DUMMY SYSTEM

A COLLABORATIVE TABLETOP HOMO EX MACHINA GENERATOR

INSPIRED BY NEON GENESIS EVANGELION1

BY HUNTER MCCONNELL2

Version 00.888: [9/3/19]: Added Esoterica. Added Title Page & Introduction. Minor edits.
Version 00.777: Minor edits.
Version 00.666: Major rewrites and formatting changes.
Version 00.555: Genesis.3

1
Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin Seiki Evangerion) was a Japanese animated mecha anime television
series produced by Gainax and Tatsunoko Production, directed by Hideaki Anno and broadcast on TV
Tokyo from October 1995 to March 1996. It’s a cartoon about a kid with a giant robot fighting monsters
to save the world. It’s pretty good, if you’re into that sort of thing.
2
It’s also about a whole bunch of other stuff. Smarter people than me have talked it out a lot better than I
could, but, basically, what makes Eva so remarkable is its attitude towards character. Its protagonist,
14-year old Shinji Ikari, is not a hero - he’s depressed, confused, obstinate, cowardly, and unlikable. He
hates himself. Relationships only hurt and confuse him. He lashes out and humiliates himself again and
again and again. Just like you. Just like me. But we want him to keep trying for the same reason we do:
because as long as we are alive, there is still some chance we will find happiness.
This is a game about that.
3
See CENTRAL DOGMA (pg. 9).

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 IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
[Making Characters.]
First, draw three eight-part pie charts (“clocks”). One is your Unit’s HP, the other two are the first stress
clocks for your Pilot and Officer. Then answer the following questions, in secret, in the order they come
to you. Finally, pick your Officer’s role and discuss your shared history with the other Officers.
These are the innermost truths of your soul, a sacred land where no man may tread.
Protect the answers to these questions as you would your own heart.
All things are naked and open unto the eyes of the Commander.
PILOTS:
● You’re so fucked up. What did this to you, and how does it manifest?
● What is your primary defense mechanism?
● What two subjects, events, or situations can you just not handle? These things coming up will
cause you to gain one stress.
● What can you do to someone else to make yourself feel better? If you can do this in a way that
causes another character to gain a stress, remove two stress.
● What are you desperately trying to convince yourself?
● Why do you pilot the Unit?
● What do you want? What do you need?
OFFICERS:
● You’re so fucked up. Who did this to you, and when was the last time you cried about it? Update
as needed.
● What is your primary defense mechanism?
● What secret vice keeps you sane? Every time you indulge, lose one stress. Don’t do it too often
though - someone might notice.
● What do you remember about life before all of this? Why have you left it all behind?
● What hate in your heart drives you this hard?
● Exactly once, you can Call in a Favor during the Ops Planning phase. Who owes you that favor?
More importantly, what did you have to do to get it?
● What do you want? What do you need?
Choose a role for your Officer.
a. General: The General is the most military-oriented position, and the one who has final say in
giving orders to the Pilots during First Contact and Ops. Only the Commander can overrule their
orders (though Pilots can choose to disobey them, if they’re prepared for the consequences).
b. Science: The Science Officer leads the Sync Test, and is the closest to the Commander. This
might take the form of secret orders, more information, or mechanical advantages. It’s up to the
Commander. The Science Officer outranks the Support Officer when it comes to decisions.
c. Support: As the Organization’s top spymaster, the Support Officer is the lowest ranked of the
three Officers, but the most flexible. For a stress price, they can do anything, from buying and
selling information to gaining more Call in a Favors.
Discuss your Officer’s shared history.
● You’ve hurt each other too much to be friends and love each other too much to be enemies - these
relationships are exactly the kind of three-way mutual vivisection the Pilots are so afraid of.

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 BASIC TENETS
[Game Structure.]
The Commander can bend, break, or reveal any of the following to be a lie, at any time.

This game is played with three players and one game master. Each player will need one six-sided dice
(d6) and at least one sheet of paper to write on. These rules are light on worldbuilding specifics so that the
Commander can fill in the relevant details.

The players each make two characters: an Officer and a Pilot. The Pilot is the character they play in most
phases, the Officers are played in some others and outside of the session.

The game itself is episodic: the core loop should be a self-contained miniature story (an Episode)
composed of a series of phases. The game is meant to run for only a few Episodes before burning out in a
blaze of TERROR - the only fire in which a whole heart can be forged.

CHARACTERS:

Each Pilot is a child, somewhere between thirteen and seventeen, who is damaged and confused in a way
that prevents them from maintaining healthy relationships. To simulate this, the Pilots are forbidden
from communicating with one another with anything that is not either a question or an expression
of their trauma. Pilots are each assigned a Unit: a building-sized fighting machine that represents the
pinnacle of human achievement (or the height of human arrogance). Pilots are restricted to their specific
Unit - nobody else can pilot them, and vice-versa. Units have a mind of their own, which the
Organization that built them has worked very hard to suppress. Only the utmost emotional extremity can
make that consciousness surface. This is what happens when Units break.

The Officers are the gloves the Organization uses to handle the Pilots. Officers command the Pilots from
an underground bunker, kept in touch via constant visual & radio feeds. They are the cream of the crop,
the tops of their classes, hand-picked by the Organization to command the children who would save the
world. They, themselves, are only about fifteen years older than the Pilots. They are hyper-competent,
driven, and under incredible pressure. Out of character talk is discouraged. Let the Officers be the lens
through which you engage in planning. The Officers have known each other for years - be sure to discuss
your shared history. The more complicated and charged, the better. At the end of each Episode, the
Officers should submit secret orders to the Commander. These orders can be either how they intend to
pursue their goals between sessions (say, investigate a term that the Commander used, attempt to develop
a new technology, betray someone, sell information, anything they like) or an in-character direct appeal
to the Organization’s Commander. This is the only way to speak to the Commander in-character
without first being spoken to.

The Commander, who runs the game as referee and storyteller, should also be regarded as a character in
the world. They have a name and personality and specific relationships to the other characters, and sit at
the top of the chain of command in the Organization. They also have specific goals shrouded in mystery -

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these goals should be unknown to all, and the Officers’ secondary objective is to figure out this plan and
decide what to do about it. The Commander can override any Officer’s orders, step in at any point, and
should be revered by some, hated by many, and obeyed absolutely.

STRESS:

Each player character has a “stress clock”; a pie with eight parts. Various actions and conditions cause a
character to gain or lose stress. When the stress clock is filled, that character undergoes a break - a period
of time when they can no longer handle the situation at hand, and will do the impossible to make it stop.

When Pilots break while inside their Unit, the Unit reveals its true nature. The Pilot loses control of it,
and the Unit becomes feral and savage, performing incredible feats of brutality to destroy the source of
their pain. Most often, this source will come in the form of the Adversary. This is not always the case. If a
Pilot breaks outside their Unit, their response is less lethal but equally shortsighted.

Officers also have a stress clock, which fills up much less regularly. When an Officer breaks, they don’t
get to submit plans to the Commander at the end of the Episode. Instead, they have a personal
breakdown, which can be much more freeform than the Pilot’s.

Every time a character breaks, their next clock begins with one stress already marked. A character
who breaks for the first time, for instance, will draw a new clock with seven open slots. When a character
has broken four times, breaking a fifth time will cause the game to immediately shift into a TERROR
phase.

THE ADVERSARY:

The Adversary is an alien threat, unlike anything humanity has faced before. They can take almost any
shape, are often massive in size, and wield terrible power. Conventional weapons are near-useless. That’s
where the Units come in.

The Adversary has a hidden sum of HP. Depleting this sum or exploiting the Adversary’s gimmick reveals
the Adversary’s core. The Organization’s supercomputers might be able to guess at how much HP an
Adversary has, depending on how much data is gathered during First Contact.

Each Adversary has a Core, located somewhere (usually somewhere logical - where a head or heart might
be) within the body of the Adversary. If an Adversary lacks anything that can be called a body, the core’s
assumed nature as a physical object can be adjusted to match. Destroying this core destroys the
Adversary, and is the primary goal in a combat phase. Units have these cores, too.

Adversaries should have a gimmick of some kind - their core is exposed when attacking, they use a
specific weapon, they move in a particular way - something the Pilots can learn in the First Contact phase
and use against it in the Ops phase.

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Adversaries all have an actionable goal. Once an Adversary appears, its goal is set. The next Adversary
might have the same or a similar goal, but it might have a different goal altogether. What exactly this is
will depend on the choices about their nature that the Commander has made, but the Officers should be
given some idea of what their immediate goal is when the campaign begins - i.e., destroy a specific
building or person, reach a location, or acquire an object.

COMBAT:

Characters take turns determined during the Sync Test phase. During First Contact, Pilots go first.
During Ops, the Adversary goes first.

Pilots can do anything they wish on their turn. They need not attack directly. They can move freely -
Units are very mobile. Following a Pilot’s turn, the Adversary is free to react, though it cannot inflict
damage until its turn.

Units are equipped with a variety of weapons built especially for them, though the General has final say
on what the Pilots carry into combat on a per-mission basis. Attack directly by rolling 1d6 +
accumulated stress. For instance, a character with one stress rolls 1d6+1. Likewise, a character with one
stress who has broken once before rolls 1d6+2. This number is then subtracted from the Adversary’s HP.
Direct attacks are extremely dangerous, but often necessary.

Units have 8HP. For every two HP of damage the Unit takes, the Pilot takes one stress. HP is
completely restored during the Repair, Research, Recover phase. Officers each take one point of
stress for every four HP the Units recover, though they can choose not to restore HP or restore it
incompletely. When a Unit’s HP reaches 0, that Unit is disabled and unable to act until repaired. The
Pilot is not dead, barring extraordinary circumstances. The Adversary can choose to kill a disabled Pilot
on its next turn.

When the Adversary’s HP reaches zero, or if its gimmick is exploited in such a way that it is
defeated, its core is exposed. The character who exposed the core must decide who will strike the final
blow (it cannot be themselves). The Pilot who strikes the final blow loses one point of stress. This is a
choice made in the moment - the Officers have no say in the matter.

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 LITURGY
[Phases of Play.]
The following phases make up an Episode of play. Though they are designed to appear in this order in a
loop, it is possible that they appear out of order or multiple times in an Episode. The final phase listed,
TERROR, is not an ordinary part of play, and only appears under specific circumstances (see block).

1. SYNC TEST: Pilots wait in their Units, free to talk amongst themselves, while the Science
Officer conducts tests.
a. The Science Officer asks each Pilot in turn to roll 1d6 plus accumulated stress. For
instance, a character with one stress rolls 1d6+1. Likewise, a character with one stress
who has broken once before rolls 1d6+2.
b. Each Pilot announces their result, and the other characters have a chance to react. This is
a chance for Pilots to talk amongst each other and to the Officers; use it to exchange
information and angle for stress reduction. Keep in mind the Commander is explicitly
present.
c. The Pilot with the highest score loses one stress. The Pilot with the lowest score gains
one.

2. FIRST CONTACT: The Adversary appears, reveals its method and location of attack, and
probably defeats the Pilots or forces them to flee and regroup.
a. The Pilots are briefed on the nature of the Adversary: what it looks like, how it appeared,
and what it seems to be doing.
b. The Commander sets the scene, the General decides where the Units will be deployed,
and the Officers suggest a course of action for the Pilots.
c. Turn order begins. A Pilot describes what they intend to do, then the Commander
describes what happens as they try to accomplish this goal. When all three Pilots have
gone, the Adversary takes a turn. It can react at any point during a character’s turn, but
can only deal damage on its turn.
d. Any character can suggest a course of action at any time, but the General has final say.
e. After the Adversary’s first turn, the Units can disengage and enter the next phase at any
time. Before that, choosing to disengage means forfeiting their turn.
f. An Adversary could be destroyed during first contact, in theory.

3. OP PLANNING: Players switch to their Officers and use the information their Pilots gathered to
create a plan of attack.
a. Create a scenario wherein the Pilots have the best chance of defeating their opponent.
The Organization has vast (but not unlimited) resources to make this happen. The
Commander decides what is plausible and what will require an Officer to Call in a
Favor.
b. The characters have twenty four (24) real-time minutes to create their plan.

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 c. The Organization’s supercomputers can create detailed simulations, which becomes more
accurate as more information is gathered during First Contact. Use them to figure out
how likely to succeed the plan will be.
d. A plan everyone feels confident and hopeful about drops Pilot stress by 1. Subject to
Commander approval (basically, whether or not it is complete and makes sense and
seems likely to succeed). Plans where someone had to Call in a Favor do not necessarily
meet this criteria.
e. The Organization requires that, in the event that a plan does not meet with the
Commander’s approval, the Pilots must update their will.

4. OP: The characters put their plan into motion. Succeed at any cost.
a. This form follows the same general format as First Contact.
b. When turn order begins, the Adversary goes first, then the Pilots take their turns.
c. Pilots go about their business until the Adversary’s HP is reduced to zero, either by direct
attacks or successful execution of the plan.
d. The Pilot who exposed the core must decide which of the other two Pilots will strike the
finishing blow.
e. Pilots can disengage individually, but if all three are disabled or flee, that spells the end of
the human race. Win or die.

5. REPAIR, RESEARCH, RECOVER: In between missions. Characters can interact in the ways
available to them, Officers learn more about the Adversary, their Commander, and each other.
a. Units get repaired during this phase. For every four points of HP damage repaired,
Officers incur one point of stress, though they can choose not to restore HP or restore it
incompletely.
b. Any character can initiate a dialogue with any other character (or characters) at the cost
of one stress. The initiating player decides the circumstances of the meeting. Pilots must
enter at least one dialogue each RRR phase.
c. This is your stress management phase - play your character against another to lose stress.
Keep in mind that your conversational partner can force you to take on stress as well. At
the end of the conversation, the Commander decides the final tally.
d. The results of Officer’s secret orders are played out during this phase, and new ones are
submitted.
e. Review the answers to your questions. Have any of them changed? Will they ever really
change?

6. TERROR: A character who has been broken beyond repair (incurred five breaks) enters a state
of TERROR: they lose touch with reality and retreat into their own mind. This phase can
interrupt any other.
a. The broken character retreats into their own mind. This is either a literal psychic event, or
a metaphorical representation of the thinking process. The broken character must explain

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 why they’re so fucked up either by reliving it, telling it as a story, or describing
themselves reliving it.
b. Other characters appear to the broken character, asking them a question, trying to impart
some wisdom, or extending some small comfort. The goal is to help the broken character
work through what they are dealing with.
c. These characters are not literally the people they represent. They exist in the mind of the
broken character, and so can be mouthpieces for lines of thought, or shaped by the broken
character’s perception of them. Other players are encouraged to lean into this. They
cannot express any information the broken character does not know.
d. Every character need not appear. In fact, none need appear. The broken character ends the
phase when they have reached a decision. This decision should be a natural conclusion to
their arc: there is no mechanical advantage to either option. Either way, the character’s
story has concluded.
e. At the end of this phase, the character meets one of two fates:
i. Ascension. The character learns something about themselves, finds a previously
unknown reservoir of strength, or otherwise becomes a whole, healthy person -
the most powerful force in the universe. From here on, the Pilot is under the
Commander’s control, and anything is possible. They have become unto a god.
ii. Division. The Pilot cannot confront the pain that is holding them back, and it
destroys them. The player decides what exactly happens - they lapse into a coma,
they do anything to make it stop, they might even become an Adversary. When
it's over, the character is no longer themselves, and they never will be ever again.
They are dead, or worse.

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 CENTRAL DOGMA
[Psychic Contaminants, Talismans, and Mood-Altering Cognitions.]
This game was written with the following sensibilities. Let them act as governing philosophies,
rather than commandments.

1. THE HEDGEHOG’S DILEMMA: The core of the game is about desperate flawed people
reaching out for someone to help them and only getting hurt instead. These characters are
drowning, too caught up in their own pain to stop from dragging each other under. Personal
growth, not military victory, is the goal that the entire story is moving towards - fulfillment grants
godlike power and serenity that is incompatible with the game world in the same way that a
butterfly cannot live inside its cocoon. If personal growth is achieved, if a character confronts
themselves and learns and changes, it can only come at the utmost extremity - their death, the
unraveling of reality, the end of the game. It is not guaranteed - if it is won, it will be at great cost.

2. GREAT AND SMALL: Small interpersonal conflicts are contrasted with scenes of hulking
technology, vast destruction, and a horrific oncoming apocalypse. We aren’t talking about
windows breaking or busting holes in walls, we’re talking about throwing buildings aside,
melting mountains, boiling the oceans to slow the Adversary down. If you have a map, you
should be redrawing it after every fight. All this destruction is set dressing for the central tension
of the game, which is about making children cry. Treat these things - human pain on both scales -
with equal weight.

3. GROPING IN THE DARK: Each character knows maybe 40% of what is going on. The true
goals of the Organization they work for, the nature of the machines (...?) they pilot, even the
relationships between their commanding Officers are obscured by esoteric jargon and flat out lies.
The player characters are not allies, and asking questions can get you killed just as easily as not
knowing answers, so decide what you are willing to risk your life to know.

4. FOR THE GREATER GOOD: The Organization is a paramilitary group unlike any the world
has ever seen. Not only is it far and away more powerful than its host country, the Organization is
vast and efficient enough to that could go toe to toe with the UN, if necessary. Call it evil (it is),
call it Machievellian (it is) - at the end of the day, they are the ones making sure someone is still
alive to call it something. To that end, the Pilots are their most potent and brittle tools.

5. COME UNTO THESE YELLOW SANDS: The end of the world is coming, and the
Adversaries are its heralds. They are nothing short of bizarre - neither living things nor machines,
made of their own kind of matter, with powers that baffle the human understanding of physics
and biology. Attacking them directly is nearly suicidal - each one is a puzzle that must be solved
with billions of dollars, quick thinking, and an animal desperation to survive. If the Pilots fail,
humanity will succumb to their inscrutable will, and that is a horizon beyond which mortal eyes
cannot see. This is an acceptable end to the story - in fact, it is almost a given.

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 ESOTERICA
[Mystical Interpretations.]
---EPISODE GUIDE START---
FIRST,
Sync Test: Science Officer has each Pilot roll 1d6 + stress. Pilots react to each score. Highest loses a
stress, lowest gains a stress. THEN,
First Contact: Pilots ambush the Adversary, and back out when they have enough info. THEN,
OPs Planning: Set a timer for 24 minutes. Make a plan. The Commander either approves it (everyone
loses a stress) or doesn’t (everyone updates their will). THEN,
OP: Kill or be killed. FINALLY,
Repair, Research, Recover: Repair Units (Officers take 1 stress for every 4 HP repaired). Pilots enter
dialogue with at least one other character (take 1 stress). Resolve any secret orders at play.
---EPISODE GUIDE END---

---PSYCHO HAZARDS START---

PILOTS:
Score lowest on Sync Test: Gain 1 stress.
Score highest on Sync Test: Lose 1 stress.
One of the Pilot’s stressors comes up in conversation: Gain 1 stress.
Acting on another Pilot’s stressor: Lose 2 stress.
Taking damage in combat: Gain 1 point of stress for each 2 HP damage the Unit takes.
Being part of a Commander-approved plan: Lose 1 stress.
Enter dialogue during the Repair, Research, Recover phase: Gain 1 stress.
Striking the finishing blow on an Adversary: Lose 1 stress.

OFFICERS:
Choosing to enter dialogue in the Repair, Research, Recover phase: Gain 1 stress.
Indulge in vice during Repair, Research, Recover phase: Lose 1 stress.
Repairing Units: Gain 1 stress for every 4 points of HP repaired (for instance, if all three Units have 3 HP
damage to repair, 3*3=9, 4+4+1=9, each Officer gains 2 points of stress).
---PSYCHO HAZARDS END---

---DOUBTS AND FEARS START---

“The shadow of death has fallen over me. The curse of mortality has closed my window to the world.”
That window is closed forever. Let your silence haunt those you left behind.
“The pain they cause me is unbearable. I don’t think we can both exist.”
Cain and Abel rolled 1d6 + stress. Cain rolled higher.
“I don’t understand why you act like this.”
Remake me in your image.
“I don’t want to die.”
I love you.
---DOUBTS AND FEARS NEVER END---

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