News and Updates

Whew!

This release marks the end of The Contract’s open beta and the beginning of its prerelease phase.

I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the 1000+ Players who have put countless hours into this game and fostered such an incredible community to support it. You guys are amazing.

During the prerelease phase, we’ll launch a kickstarter campaign to fund further development of The Contract, as well as a print run of an actual physical book! Stay tuned for more info.

Finally, big thanks to our patrons over at Patreon!

The Questionnaire

This exciting new feature rewards Players for answering character-building questions about their contractors.

You can access the Questionnaire in the same ways as the Contractor’s Journal, namely via the alert button at the top of your Contractors’ sheets.

Five questions are available before the Contractor’s first Contract, and two more are unlocked each Contract they attend after that. The first five questions grant 5 Exp. The next two grant an Improvement. After that, each pair of questions grants 1 Exp except for every 10, which grants an improvement.

Read more about the Questionnaire here.

Guidebook Improvements

• Copy-edited The Rules guidebook
• Copy-edited the How to Play Guidebook
• Added a new “Just Vibes” page with a mix tape and some fiction.
• Added a new combat example article to the Guidebook.
• Added an article on Moxie
• Added an article on the Questionnaire

Mechanics Changes

• Clarified the lifting and hauling rules to explicitly state how much weight you can lift before Concentration is required.
• Added a new optional rule “Moxie” that allows the GM to reward rad roleplaying at game time with a token that can be spent as Exertion.
• You cannot Dash while over-encumbered.
• Clarified requirements for source regeneration conditions: “The chosen condition must either be out of your control, involve a significant interaction with another being, require at least 10 minutes of effort, or be unavailable at least half the time and not easy to achieve every hour.”
• Rewards for submitting a Scenario to the Exchange increased to 6 Exp and 340 Exchange Credits (from 5 Exp and 240 Exchange credits).
• Downtime Journals now have a minimum word count of 150 words to earn Exp (down from 250 words).

Gift Changes

Highlights

New Effect: Environment Control

• Environment Control is your one-stop-shop for turning an area into an environmental hazard. Whether you’re summoning a field of grasping vines, creating a storm, or hurling a smoke bomb, Environment Control has you covered.

Levitation (renamed to Flight)

• Previously the primary advancement path for this Effect revolved around increasing speed, which stacked with Super Speed in an odd way. We’ve reworked it to have other means of advancement and to better serve the two primary flavors of flight: physical wings and telekinetic / magical levitation

Obscure

• Obscure has received a much-needed polish pass to bring it up-to-snuff with the other Effects. Most notably, its cooldown behavior and interactions with Combat were clarified, and selecting its affected senses now uses a new category of Enhancements, “Obscured from:”.

Raise Dead

• Received a fresh coat of paint which should allow it to serve the three primary flavors of raise dead more easily (zombies, ghosts, frankenstein’s monster).

Removed Effect: Stun

• This Effect was removed from the game. Stun consistently worked against our design goals by slowing combat and making less interesting and impactful stuff happen. In effect, it caused a “nerf” effect to any action sequence. We decided to distribute the flavors served by this Effect (knock out punch, counterspell, etc) into other Effects via some new Enhancements.

Super Speed

• This Effect’s rework keeps combat movement speed in a more manageable scope while empowering speedsters to do things they’ve always wanted to do, like run up alongside moving vehicles and perform Actions more quickly.

Removed Effect: Suppress Sense

• This Effect was removed from the game. We decided that the Warp Form Effect filled the niche of single-target sense suppression well, and AOE sense suppression would be handled better by our new Effect: Environment Control.

General

Drawbacks

• Drawback “Traumatic” changed to “You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect. Its Difficulty cannot be reduced by any means.”
  • from “You must make a Trauma roll when you use this Effect.”
• Drawback “Too Slow” changed to “You may activate this Effect as a Reaction.”
  • From “You may use this Effect as a Reaction. When using it to dodge an attack, you must still roll to dodge.”
• Drawback “Fan Dance” changed to “This Effect lasts as long as you maintain Concentration.”
  • From “Must retain Concentration to keep up the effect. While active, you are unable to do much besides move slowly, and if you are Injured or otherwise disrupted, the effect ends.”
• Drawback “Disfiguring” for artifacts’s system text changed to “Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their body and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Battle Scar:___. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next day.”
  • From “Possession of this Artifact causes the following Battle Scar to manifest over the course of a day:___. If you lose possession of this Artifact, the Battle Scar heals over the course of the next month.”
• Drawback “Maddening” for artifacts’s system text changed to “Anyone who touches this Artifact will notice it warping their mind and may drop it. If they choose to hold or use it, they immediately receive the following Trauma:___. If they lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next day.”
  • From “Possession of this Artifact causes the following Trauma to manifest over the course of a day:___. If you lose possession of this Artifact, the Trauma heals over the course of the next month.”

Enhancements

• Added new general Enhancement: No Contest (If the Contested Outcome of your activation roll is 4 or higher, your Exertion is refunded) (Requires Seasoned).
  • Added to Effects: Suggestion, Sleep, Possession, Memory Manipulation, Fascinate, Emotion Control, Warp Form, Restrict, Traumatize, Injure, and Afflict.
• Enhancement “Alien Autopsy” now replaces the text from Enhancement “Alien Origins” instead of creating its own system text block.
• Added new Enhancement: Hollywood Knockout (If you would successfully incapacitate a target, you may opt to knock them out for one hour instead of having them suffer an Injury.) (requires Finesse)
  • Added to Unarmed Mastery and Melee Mastery

Other

• Consumable Gifts no longer have a “maximum active” Parameter / system on Effects that have them (Mark, Ward, Spawn Minions, Animate, Barrier).
  • Consumable Marks have a duration of 1 month
  • Consumable Wards have a duration of 1 day
• Artifact Crafting and Legendary Artifact gifts with a “maximum active” system now have extended system text errata that clarifies that the maximum is counted per-artifact, not per-user.

Effects

Alternate Form

• Drawback Public Freakout can no longer be taken with Enhancement Willful End

Animate

• The Enhancement “Animatronic jamboree” can no longer be taken with the Enhancement “Sorcerous Animation”

Armor

• The Armor Effect now requires Novice
  • Reasoning: Armor and Regeneration are two “trap” effects for new players. They are tempting to take for survivability, but because they don’t provide any operational utility, they push scenarios into violence (i.e. failure) states more frequently, and increase the rate of death for newbies. Gating survivability behind status is also consistent with how we gate “cheat death” effects behind Seasoned status elsewhere in the Gift system.
• Enhancement “Immaterial” changed to “Your Armor cannot be destroyed, and it always provides a minimum of 2 Armor regardless of any Armor penetration. It cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.”
  • From “Your Armor cannot be destroyed or shredded, and it always provides a minimum of 2 Armor regardless of any Armor penetration. If it is an Artifact, cannot be circumvented with Called Shots.”

Barrier

• Bubble Barrier changed to “When you activate this Effect, you may opt to erect a bubble barrier. If you do so, no physical objects or entities can pass into your bubble until the barrier is broken, but you and the barrier cannot move.”[Extreme impacts count as Damage at the GM’s discretion.]
  • From “Nothing can pass into your bubble until the barrier is broken.”
  • Reasoning: We received a lot of great feedback about how confusing this Enhancement was in-game from the Earth Unveiled playgroup. Thank you!
• Activated Style is now one Gift cheaper.

Blast

• Removed Enhancement “Suspend”
• Fixed the Trap style, which was seriously so broken, I can’t believe no one reported it.

Creature Possession

• Enhancement “Immortal Form” now requires Seasoned.

Creature Transformation

• Added extended system text: “You cannot transform if there is not enough room to do so.”
• Added new Enhancement: Mastery of Form (Instead of a region-appropriate animal, you may transform into any animal of your selected size.) (Requires “Go Native”, Requires Seasoned)
• Removed Enhancement “Take Wing” and changed base system to allow flying creatures.
  • Reasoning: Gating flight behind an enhancement (and a seasoned one at that) caused some flavor smell with the Enhancements “Go Native” and “Andelite”. While this does add the capability for Newbie Contractors to get anywhere they could fly, we feel it’s balanced by the limited cargo-carrying capacity and the intrinsic risk of turning into a smaller animal.

Destroy Object

• Enhancement Big Demolition Job no longer references Exertion cost when applied to Consumables. It still consumes the consumable.

Extraordinary Vehicle

• Enhancement “Amphibious” changed to “Your vehicle may move on land as well as under water at its normal speed. If your vehicle includes an enclosed space, it will function as an airtight, pressurized cockpit.”
  • From: “Your vehicle may move on and under water at its normal speed. If your vehicle includes an enclosed space, it will function as an airtight, pressurized cockpit.”

Fabricate

• Changed name of Enhancement “Gun crafting” to “Ghost Gun”

Fascinate

• Changed base system that the Effect ends if violence occurs in the area (instead of “Combat”)
• Added to base system: “Fascinated targets cannot Concentrate.”
• Added new Enhancement: Dazzle (You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking. The target does not roll to resist, and beating their Outcome does not fascinate them.)

Investigate Individual

• Removed Drawback “Mage”
• Drawback “Conversationalist” changed to: “You must actively converse with the individual in question for one minute in order to gather any information.”
  • From “You must continuously interact with the individual in question in order to gather any information.”

Melee Mastery

• Removed Enhancement “Fancy Footwork”
• Added new Enhancement: Falling Crane Strike (If you move and then make a successful attack against a target closer than the full distance you could have moved, you may choose to travel the excess movement in a straight line beyond the target.)

Melee Weapon

• Added new Enhancement: Bastard (You may spend a Free Action to change this melee weapon’s base stats into those of any other basic melee weapon.) [Changing this weapon’s base type affects its size, range, Weapon Damage, and roll.]

Mind Shields

• Enhancement “Compartmentalization” has new errata: “If you have an Effect that allows you to Exert your Mind more than once per Round, each Exertion still causes one Mind Damage.”

Mythic Brawn

• Tough changed to “You gain Armor equal to half your Brawn rating. This Armor cannot be penetrated and protects against falling Damage.”
  • From “You gain Armor equal to half your Brawn rating. This Armor cannot be penetrated or shredded, and it protects against falling Damage.”

Mythic Dexterity

• Enhancement Reactionary changed to “You gain an additional Reaction each Round. You cannot take an Action after taking a Reaction.”
  • From “You gain an additional Reaction each Round.”

Mythic Intellect

• Enhancement “multithreaded” now requires Seasoned.
• Added errata to Enhancement Sheer Willpower: “The Outcome bonus from the Enhancement Push Through It is limited to +1”

Obscure

• Changed early-end condition in base system to “Activating a targeted or obvious Effect, attacking, or being Injured ends this Effect. When it ends, it is disabled for one minute.”
  • From “Entering Combat or being Injured will end the Effect. When the Effect ends, it is disabled for 1 hour.”
• Enhancement “Combat Stealth” changed to “This Effect does not end early when you activate an obvious Effect, attack, or receive an Injury.”
  • From “Combat does not cause the effect to end. Anyone you attack will immediately notice you. Everyone else may re-roll each time you take an obvious action at -1 Difficulty per Action during the combat.”
• Removed the “Cooldown” parameter.
• Reduced Gift Cost by 1.
• Removed default behavior to partially obscure from sight.
• Parameter “Duration” changed to: [1 minute, 30 minutes (default), 2 hours (Seasoned), 1 day (Veteran)]
  • From [30 seconds, 10 minutes (default), 1 hour (Seasoned), 1 day (Veteran)]
• Added new Enhancement category “Obscured from:”. All Contractors may have a maximum of 1 “Obscured from:” Enhancement. Veteran Contractors may have a maximum of 2.
• Added to base system: “While this Effect is active, any Effect that would obscure you from other, additional senses fails automatically.”
• Added new Enhancement: Obscured from: Sight (You are partially obscured from being noticed by sight. All attempts to detect you using sight are rolled at a -3 dice penalty, and all attempts to detect you where sight would assist are rolled at -1 penalty. Anyone who detects you cannot determine any visual details about you beyond your general shape.)
• Added new Enhancement: Obscured from: Smell and taste (You are completely obscured from smell and taste. You do not leave scent trails while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via smell and taste fail. Detection attempts via other senses where smell or taste would assist are rolled at a -2 dice penalty.)
• Added new Enhancement: Obscured from: Hearing (You are completely obscured from hearing. You produce no sounds while this Effect is active. All attempts to detect you via hearing fail. Attempts via other senses where hearing would assist are rolled at -2 dice.)
• Added new Enhancement: Obscured from: Arcane (You are partially obscured from being noticed by all senses, natural and supernatural. All attempts to notice you are rolled at -3 dice.) (Requires Seasoned)
• Enhancement “Invisibility” changed to: “You are completely obscured from sight. All attempts to detect you via sight fail. Attempts via other senses where sight would assist are rolled at -2 dice.” (Requires Seasoned. Requires “Obscured from: Sight”)
  • From “You are completely concealed from the affected sense for the duration.”
• Removed Enhancement “Mind Tricks”
• Removed Drawbacks Dudhound and Silence
• Added to base system: “If you are discovered, you cannot re-hide from the person who discovered you for the next minute.”

Project Senses

• Enhancement “Xray” is now exclusive with Conduit.
• Enhancement “Xray” changed to “Instead of projecting to a target location, you may perceive anything within range. You may perceive through up to 15 feet of material. The Difficulty of all Perception rolls made through a wall are increased by 1 per wall.”
  • From “Instead of projecting to a target location, you may perceive anything up to your range away, regardless of if there are walls or obstacles blocking your view. The Difficulty of all Perception rolls made through a wall are increased by 1.”

Pyromancy

• Removed Enhancement “Concealed”
• Enhancement “Conduit” can no longer be taken with Enhancement “Immortal Flames”

Raise Dead

• Base duration increased to 8 hours.
• Base Cast Time increased to one minute.
• Added Enhancement On The Flies (Activating this Effect only takes an Action)
• Removed Enhancement Durable Dead (Live for Rot no longer requires Durable Dead)
• Added Drawback: Short Re-Lived (Targets are only reanimated for one hour)
• Removed Enhancement “Speech”
• Enhancement “The Spark” changed to “The target is revived with their memories and personality intact. They may speak if they could in life, regardless of their physical state. Their Intellect and Charisma are the same as they had in life. They may roll Mind, Difficulty 8, to resist any command you give.)”  (Cannot be taken with Zombies or Ghost)
  • From “The creature is revived as a Living being, with their memories and personality in tact. Their Intellect and Charisma are the same as they had in life. They may roll Mind, Difficulty 8, to resist any command you give.”
• Added Enhancement: Zombies (Your revived targets deal 2 Weapon Damage with their unarmed attacks.) (cannot be taken with “The Spark” or “Ghost”)
• Enhancement Ghost changed to: “The revived creature is incorporeal. They cannot physically interact with the real world, though they may pass through walls, make noise, and speak as they could in life.” (cannot be taken with Zombies or The Spark, Requires “Shackled”, requires Seasoned)
  • From “The revived creature is incorporeal. They cannot physically interact with the real world, though they may pass through walls and make noise.”
• Added new Enhancement Already Dead (Destroying one of your zombies requires a called shot to the head or heart (4 Outcome dealing 4+ Damage or 6 Outcome dealing 2+ Damage). All other Injuries zombies suffer result in Battle Scars only, limiting their mobility and effectiveness in other ways.) (Requires Seasoned, requires Zombies)
• Enhancement “Plague Z” now requires Zombies
• Added new Enhancement: From Death, Life (Your target is revived as a Living being and does not expire. You may specify a single event, circumstance, or phrase that will end this Effect if it occurs in their presence.) (requires Veteran, requires The Spark, requires Live for Rot)
• Added new Enhancement: Shackled (When you activate this Effect, select a specific place, person, or item within arm’s reach.This Effect lasts indefinitely and only ends if your target strays at least 80 feet from the chosen place, person, or item.) (Requires Seasoned)
• Drawback Rigor Mortis cannot be taken with Ghost
• Removed Drawback “Disturbing”
• Removed Enhancement “Conduit”

Regeneration

• The Regeneration Effect now requires Novice.
  • Reasoning: Armor and Regeneration are two “trap” effects for new players. They are tempting to take for survivability, but because they don’t provide any operational utility, they push scenarios into violence (i.e. failure) states more frequently, and increase the rate of death for newbies. Gating survivability behind status is also consistent with how we gate “cheat death” effects behind Seasoned status elsewhere in the Gift system.

Restrict

• Added new Enhancement: Disrupt (You may use this Effect as a Reaction to contest any physical Action a target is taking. Excess Outcome does not restrict the target.)
• Enhancement “Encase” changed to: “If the Contested Outcome is higher than the target’s Brawn, they are encased and cannot take any physical Actions other than attempting to escape until they break free.” [The target may spend an Action and roll Brawn or Dexterity + Athletics to attempt to break free. They must accumulate a total Outcome equal to or greater than the original Contested Outcome to escape.]
  • From “Any physical actions taken by the target suffer a dice penalty equal to the contested Outcome from the Effect activation. These penalties may reduce dice pools to 0. Rolls to escape only suffer one half of the Penalty (rounded down).”

Spawn Minions

• Enhancement “Durable” (the duration one) removed from Consumable Crafting Gift Type.

Special Firearm

• Enhancement “Silencer” can no longer be taken with Drawback “Buster”

Sleep

• Added new Enhancement: Knockout (When activating this Effect you may attempt a knockout. If you do and your Contested Outcome exceeds 4, the target falls asleep immediately. Otherwise, they suffer the drowsy penalty for 2 Rounds.)

Suggestion

• Added to base system “Your target cannot be engaged in Combat.”
• Renamed Enhancement “Unsafe World Environment” to “Enemy Orders”
• Changed Enhancement “Unsafe Work Environment” (“Enemy Orders”)  to “Your target may be engaged in Combat. You still cannot order them to endanger themselves, but you may order them to flee, attack a certain target, take a defensive or offensive stance, or similar.”
  • From “Your command can place the target in a potentially endangering scenario. This includes Combat, and you may command them to attack any target that is not someone they care deeply about.”
  • Reasoning: suggestion should not ever be the silver bullet single-Action solution to a combat situation. Allowing people to command a target to break-dance or do their best impression of someone sleeping instead of fighting creates a no-downside solution to conflict. The new system allows you to affect a target’s prioritization or to ask them to flee but not to stun-lock them without recourse.
• Added new Enhancement: Interrupt (You may activate this Effect as a Reaction to contest any Action a valid target is taking. The target does not roll to resist, and beating their Outcome does not allow you to also issue a suggestion.)
• Added a new Parameter: Range [20 feet (default), 100 feet (Seasoned), 500 feet (Veteran)]

Super Leap

• Changed Enhancement “Too Slow” to “You may use this Effect as a Reaction to dodge if you travel at least 50 feet. If you Exert your Mind you do not need to roll; your dodge is automatically successful.”
  • From “You may use this Effect as a Reaction if you travel at least 50 feet. When using it to dodge, you do not need to roll.”
• Changed Enhancement “Short-Ranged Portal” to “Instead of leaping through the air, you are teleported directly to your destination. This does not allow you to travel through walls, cages, grapples, or similar.”
  • From “Instead of leaping through the air, you are teleported directly to your destination. Does not allow you to go through walls.”
• Changed Enhancement “Secret Door” to “You can use this Effect to hop to the other side of walls or to escape grapples, but you can travel no more than 3 feet when doing so.”
  • From “You can use this effect to hop to the other side of walls but can travel no more than 3 feet when doing so.”

Throwing Mastery

• Changed Enhancement Track and Field to “If you move at least 25 feet in one direction before making a thrown attack, your throwing roll is made with +4 dice instead of the standard +2.”
  • From “You may move your full sprinting distance and make a thrown attack at no penalty.”

Traumatize

• Removed Enhancement “Mechanic”
  • Reason: it simply doesn’t make flavor sense. Robots, zombies, and other sorts of mindless beings should be influenced by other Effects.
• Added new Enhancement: Operant Conditioning (You may target Creatures with this Effect. Mundane animals have a Mind score of 1 or 2 at the GM’s discretion).
  • Reason: It does make sense to traumatize dogs, you cruel bastards.

Unarmed Mastery

• Removed Enhancement “Fancy Footwork”
• Added new Enhancement: Body Slam (If you move and then make a successful attack against a target with a Brawn rating less than or equal to yours, if your target was closer than the full distance you could have moved, you may knock them back the excess movement distance and choose whether or not to follow them.)
• The Drawback “Grabby” cannot be taken with the Additional Damage parameter.

Warp Form

• Drawback “Specialist” changed to: “The alterations you may choose to make are restricted. For example, you may only change the target’s face, only remove body parts, or only inflict certain Battle Scars.” [errata: “This restriction must go beyond flavor and materially impact the flexibility of the Gift”]
  • From: “Your alteration is restricted to a particular theme. For example, you may only change the target’s face, or all changes must involve elements of barnyard animals.”