The Forged in the Dark system uses Stress, Trauma, and Vice as means of giving control to players for a considerable cost. In Rockets Underground, this takes the form of Debts, Strikes, and Moonlight.
Harm is what happens when a plan goes south. It can be physical or mental. You can read more about harm from the Harm Rules in the FitD SRD.
The major difference in this game is that instead of a tiered harm, you get three slots. When you fill your first slot, you gain reduced effect. For your second slot, you roll with -1D. When you fill your third, you’re forced to retire.
Player characters in Rockets Underground sometimes need to borrow more money from The Boss to pull off a score. This money could go to anything from special sneasel-proof vests to extra Pokémon food. You take on debts in the same ways you would take on stress in Blades. There is one main difference, however. Debt is shared among your group.
When a player character suffers a consequence they don’t want to accept, they can take on debt instead to have brought an item that helps resist that consequence. The result of the resistance roll determines how much debt it costs to avoid a bad outcome. The cost to resist is 6 minus the highest result you get in your dice pool.
<aside> 🎲 Play Example. Grunt Jessie tries to grab another trainer’s pikachu while it’s relaxing in the daycare center. She can’t neutralize it fast enough, and the little rascal zaps her! She’ll take one harm for getting electrocuted. Or, she would if she didn’t invest in state-of-the-art rubber gloves! She is using her Prowess attribute, which is 1. She rolls one die and gets a 3 on it. The cost was 6, so these rubber gloves will place her in 3 debt. But now this pikachu can’t zap her as long as she’s got these gloves on!
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You can use debt to increase your chances of succeeding an Action Roll, or your Pokémon’s chances of succeeding a Battle Roll. For each bonus you choose below, add 2 debt (each can be chosen once for a given action):
When the squad marks their last debt box, they fail their mission and have to return to HQ immediately. There, they’re penalized one strike. Your debt reserve resets to zero, but the Rocket Administration (perhaps even The Boss himself) remembers how you borrowed too much with little to show for it.
Strikes are permanent, and they come with a new restriction or requirement placed on your team. When you take a strike choose one of these requirements from the list below or come up with your own. If it would make sense, you can even take one multiple times.