The system, at its very core:

If you are using one of your Investigative skills, explain what you are doing to use that skill.  If there is important information to be gained, and your skill use could plausibly get you that information, you get it automatically.  If you choose to spend a point or two out of your pool for that skill, you might get some extra info on top of that.

If you are using one of your General skills, roll 1d6 and try to get equal to or higher than the target number for your task (I will usually tell you up front what the target is).  You may spend as many points as you want from your pool for that skill, which will be added to your roll; you must declare spends before rolling.  To speed things up a little, you may post something like "I will spend 2, but if the difficulty is higher than __ I will spend 4 instead" if you want to.

There may be circumstances when a General skill could be useful in an Investigative capacity, e.g. if you want to use Hand-to-Hand to figure out where your opponent learned their martial arts.  In that case, you will get the info for free just like with a regular Investigative skill.

Check out http://site.pelgranepress.com/...-out-for-players.pdf for some more details, as well as summaries of all the individual skills.

So when do we get those points back?

Investigative points refresh at the end of the mission, or at a reasonable break point for longer and more complex missions.
General points fully refresh at the end of the mission (except for Cover and Network, which never refresh - they can only be replenished by spending xp).  Athletics, Driving, Hand-to-Hand, Piloting, Shooting, and Weapons also fully refresh when you have gone 24 hours (in game) without spending from these pools.  Additionally, there are various special circumstances that will allow you to refresh a few points.  I will let you know when these come up.
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:43, Wed 19 Aug 2020.

Combat

(again this is just the barest of basics - cool stunts, special weapons, and so forth will be handled when they come up)

Initiative: in melee combat, you go first if your Hand-to-Hand score is equal to or better than your target's score.  You can use your Weapons score instead if you already have a weapon in hand.  In a shootout, you go first if your Shooting score is higher than your opponent's (not equal).  In a fight where one person has a gun drawn and the other doesn't, the person with the gun automatically goes first.
When a whole group is fighting, everyone is sorted based on their score in whichever skill they are using, with ties going to whoever has the higher current pool in that skill.  But to stop the game from getting hung up while we wait for everyone to post in order, you can post whenever you want, and I will adjudicate according to initiative order when it matters and probably ignore it otherwise.

Attacking: roll for whichever ability you are using, usually against a difficulty of 3 (default) or 4 (for targets with Athletics 8+).  If you hit, roll one die for damage, with a modifier depending on your weapon (punches and kicks are at -2, and actual weapons will generally be somewhere between -1 and +2).  If the target has any armor, its value is subtracted from the roll.
When it matters, range is divided into Point Blank, Close (within ~10 meters), Near (within ~30-40m), and Long (within ~100m).  This affects what kind of attacks you can use, and may modify damage rolls, but it does not affect the difficulty to hit.
Critical Hits - if your attack roll is a natural 6, and the total is at least 5 higher than you needed, you can roll twice for damage and add them together.

Getting hurt: if you take damage, subtract it from your Health pool.  As long as your pool is 0 or higher you are still active, though maybe not happy about it.  If your pool drops below 0, you must roll to stay conscious.  The difficulty for this roll is the absolute value of your Health (e.g. if you got knocked down to -3, you must roll 3 or better).  You may spend Health points on this roll, which means you're still up for the moment but even further negative for the next time it matters.
If your Health pool is between 0 and -5, you are Hurt - all rolls will be at +1 difficulty, and you must make a consciousness roll in order to make an investigative spend.
If your Health pool is between -6 and -11, you are Seriously Wounded.  Make another consciousness roll, and even if you succeed you are no longer able to fight (or pretty much any other serious physical activity).  You lose another Health point every half hour until you receive first aid, and will need serious medical treatment before you can heal.
If your Health pool is at -12 or lower, you are dead.
NPCs are usually out of the fight at 0 Health, but particularly tough or important ones might be allowed to go into negatives like PCs.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:15, Sun 08 Aug 2021.

Other things that can go wrong

Stability: Not all the scars you earn will be physical ones.  Even without accounting for the supernatural, being immersed in constant stress and violence will take its toll.  Your Stability score represents this in an abstract way, just like Health does for physical damage.  If you encounter something that is likely to shock your system in this way (GM will tell you, but you are welcome to point it out yourself if you see something that you think would do it), roll against difficulty 4 (or higher for especially bad circumstances such as pitch darkness).  You may spend Stability points on the roll like with a general ability, even if you are already negative.  If you fail, you lose a number of Stability points depending on the stressor, or possibly suffer a different effect depending on the situation.
If your Stability is between 0 and -5, you are Shaken.  General ability rolls are at +1 difficulty, and you cannot spent points for investigative abilities.
If your Stability is between -6 and -11, you are Shattered.  In addition to the penalties for Shaken, you also lose 1 point from your maximum Stability, and you suffer from a mental illness (work that out with the GM).
If your stability drops to -12, you are Incurably Insane.  You do get the option for one final glorious act of self-destruction (not necessarily limited to yourself).
Note that, as with most other things in this game, mental illness is handled based on what will make for more exciting gameplay rather than what is realistic.  I know this is a sensitive issue for some people, so if you find that you're not comfortable with the way it's being handled here, feel free to talk about that (publicly or privately) and we'll see if we can find a better way to do it.

Heat: You do not exist in a vacuum.  You might be pretty good at not drawing attention to yourself, but you can only burn down so many warehouses and shoot so many eccentric diplomats before authorities notice.  Your team has a Heat score which starts at 1 and goes up when you do things that could potentially get you in trouble or otherwise draw attention.  Once per mission (maybe at the beginning, maybe at a less convenient moment than that - I'll let you know), one player will roll against a difficulty equal to your current Heat score.  That player may spend points from any General pool that can be justified for this purpose.  If the roll fails, then the authorities will come in at some point to make life less pleasant for you.
Note that the authorities do not only get involved on a failed Heat roll; if you stumble into security while trying to break into a government office, they're coming after you for that even if they don't know anything about the heavy weapons you smuggled over the border yesterday.

Covers and Contacts

These are governed by your Cover and Network general abilities, respectively.  To establish a cover identity or a network contact, assign some of the points from your pool in that ability and describe the cover or contact (in the narrative, assume that they already existed and just weren't important to the story until now).  For any roll where your cover or contact would help, spend points from that allotment.  Once they run out, things have gone sour - your cover has been red-flagged, or your contact has been discovered by the opposition.  You may add unspent points to an existing cover or contact to keep them going.

Working together

Most die rolls are done individually, but sometimes everyone it makes sense to have one roll to represent group effort.  There are two different ways to handle this with the game rules; in both cases, one character is designated as the "lead" and is the one who actually rolls.

Piggybacking - use this when one person is clearly leading and the rest are just following along.  The lead character spends points and rolls as normal.  Everyone else in the group spends 1 point from the same ability, which does not add to the roll but pays for the privilege of being covered by the leader's effort.  If someone in the group does not have any points to spend for that ability, they instead raise the difficulty by 2.

Cooperation - use this when everyone in the group is applying effort a little more evenly.  There is still a "leader" who spends and rolls as normal.  Everyone else who is participating can spend as many points as they want from their own pools for the same ability.  1 point (for each additional character) is the cost of assisting, and all points after that are added to the leader's roll.