06/23/2025
Here is the first version of the FAQ for the Four Play™ RPG:
FOUR PLAY™ FAQ
6/15/25
GENERAL QUESTIONS
Q: If two rolls of dice are tied, who wins?
A: Except where noted, the defender wins all ties. Sometimes it’s easy to determine who is the defender, as in combat; sometimes it’s less obvious, such as resisting a disease—is the disease attacking the body or is the body attacking the disease? Generally, whoever is taking the action needs to score at least one more success than whatever the action is being taken against. In the case of a disease (or poison), it is the attacker and so it needs to score higher than the character’s Torso or Liver roll to affect them. A tie means the character has resisted it, though in the case of some pernicious diseases or poisons the character might need to make more than one roll over time to free itself from the pathogen or toxin. These types of diseases or poisons should be rare.
COMPETENCIES
Q: How long does alchemical healing take?
A: Anything not defined in the rules is up to the Big Cheese, but five or ten minutes seems a reasonable amount of time to us.
Q: Woodcraft says you can do first aid with it. What does that mean for a damaged character?
A: This is a Big Cheese call, but our recommendation is that it should only provide a small amount of healing, and be limited in how it is applied. A good rule of thumb would be to make a Woodcraft roll versus the amount of damage an organ or organ segment has taken to heal a single nugget. Thus, if the Limbs organ in a Basic Game has taken 3 nuggets of damage, the Woodcraft roll would need to roll 3 successes, and this would only heal one of the three damaged nuggets. In this instance, first aid could not be used on that organ again that day, though alchemical or magical/psionic healing could still be applied. For the Advanced Game, use the individual organ segments instead of the organ itself.
PACKAGES
Q: Does either one of the “Waves Of Force” abilities embargo any nuggets?
A: No, it is freely usable at will. However, it only uses the practitioner’s currently unembargoed and un-chunked nuggets for the damage total. If you normally have 16 PG nuggets, and 2 are embargoed from damage and another 4 are chunked to power a spell or effect, you would only roll 10d8 for damage if your attack is successful.
MAGIC & PSIONICS
Q: How far away from a spell or effect can it be cancelled?
A: Within the range of the spell itself, e.g. Quicksand has a range of 80’, so any Magician within 80’ of a Quicksand spell manifestation can attempt to cancel it.
Q: If a practitioner’s range for a spell or effect is different from the range for the source of the spell or effect, does canceling use the canceling practioner’s range?
A: In the case of spells or effects that extend the range at higher mastery levels, such as Noxious Fumes, the cancellation range is always that of the New level unless the cancelling practitioner knows the spell/effect to be canceled themselves at a higher level, in which case they can use that. A Magician who does not know the Noxious Fumes spell, or who only knows it at the New level, can attempt to cancel from 66’ away. If the same character knew it at the Apprenticed level they could attempt to cancel from 132’ away, or 264’ at the Journied level, or 528’ at the Mastered level. Note that the range is either to the person/object, or any point within the radius of an area manifestation, as applicable to the spell or effect in question.
Q: Can a practitioner cast a spell or generate an effect more than once at a time?
A: Yes, but if they are cast on the same area or person the effects do not overlap. You could generate a Double Time effect on yourself at the New level with one set of nuggets, and then use a second set to generate it on an ally, but you could not generate it twice on yourself or them to quadruple your time. Likewise, two Applefalls in the same radius don’t double the damage because some of the falling rocks from the two different casters will hit each other and bounce around like billiard balls, reducing the effectiveness of the spells.
Q: If you cast a spell or generate an effect on yourself that has a fixed duration, can you cast or generate it again while it’s running to extend its duration?
A: You can apply it to yourself twice if no external factor would prevent it, but it doesn’t extend the duration of the first one—it overlaps and so the total run would be a little less than if they were cast sequentially. For time-critical applications, the Big Cheese may require a Torso or Nerves roll to prevent problems, such as for example a Ghost Moving psychic whose effect is just about to end while still inside a solid object.
Q: How does a blindfold, closed eyes, or a mirror affect spells/effect whose targeting method is “sight”?
A: Unless the description says otherwise, a practitioner in those cases has to see their target with their own physical sight, and not a remote sensing effect. “Arcane Seeing”, for example, would be an exception, as it allows the practitioner to select targets even in darkness or while the practitioner is otherwise blinded. Otherwise, use the rules for concealment on pages 110 or 353 of the rules to determine the number of extra successes a practitioner needs to strike the target.
Any barrier that would block the spell or effect from physically traveling from the practitioner to the target would also prevent the target from being affected if it can’t pe*****te the barrier. Greenwand bolts emanate from the practitioner but Applefall rocks rain down from above, so the latter could attack targets on the other side of a wall if they are in the radius, while the former would have to pe*****te the wall’s PN.
For a mirror, the best course of action would be to have the practitioner morph their organ dice one or more places worse on the Magic or Psionics roll to represent the difficulty of such indirect targeting.
SPELLS & EFFECTS
Q: Can the Shifter’s special ability be used while a practitioner is under a Ghost Move effect?
A: The practitioner can use their special ability freely in Ghost Move form if they are not moving. They can stop next to a wall or door and detect what is on the other side as long they hold still, just the same as if they were solid.
Q: What are the limits of the Sn**ch effect? Can it take worn clothing, armor, a backpack, tilaka, wand, or shield?
A: The description only specifies that the object be small, and that it ends up in the practitioner’s hand when it works. The exact size and weight are really at the Big Cheese’s discretion, but the design intent is that the item be about the size of a typical hand, or that it fit in one. This effect will not detach anything attached to a character, though Hand Of Force could do that if it is allowed to operate uncontested or unnoticed. So to take the list of items in order, a reasonable ruling would be no to everything except the wand, as all the others are attached to the character in some form. A possible exception might be the shield if it’s a small one; a large shield would be definitely out of bounds, as would a polearm, two-handed sword, etc.
THE ENVIRONMENT
Q: What type of damage does falling inflict, and what armor protects against it?
A: Falling damage has no type, and no armor protects against it except in explicit cases such as the Bounce psionic effect (which will be published in an upcoming expansion).
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