Mayhem and RiPPs

I figured out how to download my copy of the PDF- the issue I'd been having was, you need to be logged into DriveThruRPG.com before you click on the discount link, in order for the discounted (meaning free, because it's already been purchased from the preorder) zip file to show up in your cart.

The other bundle's still up for grabs if anyone wants it; maybe I'll auction it off, I expect it to be a hot commodity. Or maybe I'll just let you have it. It comes with the rulebook, and a blank character sheet, and the GC screen, and a PDF file of all 108 Mayhem cards which you can print out and paste to normal playing cards to have your own Mayhem deck. So, everything you need to start playing except for the dice- I myself ordered special Planet Mercenary dice, 4 sets of the 3D6 you need, but any dice work for it as long as you've got a way to distinguish the Mayhem die from the other two. 

The way those work is this: after you roll, if your roll succeeds, if the Mayhem die shows a higher result than each of the other two dice, that triggers a "Mayhem flip," which means that you flip over the top card of the Mayhem deck and interesting stuff ensues. Maybe you actually failed. Maybe you succeeded more spectacularly than you'd thought. Maybe you need to reload the next time you try to shoot something. It could be anything. If it's something you don't like, you can spend one of your RiPPs to negate that card.

Other ways RiPPs can be spent are rerolling your dice, and throwing "ablative meat" in front of you to prevent otherwise fatal injury- you toss one of your grunts in front of you and that takes the hit for you instead. Maybe they survive that, maybe they don't. (If your PC is ever killed off for real, you can keep roleplaying as one of your grunts from then on- and the more times they've survived being an ablative meat shield, the more powerful that character is...) Don't expect to emerge from a session unscathed- being a galactic mercenary is dangerous business, and the idea of a successful round of play in this game is if everyone had fun, not necessarily if everyone did well, or even survived, or not.