Chook: The Game

A licensed Chook Industries and Piss Bee product. All rights reserved ©2001.
For more information, please visit http://www.chook.net.

Introduction

All hail Chung Hort.

Chook is based on the dice rolling system of "Monster: The [expressive noun]" games, the only difference that dice pools can include as many skills, talents, attributes, as are applicable (rather than just two of these categories, as normally would be the case). It also borrows from the Gygax legacy, in it's magic system. Anything else is derived from the imagination(s) of the Chook Industries Writer's Guild. CM means Chook Master. But of course Chung Hort may be the only real Chook Master. Go ahead, say GM or even DM, we probably do most of the time anyway.

Statistics

Each category below will have a set of numbers after it (i.e. 7/5/3). These are the number of dice that can be associated with a set of Attributes, Abilities, etc. For instance, under Attributes, if you decided to put the 7 in "Built in" attributes, the seven points can be converted into 6 dice of Prowess and 1 dice of Brains, or 3 dice of Prowess and 3 dice of Brains, or any other similar combination (note: if you have no Prowess dice you will have trouble lifting and coordinating the use of a toothbrush and may not even have a physical body at all, if you have 0 dice in Brains you live only on an instinctual level, like some sort of plant or slime mold or gold fish something, even wolves and squirrels are smarter than you.

Cool and Looks are also important but usually you can get away without one or the other. However, Chook and Wook it helps to have in balance. It is best to have Chook, but without Wook you cannot get any temporary Chook (although your permanent Chook is still useful), and hence can have no Secret Powers. Even one point of Wook can help you get some temporary Chook.

It is possible to have Wook but no Chook. People with no Permanent Chook can only gain Temporary Wook. Temporary Wook is useful for magic of certain kinds, but folks who use it too much are often seen as skick-in-the-muds, and hence frowned upon.

Abilities do not need any specific numbers of dice added to them. It is not unusual for some characters to be totally un-aware of anything going on around them, hence 0 dice in Notice Things, and so on.

Nomiker:(character) Yer Line: (character concept) Species: (human, robot, etc.)

Scribe: (player) Yo' job: (or "between jobs") Home town: (where you from?)

Attributes - (7/5/3)

Built in:

• Prowess: Your chances of hitting something (harmfully or just accurately), also the damage you can muster with your physical muscle (not guns).

• Brains: Not only how smart you are, but also how well you can bring your intellect to bear (willpower, deciphering old scrolls, extemporaneous speaking, etc.)

How you wear it:

• Cool: You have nerves of steel. Under fire, you light up a Parliament and ask the guy with the gun if he's got any grey pupon. Conversely you can cause others to become un-nerved or convince them that you are subtly manipulating them. Are you manipulating them with your Cool? Listen Mr. Cool, I'm just askin'. Damn cool people, always playing mind games, but still makes you want to be like 'em.

• Looks: You may be a spaz, but when people see you coming they cross the street, cause you look like one bad dude, or they want to get to know you. Your call.

The nature of things:

• Chook:
  Perm: Added to dice pool if a point of temp. Chook is spent. If a character has no ability to gain temporary Chook, they can still use this pool at once per day (or what passes for a day).
  Temp: Accumulated through ace-ing Wook rolls.

• Wook:
  Perm: Added to dice pool if a point of temp Wook is spent.
  Temp: Accumulated through botching (or just failing) Wook rolls.
  

Abilities - (13/9/5)

Talents:

• Cleanup: After you brush the trail dust off ya, the ladies (or laddies) find you dashing.

• Duck and cover: Hunkering down in a fight to avoid being hit.

• Shake it off: Keep rolling this if you are paralyzed, poisoned or otherwise dead, difficulty = -hp.

• Notice things: Some people are just oblivious. This measures how much you aren't.

• Fist-E-Cuffs (or body weaponry): Be it with horns, elbows, or teeth, this lets you bust up a few heads.

• The omni-skinney: Getting the skinney, the goods, anywhere, making connections.

• Making a scene: Getting attention, can be good or bad.

Skills:

• Brick bats: Anything you hit someone with or throw.

• Guns: Guns, how to shoot with them and how to carry them so you look the part.

• Crafts lodge: Starting fires, weaving, building with wood, clay, bricks, starting fire, lashing.

• Driving (everyone drives a stick in Chook): Cars, mac-trucks, space ships, sea-dews, even riding beasts (not stick).

• Sneekin: The fine art of going undetected, or at least unnoticed in any situation.

• Greese monkey: Repair cyborgs, cars, dishwashers, remote control cars, spaceships and looking good in coveralls.

• Clean up (custodial): Sometimes after som'in gone down, you got to clean up after.

• Making stuff up: The fine art of story telling. For fun and to save you punk ass. Psyching people out.

Knowledge:

• So ya hit the books: Academics of a general sort.
• A real cyber-punk: Hacking and high tech know how.
• Legends: History and occult.
• Patching up: Fixing people, animals, plants, cyborgs. Attempt once per injury.
• Sci-fi: Science and pseudo-science.

Secret powers - (10)

Magic:

Magic is accomplished with a spell book, some runes or something. You need this. The number you put into this is the number of spell levels (use Unearthed Arcana or some Gygax product. Priest spells, mage spells? don't be too concerned about mixing them if it fits your character) you start out with in your book. Making them work requires spending temporary Chook if it's a flashy neat spell, or Wook if it's a protective, banishing, or necromantic spell. N.B. - since we borrow shamelessly from other gaming systems, it is dangerous to mix your hit points with the hit points of the other games, but we do it anyway. Just keep in mind that erasing people left and right is a good way to get offed yourself (devious minds plot against those who stir up the wrong kind of unrest). Many people in Chook carry around guns and spell-books, but it just isn't cool to gun people down in the super-market although you can threaten 'em a little, also some spells and such are taboo, even if they aren't immoral (check your local social circles for details) and are highly effective. All saving throws are made with your Wook pool. Difficulty equals the spells level.

Psi:

• T.K.: The number of points is the number of pounds (at one gravity) you can manipulate on a logarithmic scale. The equation is this: 5^n = number of pounds @1 g (where n=T.K. rank). You can move smaller masses at higher velocities, but your accuracy is equal to your Prowess and Brick bats in combat, or some other skill if you are sweeping the floor or pouring water for example. Unfortunately this only works for a number of rounds equal to your permanent Chook each day.

• Pyrokinesis: Causes 1 point of damage per Chook success. (or effects 2 cubic yds.)

• Cryokinesis: Causes 1 point of damage per Chook success. (or effects 2 cubic yds.)

• Senses: This is a Wook based skill. You can use it for a number of rounds equal to your Wook each day. It increases the range of a sense by ten times the value of the Sense rank (ie. a rank of 4 lets you see 40 times further. Spending a rank can get you brand new senses also, like danger sense, mind reading, infra vision, dark vision, sonar, proximity detection (helps you avoid things or folks), etc.

• Super-patch: Ultra-healing. They roll their Wook (difficulty = their Chook), you roll your Chook (difficulty = your Wook). Both sets of successes are added resulting in their final health score.

• Teleport: Teleports a number of times per day equal to the rank. This is automatic in most cases, but if teleporting anything outside themselves, the psi-person will have to roll their Chook (or in some cases Wook) to make it happen.

Mutations:

If you really want a mutation ask the CM. I'm sure he or she will be happy to provide rules. Maybe we will publish a mutations supplement some day, adamentium claws just aren't doing anything for me at the moment. Even natural features such as wings or horns might be purchased under mutations, since Chook is a vaguely Humanocentric world (ie. it is vaguely based on Chung Hort, who appears to be human).

Secret Maneuvers:

There are three types of secret maneuvers: Offensive, Defensive, and Other. Chook and Wook are not necessary for these maneuvers, but can be used to improve them (Chook for offensive, Wook for defensive, possibly either one for Other).

• Offensive: Kung fu grip, flying fingers of death, Judo Chop, pulling hair, etc. - These sort of maneuvers cost 1 point per each 2 hit points of damage they do. A character must already have at least 1 point of Fist-E-Cuffs or Brick Bats to learn an offensive maneuver since a Secret Maneuver can either be intended for numb-chucks or head butting, but not both.
  When trying to use a Secret Maneuver for damage, you have to roll a successful Fist-E-Cuffs or Brick Bats roll (depending on the maneuver) and state that you are attempting the maneuver. Success comes if you roll at least 1 success and do not roll any ones at all. If you do roll a 1 but do not botch, you still do normal damage, but don't get extra bonus damage.

• Defensive: There are two sorts of defensive Secret Maneuvers. The first is active defense. By moving out of the way the defender can avoid being hit. To simulate this the attacker's chances of hitting are reduced by 1 for each point that has spent on the maneuver.
  The second type of defense is passive defense. This is accomplished through toughening of the body and knowing how to "Take hits". For every two points spent on passive defense 1 hit point of damage from every attack is automatically absorbed with no injury.

• Other: The ability to run up walls, remain weightless, be un-movable, etc. Values for these things are kind of vague, ask your CM for details.

The Benefits - (10)

Loot:

• The really valuable thing (ie. the black suitcase).
• Cool vehicle (chopper, mecha, whirley bird (max speed = 50 mph per point)
• Cool weapon (one die per point)
• sonic screwdriver (or other cool tool)
• magic artifact (decanter of endless Chook, etc.)
• fancy threads (armor, three piece suit, mirror shades, etc.)

Friends in strange places: You have powerful friends, or lots of friends, or maybe a girl in every port (in which case you are setting yourself up for some deep Wook my friend).

Hit points

10 base (you can cannibalize hit points in the case of smaller animals or add bonus points for elephants and such).

Bonus points

20 (add these anywhere).

Getting into Chook and Wook.

You can accumulate Chook by going through Wook. Every time something bad happens (i.e. you take a hit, or blow the scene) roll your permanent Wook pool. If you have any successes you gain one point of temporary Chook. If you lose your Wook roll you gain one extra point of temporary Wook. In this case permanent Chook means the universe thinks you are a dude, permanent Wook means the universe thinks you're a smeg, but feels it owes you one.

Using Chook:

Chook can be used to power magical effects (one temporary point of Chook per spell level). It can be added to any dice pool if the character is trying to get noticed or trying to hit someone or generally trying to make a stir in the universe.

Using Wook:

Wook is used to shield against magical effects (one temporary point of Wook per spell level). It can be added to any dice pool if the character is trying to sneek by or avoid being hit or getting the universe to give them a break (this might include getting your car repaired in a hurry when a hungry Drangit is bearing (no pun intended) down on you, but not getting your frikk'n gun unjammed when there is a fire-fight scheduled in ten minutes.

You have been slogging through muck all day, your car ran out of Gas in the middle of the vort highway, you lost a drinking bout, your sidekick deserted you, etc., etc. and this is only mid-morning. So, now you are facing the arch-lich-dragon-wraith-mage king'o'death. He's got out his magic runes and is rattling off a ninth level spell that will kill you about two hundred times (check out the hit point total). But you have steadily been accumulating Wook (and a fair amount of Chook) throughout the day. Once he gets his spell off you counter with your Wook. (Fortunately you had ten points, so you have one Wook point left over) The universe says, "fine, I guess I've dumped on him enough for one day. Don't worry about that spell, we'll call it even." The arch-lich-dragon-wraith-mage-king'o'death is stunned as his spell of dramatic death-reaving leaves you untouched. But you still have a bunch of Chook to dish out and a couple of fire ball spells up your own sleeve.

Initiative:

Generally, we say that the person who goes first in a turn is the one who yells out something first, but since some people never stop talking: Pick the highest skill, talent, or ability you have that is relevant to the action you want to take. Roll 1d10 and add the result to this skill. The result is your initiative. The higher initiative goes first. By giving up your initiative you automatically go first next turn.

CM note: Be sure to put lots of random bad stuff in the game to give players a chance to accumulate temporary Wook. It is not uncommon for the characters with brand new, German crafted, NRA approved, range tested weapons to find their guns jamming up 5 times in a day. Sometimes the bad stuff has an obvious reason, sometimes it is just random, always it is a chance for Wook.

Further notes

These rules are unchanging and immutable. They are perfect in form and function. Please remember that the nature of these rules leaves a large number of "loop holes" however. These loop holes have been placed here for your benefit. If you can learn how to exploit the loop holes, especially if you can learn to exploit them better than the CM, you will have a distinct advantage. Please remember that the Style over Substance aspect of Chook is important. It is really crucial to look good while you're doing something, but on the other hand the Min./Max.-ing aspect of Chook should not be ignored. Most folks there spend their whole lives perfecting some aspect of existence (be it Flying Crane sword technique or Oozing Squid mop maneuver), so don't be afraid to exceed human norms in an ability or two.

Remember, when in character:

• Live cool
• Die hard
• Always front

CHOOK CHARACTER SHEET

Nomiker: ____________________ Yer Line: _______________________

Scribe: ______________________ Species: ________________________

Yo' job: _____________________ Home town: _____________________

Attributes

Hit points: _____ out of _____

The nature of things

Chook:

Perm: _____

Temp: _____

Wook:

Perm: _____

Temp: _____

Knowledges

Ya hit the books: _____

Cyber-punk: _____

Legends: _____

Patching up: _____

Sci-fi: _____

Secret Powers

Psi :

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Mutations:

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Secret Maneuvers:

Offensive: ______________________________________________

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Defensive - Active: ______________________________________

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Defensive - Passive: ______________________________________

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Other: _________________________________________________

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Magic:

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The Benefits (loot, etc.):

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