Character Ability Scores

 There are 8 ability scores for characters in the Rogue Planet RPG. These are:

• Strength: This is muscle power and the ability to use it. Strength is useful in melee and in lifting and using heavy items. 
• Coordination: This is hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. It is useful in shooting, driving vehicles and sleight of hand.
• Agility: This is overall athleticism and physical grace. It is useful for running, stealth, jumping and acrobatics. 
• Stamina: This is physical constitution, and how resilient the body is to harm such as wounds, exhaustion, disease and poisons. It also determines how many wound points your character has, which in turn determine how much damage your character can take before dying. 
• Perception: This is physical senses such as sight, hearing, smell and touch, and is good for noticing things such as secret doors and ambushes. Interpreting and understanding what is being sensed is a different matter. A dog has a very good perception (particularly hearing and smell) but may not figure out what it is dealing with. 
• Intellect: This is a combination of education, logic and factual memory. It is very useful when dealing with computers and other high-tech devices, as well as scientific matters. However, it is not the same as common sense - that is up to the players, not the ability scores of the character. 
• Willpower: This is ones ability to deal with mental stress, shock and psychic attacks. Those with willpower can keep going while others with less willpower might give up.
• Charisma: This is personality and charm, and the ability to deal with and influence other people. There is an element of physical attractiveness but it is more a matter of persuasiveness and  personal magnetism.  

All of these are on a scale of 1-20, though typically for new characters each score is determined by 3d6 (or if your referee is kind then 4d6 and discard the lowest). These scores give adjustments to various rolls to attempt difficult actions - penalties for low scores and bonuses for high scores. 

Ability Score	Adjustment
1	-5
2-3	-4
4-5	-3
6-7	-2
8-9	-1
10-11	0
12-13	+1
14-15	+2
16-17	+3
18-19	+4
20	+5

Thus a character, we shall call him Vlobb, might have the following stats (from rolling 3d6 for each ability score):

Ability	Score	Adjustment
Strength	8	-1
Coordination	12	+1
Agility	13	+1
Stamina	8	-1
Perception	13	+1
Intellect	8	-1
Willpower	15	+2
Charisma	8	-1

So Vlobb is neither physically tough nor particularly great at conversation or science but he is agile, coordinated and very determined. 

Ability checks are when the referee asks the player to roll a d20 and add their ability score. The referee will compare this total to a difficulty score (typically between 10 for easy tests and 30 for extremely demanding tasks). If the total is equal to or higher than the difficulty score then the ability check has succeeded. 

So if Vlobb has to jump across a chasm and the referee reckons this is a Agility check against a difficulty of 15, then Vlobb's player will roll a d20 and add Vlobb's agility. A 16 is rolled, adding Vlobb's agility of 13 gives a total of 29, much higher than the difficulty of 15 - a clear success and Vlobb easily makes the jump. 

Although a d20 is usually used, for checks with a narrower scope of success or failure the DM might call for either 1d6 or 2d6 to add to the ability score instead. This has the effect that the ability score has a bigger influence on success/failure than the luck of the dice.

Life Points: These are a measure of how much physical damage a character can take before dying. A character's normal maximum wound points are double their Stamina score, so for Vlobb with a stamina of 8, he has 16 life points when in good conditon and uninjured. If a character's life points drop to equal or below their stamina score (i.e. they lose at least half their life points) they are considered Injured. If their life points drop below 0 they fall unconscious and may continue to deteriorate into negative wound points. If at negative life points equal to or more than their stamina score a character completely dies. So if Vlobb is on an adventure and gets hit by a bullet for 10 life points he has 6 life points left. This means he is considered Injured. If he is then hit again by an explosion and loses another 9 life points that will take him down to -3 life points - he is now unconscious and may lose blood or go into shock. If he were to drop to -8 life points or below (his stamina score is 8) he would die and his player would need to create  a new character.