This chapter covers what happens between the active moments of play — how characters grow, how they acquire the gear they need, and how time passes when the table wants to skip ahead.
Advancement
Characters earn XP based on what they accomplished. The GM chooses one of two pacing models for the campaign:
Per act: Award 5 XP at the end of each act. This gives players small, frequent gains and a sense of steady progression. Best for tables that enjoy incremental improvement.
Per mission: Award 10-20 XP at the completion of a full mission, depending on length and difficulty. A short, straightforward mission awards 10. A complex, multi-session operation awards 20. Best for tables that prefer fewer, larger advancement moments.
Pick whichever model works for your table. Do not use both. They are alternatives, not layers.
XP is spent using the costs defined in the Character Creation chapter. The same table applies to both creation and advancement.
At the end of each session, the table may optionally nominate characters for bonus XP. Each player (including the GM) can nominate one other character for a moment that was dramatically compelling, tactically brilliant, hilariously in-character, or otherwise memorable. Each nomination awards 2 XP. This is not a competition. It's a way to celebrate the moments that made the session worth playing. Tables that don't enjoy this kind of spotlight can skip it entirely.
Equipment
Equipment acquisition is handled narratively. If a character wants to buy a new weapon, upgrade their armor, or acquire specialized gear, the GM frames a scene around it — you go to the market, you negotiate with a dealer, you requisition from your commanding officer. The scene resolves naturally through roleplay, possibly with a check if the item is rare, restricted, or expensive.
There is no credit system or detailed economy. Characters are assumed to have enough on hand to cover basic living expenses and mundane purchases — the optional Resources rule formalizes which acquisitions count as routine for a given character and which require a Cost or a story. Significant acquisitions — a ship, military-grade hardware, rare technology — are narrative events, not line items on a shopping list.
Tables using the optional Downtime rules can also resolve acquisitions as Downtime projects. That works well for the kind of purchase that is uninteresting to roleplay — paperwork, a delivery, an off-world order — but still takes real time to complete.
Downtime
Downtime is a structured way to handle the time between the parts of play that demand the table's attention. It heals Wounds, advances long-term projects, and skips the boring stretches without losing them. Tables that prefer to handle all of this narratively can ignore this section entirely. Tables that want a clean way to fence a haul, decode an artifact, or simply order a part and have it delivered will find Downtime worth the page.
Downtime is invoked by table agreement, between acts or between missions. The crew has time, the GM has time, and nobody wants the next scene to be three days of paperwork. The GM sets the period — a week, two weeks, a month — and characters spend that time on whatever they need.
The GM has final say on what is plausible. A broken arm does not heal in a day because someone said the word "Downtime." Some things require a specific stretch of in-fiction time, no matter how many Successes get rolled. Downtime is a tool for compressing time the table doesn't want to play out, not a button that erases consequences.
Downtime Actions
Each character receives a number of Downtime actions during the period. The default is roughly 3 actions per character per week. The GM may scale that for shorter or longer periods, or grant more or fewer based on the fiction. Actions are spent on healing or on project work. A character can do both, neither, or any mix.
Healing
A character with Wounds may spend one Downtime action on a Healing roll. The pool is built from three numbers, the same way any other R10 roll is built:
- Ability dice equal the facility rating of the place the character is being treated in.
- Skill dice equal the treating physician's Medicine rating. Another PC, an NPC, or the character themselves may treat. With no physician at all, the character is untrained — apply +1 Risk.
- Risk dice equal the character's current Wound count.
| Facility | Examples |
|---|---|
| 1 — Improvised | Field dressing. Scavenged supplies. No equipment, no quiet room. |
| 2 — Basic | Medkit and a clean surface. A frontier clinic. A small ship's medbay. |
| 3 — Standard | A working hospital ward. A military medbay. A well-stocked clinic. |
| 4 — Advanced | A major hospital. A fleet medical ship. Specialty equipment available. |
| 5 — Cutting-edge | A research hospital, trauma center, or specialty facility. Rare. |
Resolve the roll using the standard result bands, then apply:
- Critical Success. Heal all Wounds.
- Success. Heal half Wounds, rounded up.
- Costly Success. Heal half Wounds, rounded up. One Wound becomes a permanent narrative consequence — a scar, a limp, recurring pain — defined by the GM.
- Failure. Heal one Wound. Even bad treatment helps, eventually.
- Critical Failure. The character is done for this Downtime. They take no further actions in this period — no projects, no follow-up treatment, no fencing the haul. Something went wrong, and they spend the rest of the period recovering from the recovery.
The Failure floor — heal at least one Wound on an ordinary failed roll — assumes a TV-and-movies pace where most characters get patched up between jobs. Tables that want a grittier feel can drop the floor. A Failure heals nothing. The character either rolls again next Downtime, or finds a better facility, or lives with the wound until they do.
Projects
A project is a long task that takes real in-fiction time but does not deserve a scene at the table. Buying a ship and dealing with the paperwork. Fencing a haul. Decoding a piece of recovered tech. Cooling heat after a job went loud. Ordering a delivery off-world. The point of a project is that the outcome matters but the process would be tedious to roleplay round by round.
The GM sets a Success target for the project based on scope:
| Scope | Target | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Minor | 1–2 | Routine paperwork. A simple delivery. A short favor called in. |
| Standard | 3–5 | Fencing a normal haul. Finding the right ship. Building a useful contact. |
| Major | 6–10 | Decoding complex tech. Cooling significant heat. Refitting a vessel. |
| Vast | 10+ | Months of work, extraordinary obstacles, or campaign-defining projects. |
A character may spend a Downtime action on a project roll. The player narrates what their character is doing to advance the project, and the GM sets the Risk for that specific roll based on the action being taken. The roll is a normal R10 action — Ability + Skill against that Risk — and resolves the same way as any other roll. Each Success scored counts toward the project's target.
Risk is per-roll, not per-project. The same project can produce a Risk 1 roll (quiet research at a public library) and a Risk 4 roll (digging through encrypted records on a hostile network) depending on what the character chooses to do to move it forward.
Projects do not reset between Downtimes — a half-built tally carries forward until the project is completed or abandoned.
Costly Success still advances the project — count the Successes — but the cost lands later. A debt owed. A tipped hand. Attention drawn. A half-truth that circles back next mission. The GM defines the complication and seeds it into future play.
Critical Failure on a project roll ends the character's Downtime, exactly as on a Healing roll. Something went sideways, and they spend the rest of the period dealing with it.
Personal Projects
Most projects are shared by default — any character can spend an action and roll into the same Success pool. Some projects are personal: only the owner spends actions and rolls. Personal projects suit work that lives on one character's sheet — pursuing Resources, cultivating Contacts, supporting Allies, building toward an individual goal. Other characters can appear in the fiction of a personal roll (an introduction made, a door opened, advice given), but they do not spend their own actions on it. The GM decides which category a project falls into; the test is whose sheet the project changes.
The Final Scene
When a project hits its target, the GM may declare a final scene — a single scene played out at the table that determines whether the project actually pays off. The auction. The lab break-in. The meeting with the seller. The project's Successes have built the position; the scene resolves whether it sticks. Not every project needs one. Routine ones close quietly. Significant ones earn a spotlight.
After a job goes loud on a League station, the crew lies low for two weeks at a Confederate freeport. Each character gets 6 Downtime actions (3 per week × 2 weeks).
Priya spends one action healing — she took a Wound when a coolant line ruptured during the escape. The freeport's medbay is Basic (2), with a staff physician on call (Intellect 2, Medicine 2). Priya has 1 Wound, so Risk 1. Skill 2 cancels Risk 1 — pool is 2 Ability + 1 Skill. The physician rolls a Success. Half of 1 Wound, rounded up, is 1. Healed.
The crew opens a Standard shared project — fencing a stolen mil-spec sensor array. Target: 5 Successes. Priya, Hanako, and Angus each spend two actions on the project; Venlyn keeps watch and works on her own. Each roll runs at its own Risk, set by what the character narrates doing:
- Hanako quietly sounds out League contacts who owe her favors — Risk 1. Professional discretion, low exposure.
- Angus rolls through Confederate fixers in low-rent districts — Risk 3. People who remember faces.
- Priya scrubs the array's serial markers and forges new provenance — Risk 2. Technical work, traceable if done sloppy.
Across six rolls the crew banks 4 Successes and one Costly Success on Angus's second pass — a Confederate fixer recognized him. The deal goes through; the buyer now knows their faces. The GM notes the complication for the next mission.
Meanwhile, Venlyn opens a Personal project — cultivating an Embassy quartermaster who has been quietly sympathetic to her postings. Standard scope, target 4. The relationship belongs to her; nobody else can spend actions on it. Two of her actions go to it, both rolls at Risk 1 (Diplomacy 3, ample cover), and she banks two Successes. Halfway there. The project carries into the next Downtime.
The remaining actions go to small things. Priya orders a replacement coupling for the ship — Minor project, target 1. One roll at Risk 0 (it is literally a paid order through a legitimate yard), one Success, done. Angus calls in a favor with an old crewmate — Minor, target 2. Two rolls at Risk 1 (an old debt being raised in earshot of the wrong people), two Successes. By the time the freeport hospitality runs out, the crew is patched up, paid, and ready for whatever comes next. Mostly.