Taking Risks

All risks can be classified in three categories: Easy, Moderate, and Hard.

Easy: An Easy Risk is something nearly any healthy cat can pull off without any degree of difficulty.  Swatting a ball of string across the room, jumping over a low wall, or climbing on the back of the couch are all good examples of Easy Actions.

Moderate: A Moderate Risk requires a bit more finesse.  Catching a clever mouse, jumping up to the top of the refrigerator from the kitchen table, or climbing a sheer wall are all good examples of Moderate Risks.

Hard: Hard Risks are those that truly test a cat’s skills.  Jumping up to the top of a high shelf without making a sound or toppling the Tupperware, catching two mice with one strike, and sneaking by a sleeping dog to steal his bone are all good examples of Hard Risks.

Testing Fate

There is a way for a cat to perform Risks that are beyond his capabilities… but it’s uncertain.  Whenever a cat takes a chance, it is said he “tests fate.”

Whenever you Test Fate, roll a number of six-sided dice equal to the appropriate Trait.  Count each die that rolls an even number (2, 4, or 6) as a success.

• To beat an Easy Risk, you have to roll at least one even.
• To beat a Moderate Risk, you have to roll at least two evens.
• To beat a Hard Risk, you have to roll at least three evens.

If the number of evens is equal to or greater than the Risk’s difficulty, you can narrate the outcome of your cat’s risk.  However, if you less than the required evens, Fate intervenes and the Narrator narrates the outcome of your cat’s risk.

Advantage Dice

Advantage Dice are dice the Narrator hands out to players for showing initiative and for good roleplaying.  Each Advantage Die is another die the player can roll for a chance of rolling another success.

Advantage Dice represent advantages your cat has in any given Risk.  A reward good roleplaying, planning, and innovative thinking.

Scars

Despite their natural graces, cats get hurt.  When they do, they sometimes walk away with a Scar or two.  Whenever your cat tests Fate while doing something dangerous, there’s a chance he will fail and get Scars.

For example, jumping from one rooft op to another is “dangerous.”  Catching a fly with your paw is not, so you can fail that Risk without taking any Scars.

When your cat fails a particularly dangerous Risk, check your dice.  The lowest odd you rolled is the number of scars your cat gets for failing his Risk.

When you get Scars, you choose where they go.  You can apply all your Scars to a single Trait or divide them up as you see fit.  You have to explain to the Narrator why you got a Scar in a particular Trait.  If you can’t come up with a compelling reason, he’ll tell you where to put the Scar (usually in the Trait you tried to use).

• If you get three Scars in one Trait, that Trait drops down to the next Rank.
• If you get three Scars in a Good Trait, it drops to Hurt.  Hurt Traits have a bonus of 2.
• If you earn three Scars in a Hurt Trait, it drops to Crippled.  You may not take further Risks with a Crippled Trait.

Healing
A cat heals one Scar per week of game time.

Fighting

Cats fight.  They fight each other, they fight Boggins, they fight lots of things.  There are two circumstances under which cats fight: they fight other cats or they fight non-cats.  The rules for each are as follows.

Fighting Other Cats

Cats do not fight to kill each other: just to prove who the better fighter is.  Cats only fight for one round; one quick scuffle to prove dominance.

Both players roll either their Fangs or Claws (cat’s choice). Compare the number of evens.  Both cats take a number of Scars equal to the other cat’s evens.  Whoever got the most evens (took the least number of Scars) wins the fight.

You may use Lives or Fighting Magic to dodge Scars as usual, which means cats may get into a fight and lose but take no Scars.  However, the winner of the fight is always the cat who rolled the most evens.

Fighting Non-Cats

When fighting dogs, rats, or Boggins, the system is a little different.  Cats only fight each other to prove dominance; when fighting a Boggin, your cat is fighting for his life.

Use the same system as above with each throw of the dice representing one round of fighting.  At the end of each round, each combatant takes a number of Scars equal to the number of evens his opponent rolled.

At the end of each round, check your Scars.  If you have to adjust Traits because of Scars you’ve earned in the fight, do it now.

Dodging

During a fight, your cat may try to dodge instead of scoring a hit on his opponent.  Note that if you dodge in a fight with another cat, you inflict no Scars at all and you are automatically considered the loser of the fight.

To dodge, roll your Legs instead of rolling your Claws or Fangs dice.  This way, your cat tries to dodge the hits rather than deliver one of his own.

You may also dodge a Boggin’s hits in the same way.  Remember, you deliver no hits at all when dodging.

Death

A cat can only take so much damage before he loses his grip on life.  When three of a cat’s Traits are crippled, he’s in real danger.  When four of his Traits become Crippled, or if he uses his last Life, he dies.

Reputation

Your cat can have up to five Reputations, and each Reputation has both a a Rank.  A Reputation’s maximum Rank is 5.

Using Reputation

Whenever your cat takes a Risk, look at your Reputations.  If the Narrator agrees that one of your Reputations is appropriate to the Risk, you can add your Reputation in dice to your roll.  This gives you more dice for a better chance at more evens.

Losing Reputation

If your cat ever takes an action that goes against his Reputation, he stands a chance of losing it.  If he doesn’t fix the problem in the very same session, taking an action that would restore his Reputation, he loses a point of that Reputation.

The Narrator is the final judge of when a cat may lose or restore his Reputation.

Getting a New Reputation

Cats can earn new Reputations by doing things other cats hold in high esteem.  If another cat sees your act he can declare that you deserve a new Reputation.  The cat “spends” one of his own Reputations to give you a new Reputation at half the value of his own.  He must spend a Reputation that’s appropriate to your new Reputation.

Lives

A cat has nine Lives and may use them in two ways:

• First, you may spend a cat’s Life to succeed in any Risk, regardless of your Trait or the difficulty.
• Second, you can use a Life to dodge any Scars gained from a single round.

Once your cat runs out of Lives, he’s out for good.  Although, there are rumors of cats who find a way to refresh a Life, though nobody’s actually met a cat who has.

Style

Finally, cats have Style.

A cat’s Style comes from his confidence (some say his cockiness) and assuredness in his manner and physical prowess.

In other words, dogs just get the job done and cats do things with panache.

Whenever you make a roll and have more evens than you need, the evens become Style Points.  You can use Style in one of two ways:

• First, you can keep them to use later.  Each even kept in this way counts as an automatic even you can use later in the game.  You may use your Style Point whenever you like and you may use as many Style Points on any roll you like — you are a cat, after all.
• Second, you can use extra evens you just rolled to creatively edit the that particular moment of the scene.  In other words, you can use your Style to put yourself in a better position, becoming the Narrator for a moment to add some zest to the scene.  While you cannot subtract anything that already exists from the scene, you can alter established facts (such as having a closed gate actually turn out to be open, or there is a crate conveniently positioned for the cat to leap up to a high window).

This message was last edited by the GM at 13:44, Wed 09 Sept 2020.

A cat’s Tail is his soul, his source of power and magic.  And while it is called “cat magic,” cats don’t cast spells... they play Tricks.

The stronger a cat’s Tail, the mightier his magic and the more clever his Tricks.  We’ll learn more about Tricks in a moment.  First, let’s talk a little bit about the limits of cat magic.

Magic Points

Tricks don’t happen all by themselves; a cat has to make a Trick work.  He does this by using Magic Points and rolling dice.  The harder the Trick, the more magic it requires, the more evens you have to roll to make it work.

Each cat has five Magic Points, plus one Magic Point per Tail Rank.  In order to use any magic at all, a cat has to spend at least one Magic Point which gives him a number of dice to roll equal to his Tail.  Each additional Magic Point gives you an Advantage Die to roll.

Regaining Magic Points

Cats regain Magic Points at a rate of 1 per hour of sleep. If a cat can’t sleep, he can’t regain his Magic Points.

The Bauble Curse

Long, long ago, a sorcerer dog tricked the King of the Cats, putting a curse on him and all his kind.  Known by cats as “the Bauble Curse,” it is one of the more humiliating aspects of cat nature.  If you’ve ever seen a cat chase a ball of twine or a feather on a long piece of string, you’re familiar with the Curse.

As long as the object is in his sight (and active), a cat is under the thrall of the curse.  He remains under the thrall of the Curse until he makes three Hard Risksb with his Tail.  Until he does that, the Curse holds him tight, making him completely helpless and under its thrall.  If he fails all three Risks, he is suddenly free from the Curse.  A cat cannot take any Risk while under the effects of the Bauble Curse, other than attempting to break free.

Getting Wet

If a cat gets wet — and we’re not talking about drops, we’re talking about the drowned rat kind of wet — he can’t use his magic for the rest of the day, even if he gets himself dry again.

No Tail

Some breeds of cat have no Tail.  While they may have no physical tail, they still have a Tail Trait, just like other cats.


Using Magic

Listed below are the many Tricks cats use to befuddle their enemies.  Each Trick has a Tail Rank indicating how strong your cat’s Tail needs to be to use the Trick.  If your cat’s Tail is equal to or greater than the listed Rank, you may use the Trick.  If the Trick’s Rank is greater than your Tail Rank, you cannot use the Trick.

Some Tricks have a “Variable” Tail Rank; this means the Trick has a number of effects based on your cat’s Tail Rank.  You can pull off the effects equal to or lesser than your Tail Rank, but not those greater than your Tail Rank.

Tricks

Fall on All Fours (Variable)
Whenever scientists study how cats fall, they always get very strange results. That’s because cats are using magic to keep themselves safe during the fall and some cats are just better at magic than others.
• Good: A cat with a Good Tail can fall twenty feet and take no Scars.
• Strong: A cat with a Strong Tail can fall forty feet and suffer no Scars.
• Best: A cat with a Best Tail can fall seventy feet and suffer no scars.

Hide in Plain Sight (Variable)
Cats have an amazing ability to disappear almost before your very eyes. Once a cat disappears, he remains hidden as long as he remains still.
• Good: A cat with a Good Tail can disappear if everyone in the room has their back turned to him.
• Strong: A cat with a Strong Tail can disappear if no one is looking directly at him (i.e. he’s in the corner of your eye).
• Best: A cat with a Best Tail can disappear, quite literally, “in the blink of an eye,” even if you’re looking straight at him.

Sneak (Variable)
Cats are sneaky; they move very quietly without drawing any attention to themselves.
• Good: A cat with a Good Tail can move through a darkened area (room, alleyway, etc.) without being seen by anyone.
• Strong: A cat with a Strong Tail can move through a room full of people without being seen.
• Best: A cat with a Best Tail can pass over sleeping people (and other creatures) without disturbing them from their rest.

Doorslip (Strong)
A cat must have a Strong Tail to perform the Doorslip Trick. It allows a cat to slip by a locked door.  It requires a small sacrifice (a rat, mouse or rabbit) to be placed before the door.  Once the Ritual is complete, the cat slips by the door as if it were open.

The Dinner Dance Ritual (Good)
The Dinner Dance Ritual (some precocious cats call this the “DDR”) is a favorite of toms and requires little preparation.  All you need do is walk around a human three times and he’ll grant a single request (bring me food, give me shelter, etc.).  The request must have something to do with fulfilling a basic need.

Dream Bite (Good)
It’s hard to find humans in the Dream, especially the ones who don’t pay attention.  A few bites (just two or three) mark a human with your scent (clawing works as well), making the human easy to find in the Dream.  Dream Bite also works on Boggins, making them easy to find (and kill).

The Chase Your Tail Whammy (Best)
A not-very-nice Ritual that befuddles dogs.  If you can jump over a dog — head to tail — he gets confused and starts chasing his tail.  This lasts for d3 minutes.

Fighting Frenzy (Good)
When a cat needs it, he can enter a kind of wild frenzy of claws and teeth.  The price is high, but sometimes, a cat needs it to survive.  By spending one Life, in addition to the Magic Point, a cat may gain a number of actions in a fight equal to his Tail bonus.  This means a cat with a Good Tail (3) can take three actions during a round. He can attack three opponents, attack an opponent three times, or whatever else he needs to do.

Cats have great power in the Kingdom of Dreams.  Because they won the Contest, they have the ability to alter and manipulate the Dreamscape.  However, because mankind’s control over the Dreamscape is random at best, they have a lot to do when looking out for their people while they dream.

A cat uses his Tail to manipulate dream.  Unlike Tricks, however, he can only alter the dreamscape by taking Risks.  Listed below are the ways cats can change the Dreamscape along with the Difficulties.

Change Yourself (1 Even)

With a Good Tail you can jump a mile into the sky, grow wings and fly, grow gills and swim, and anything else that affects you, only you, and nothing else.

Change Something Else (2 Evens)

Your cat can make an alarm clock ring, a computer shut down, a wound stop bleeding, and a mean lady fart in a public place.  You can change any object as long as it is not permanently destroyed by the change, and it is something it can do naturally.

Alter Something Else (3 Evens)

If your cat’s Tail is his Best Trait, your cat can make something (not a person) do something it can’t normally do.  You can make a clock face laugh or a pig fly or a candy bar turn into a flower.

Create or Destroy Something (4 Evens)

If your cat’s Tail is Legendary, he can completely destroy one thing.  It can’t be something made out of more than one part, like a gun or a clock, but you can destroy a part of that clock, so it doesn’t work any more.

Completely Change One Place (5 Evens)

Finally, a cat can completely change his surroundings into something else.  He can’t predict what it will be, but the entire situation changes.  This is an act of incredible will, demanding every bit of magic a cat’s got.  It is no ordinary feat, but it can be accomplished.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:59, Sat 26 Sept 2020.