Internships

Once a player character has a profession chosen, they may select three skills (see the skills section; not more than one skill level for each skill can be chosen) and then either start play with their character "as is" or enter a period of internship (a practical and professional learning process).  At this point the character is presumed to be 16 years old. 

If a character begins an internship, each year of internship advances the character one year of age, of course.  More importantly, for each year the player must roll his character's LUCK or lower on d100; if he rolls a number equal to or less than his LUCK plus 20 and greater than or equal to his LUCK plus one he loses one point on one ability (roll on the Ability Table to determine which one); if he rolls a number greater than his LUCK plus 20 he must end his internship and start play. 

Each year he continues in his internship he may shake twice on the Ability Table, the Practical Skills Table, or the Professional Skills Table.  First he declares which table he will roll against, shakes a d12, and gets what is dictated by the table.  Then he declares which table is next (it may be the same or another table) and roll a d12 one more time.  Then he may either continue another year or end his internship and start play.   Note that:  a) no ability may exceed what could naturally be rolled, any increase indicated by a table after that is ignored and there is NO reroll; b) no skill may exceed level three, any increase over that is similarly a wasted roll; and c) at age 26 aging begins; each year the character must consult and react to the Aging Table.

After internship is completed, for whatever reason (for some it might be an official retirement), a player-character begins play as noted.  First, however, he may get benefits for the character.  For each year of internship he gets one 12d6 roll on the Benefits Table.

Ability Table

Roll d12; consult the character's profession and see what ability is listed for that profession; add one to that ability.

Practical Skills Table

Roll d12; consult the character's profession and see what ability is listed for that profession; add one to that ability.

Professional Skills Tables

Roll d12; consult the character's profession and see what skill category is listed for that profession.  If the category is "L+d4", that means instead roll a d4 and add that to the character's LUCK.  If the category is "Choice", that means the player may choose any one of the above results.

The skill category you are referred to allows you to do one of two things:  roll under that skill category table as listed below; OR instead you may simple, the FIRST time you roll that skill category, choose ANY ONE skill that you want instead of rolling.  However, if you choose the latter option, from that time on you must select that same skill and improve one skill level OR choose the other skill in that category with the same letter designation in the skill category tables further below and build on that.  You may never roll again nor may you choose  skill that does not have the same letter designation next to it. 

For example; if you roll "Det." below, that refers you to the Detective Skills Table below.  Instead of rolling on it, you can instead state that you want "Forensics".  Note that forensics, on that table, has a "(B)" after it.  From this time on, whenever you roll "Det.", you must select either Forensics or Detective Luck (which also has a "B" after it).   You can never select Observation or Persuasion.  Remember, if you instead elect to roll randomly you can from that time on roll randomly - in fact from that time on you must roll randomly.

Skill Category Tables

Note the tables below.  They work slightly differently.   On the far left is the skill that can be selected or randomly rolled.  The other columns correlate to each profession.  Roll a d12 and look at the number range under the character's profession and see what skill it relates to on the far left.   If you are rolling randomly, that is the skill you receive.

Detective Skills

Street Skills

The table below has an interesting seeming discrepancy; "PUNK" shows 9-12 corresponding to both Street Talk and Wilderness; the player has to choose ONE the first time he encounters these for the character and from then on that result will always correspond to that same skill.  Basically, it reflects that punks almost always grow in one of the two environments but don't cross boundaries.

Administrative Skills

Science Skills

Academic Skills

Aging Table

Check the character's age aginst the chart below; when the character reaches the designated age, subtract the number indicated from the ability(ies) indicated.  Note that a character cannot go below 50% of their original value in each ability due to aging.  After age 66, the character may die of complications of aging.   Each year the character rolls a d100 against their luck; the first year they add 50 to their luck and so long as they roll below that value, they live.  Each year the number added to luck decreases by one (thus 49 at 57, 48 at 58); once the value added hits zero, it does NOT continue to decrease, rather the player simply rolls against luck.  

Benefits Tables

Roll d12; consult the character's profession and see under that which number range the d12 roll fits into.  The column to the left indicates the benefit acquired. 

Weapons Table

This table is used to determine how many weapons points the character receives; these points, once all are accumulated, can be used to buy weapons on the Weapons-Points Table.

Weapons-Points Table

This table simply indicates how many points each weapon costs.   As all weapons are illegal, "street cost" can vary; the most common way to get weapons is to simply steal them, though buying them can cost between 50 and 200 times the points cost below in dollars!  Note that weapons come with NO ammunition except as indicated.

Vehicle Points Costs and Typical Attributes

Warcars

Bikes

Cars

Permits Table

This table is used to determine what permits the character has.   The player is advised to wait until all benefits rolling is done in order to match their weapons to their permits.  Characters with weapons for which they do not have permits can be arrested by the secret police or the local authorities as appropriate.

Mercantile permits indicate they are issued by a corporation.   As long as the character is on good terms with the sponsor corporation (note the RM and player should work out who this is) and can be said to be somewhat reasonably acting on their behalf if detained, the permit waives any prosecution for holding the weapon and may even mitigate their actions IF those actions were clearly within the corporation's rights.

Local permits indicate they are issued by one of the mega-cities and good throughout the mega-city.  Again, if the actions taken with the weapon seem reasonable given the situation, the character can also get out of trouble that way as well.  Note these ARE local; they do not apply to other mega-cities (note the RM can create treaties and should advise the players if exemptions are created so that a local permit carries in certain other areas).

International permits are just that - they work anytime anywhere.

Blade permits apply to any type of bladed weapon without range.

Projectile permits apply to any type of ranged weapon, gun or knife.