Things to remember when using PCCS Use ordinary, real life terms when describing things and deciding what happens. Use minutes, seconds, meters or feet instead of game terms. All of these units translate well into PCCS and lend an atmosphere of realism to the game. The players do not need to be informed of the game technical details, just tell them what happens and have them roll dice when needed. Make players describe their characters actions in terms of what they want accomplished instead of in game terms. Keep track of their CA for them and ask what they want done and how, not how many CA they spend doing it. A written record is useful. Always use the spotting tables. Always. Keep them up, roll against them when characters are being tailed, are tailing, or are just walking down the street. Make it second nature to check spotting in combat, to let characters and NPC's check spotting and expend CA to be aware of what is happening. Make NPCs make use of CA to try to spot characters. Make characters explicitly use CA for spotting purposes. Never volounteer too much information. Remember that tactics to a large degree is knowing what is happening around you. For non combat situations or when surprise is a factor, use the spotting modifications from the Special Weapons supplement. Use them on player characters as well. Give hints to players, but don't give the whole story. When a character has aimed for a certain number of CA and the player asks how his chance to hit is, tell him what his characters estimate of hitting is. Take skill level into account, and perhaps make a roll to see how close the estimate is. For general aiming, use the aimpoint tables from the Phoenix Command Expansion. A normal, unaimed shot is considered a mid body aimed shot. Aiming at a specific bodypart costs 1 CA, not counted towards aim time. A good idea is to use the planning system as much as possible. It's a bit ambiguous and not very detailed, but it makes for a much more realistic game. If you use planning, remember to be consistent. Don't let NPCs get away with no planning, and be fair when players plan their actions. Also remember that purely defensive actions such as taking cover, dashing for the nearest doorway and pulling a friend down shouldn't require planning CA to be spent. When you feel confident with the basic PCCS system, consider introducing the Hand To Hand system for close combat and adding in the various optional rules. Once you have a feel for the basic system it's not much work and it adds immensely to the realism. When calculating CA loss from recoil, use SAB in the formula instead of KV. This is most likely an error in the Advanced Rules (the second edition Advanced Rules is full of mistakes). A fairly good way to simulate fatigue and constitution effects on combat abilities is to calculate CA with the lowest of HLT and INT. This can also be applied to HTH CA/DB, using the lowest of AGI and HLT. -- Version 000114 Jesper Anderson