t have the list and probably wouldn’t be playing this game.

2]. A character sheet, which is supplied at the back of the book, and be sure if that jerk at the copy counter gives you problems you show him the nice bold type at the bottom of the character sheet stating you have permission to re-produce the character sheet as many times as you want. Or much more cheaply but more time consuming you could just get a blank piece of paper and write everything down, so if you like hand cramps and carpal tunnel please feel free to use option B, but we’d appreciate you using option A. Why option A you ask, one it doesn’t make us money but you can make the guy behind the copy counter look stupid and B Metacarpals are your friends.

3]. Writing utensils, generally a pencil is best [usually a mechanical one since regular pencils don’t have decent erasers], an eraser either gum or one of those nifty tube erasers that go clik-clik-clik when you run more of the eraser out.

4]. Excess sheets of paper.

5]. Dice, lots and lots of dice, either all the same color or if you are a rainbow fan all sorts of different colors. Not only do you need dice to roll various things but they are good for other things such as bouncing them off the heads of rules lawyers and people who annoy the GM [remember the GM is God and he can also be your friend, if he becomes annoyed that is bad].

Also you need lots of dice because occasionally you will run across a die that just refuses to roll good for you so we suggest a few ways to dispose of these - 

1]. Sewer drains are always good and you can practice your hand eye coordination.

2]. Microwave the thing and see what happens, we don’t suggest using option with dice made out of metal however.

3]. Give bad dice to someone you don’t like.

''4]. Switch your bad die with one of the GM’s good die when he isn’t looking, and remember this only works if the dice look the same. - BOH Staff''

There are several types of dice there are d4’s these look like three sided pyramids, d6’s you can never have enough d6’s if you run low go raid that Yahtzee set that’s been moldering in the closet for the last ten years, d8’s these actually make pretty effective projectiles since they have a point on each end, d10 this is a die that is numbered 1-10, d10 Percentile this is a die numbered 01-00, d12 12-sided die, d20 these are fairly large dice with twenty sides, d30 thirty sided dice that I don’t think we even use in this system, Zochehedron this can be used in place of a % die roll however it’s about the size of a golf ball and unless your table is level it’ll roll around for about an hour.

6]. A miniature and battle mat, while these can be expensive and you’ll rarely find a figure that looks the way you want it generally makes movement and combat a lot easier. As for the battle mat make sure you use the correct type of markers.

7]. Some poor dumb bastard to run the game otherwise you won’t have a game to play and no you can’t kidnap a bum off the street and hold him at gunpoint.

The basic campaign setting is a Future that has been through Seven Pan-Galactic Wars as well as numerous civil wars in various star nations and there is always somebody fighting somewhere or trying to intrigue against someone else.

Scenarios can range anywhere from a simple cargo hauling job gone wrong, to a pirate attack [with the players being the pirates or the other way around], a diplomatic mission, galactic exploration, or just trying to avert an 8th Pan-Galactic War.

Have fun and be creative, unfortunately we won’t be including a starter scenario in this book due to space constraints but I’m sure you guys can think of something.

Read the book all the way through whether you are game-mastering or just playing in a game, we also suggest refreshing yourself on certain chapters every now and again; heck we wrote the books and we can’t remember half the crap that is in them.

You roll the dice and you add what the GM tells you to add and then he tells you whether you have succeeded or not, I’m not going to go into a fifteen page diatribe about this.

Okay GM’s your job is to flesh out the story you want the other players to do, you can run a character of your own or several characters which is generally a bad idea but you’ll have to come up with unique NPCs that the Player Characters encounter through out the game.

Face it a GM’s job is to paint a picture as if the players were really there, that and screw over the players every chance he gets, you may be friends with your boss, but I lied earlier the GM is never your friend, although if you bribe him enough he might be less malicious.

Below is a discussion we had about things to keep an eye out for while playing if you are a GM.

“Power gaming is bad by the way.” - Justin

“Give me some examples.” - Josh

“1. Well there are those people that try to take books from other games systems and try to use them without asking if it’s okay.

2. You create a power gamed henchman that covers everything that the player isn’t able to do.

3. You think you are god and try acting upon it.

4. You try to make yourself the center of everything even when the plot has nothing to do with you.

5. Purposely cheat with dice.

6. Make people want to sleep as you rant about your character for two hours, and actually succeed at it.

7. You force the GM and all other characters to plot your death.

8. Then whine and never come back to play again.” - Justin

“All dice should be rolled where the GM can see them.” - Campi

“Make sure no one is using loaded dice.” - Justin

“All actions should be called before dice are rolled.” - Campi

“Rule 0, the GM is always right.” - Justin

No seriously in all honesty the GM should make the game fun and exciting for the players but not screw with them to badly although always count your fingers after having an encounter with an NPC; especially if a guy named Habib asks you if you want a slushy.

In the Merc.NET Campaign Setting you can become a hero on a galactic level or even a villain on a galactic level. You could play a bounty hunter avenging his murdered family or an Oliver Hazzard Perry or John Paul Jones of the future. The future is unwritten so make of it what you would.

This section is both for Players and the GM.

An example of the first gaming session -

'''Josh [GM/Owen] - Your group returns from it‘s camping trip in the mountains of Sonora to find the equipment of the movie crew abandoned and scattered over the small valley that Nathan had rented to them. The door of his cabin is banging back and forth in the wind, here and there piles of crates and equipment sit stacked neatly.'''

Braccho [Orin] - I’ll stay with the vehicle and the ladies, I’ll move towards a set of crates that are stacked up near the vehicles.

Justin [Nathan] - Galion and I will go through the front door.

'''Campi [Galion] - There sure is something creepy goin’ on round here. I pull out my 8-gauge and chamber a round.'''

'''Derrick [Kove] - Just don’t be blowing any deer in half again, I’ll check through the modules that the movie crew left behind. And I’ll ask the NPC if he wants to tag along.'''

Josh [GM/Owen] - Owen agrees to go with you and pulls out a particle beam machine pistol from under his jacket.

Cliff [Kharne] - I guess that leaves me and Tiny Mann to go through the back door of the cabin.

Ernie [Tiny] - Sure why not.

Josh [GM/Owen] - Orin stays with the girls and the vehicle to watch them and the rest of you split into teams of two; Kove and Owen investigate the living modules of the movie crew and find them to be abandoned as if everyone just stepped out and walked away.

Nathan you and Galion go through the front door and find the place a mess and no; it does not look like somebody trashed the place it just looks like the movie crew was a bunch of slobs.

Kharne and Tiny meet you in the back hallway of the cabin and then everybody heads back to the vehicle.

'''Orin while everyone is investigating the modules and the cabin you feel a crushing blow to the back of your skull. Roll me a Physical Exertion.'''

Braccho [Orin] - I got a ten altogether.

''' Orin rolled a d20 and added his physical exertion stat to get his Physical Exertion total. '''

Josh [GM/Owen] - Blackness covers your vision as you fall to the ground unconscious.

Tiny, Kharne, Nathan, Galion, and Kove you find Orin unconscious near the stack of crates that he had been hiding behind and the girls are all gone.

Braccho [Orin] - Hey I wasn’t hiding I was protecting the car and the women.

Derrick [Kove] - Well you failed at that pretty spectacularly then.

Josh [GM/Owen] - Okay you find him unconscious behind the crates what are you guys doing.

Justin [Nathan] - I reach down and slap him on the face.

'''Josh [GM/Owen] - Okay you slap him a couple of times and his eyelids start to flutter and then he sits up groaning. '''