Police Cops Lastly, players have 9D to distribute among the

The loose cannon, fish-outta-water with following 3 stats, bringing none of them above 5D.
nothing to lose; the strait-laced stickler who never met These will be referred to as your Stat Dice.
a rulebook he didn’t love; the neurotic, maybe-autistic,
with an uncanny ability to link clues together; the Stats
plucky goth kid, who can use computers for things they Strong – This is how strong you
were never designed for; and the old guy who’s been are. It’s used for shooting and
on the job longer than anybody and knows his way beating up bad guys, as well as
around an interrogation room. You’re Police Cops and just being a badass.
you’re on the case.
Police Cops works best with 4-5 players, and Fast – This is how fast you are.
one Commissioner. The Commish is the GM. He’s the It’s used for rolling over the
one who shouts at the players for causing more hood of your car, or jumping
collateral damage than the bad guys and tells them to across buildings, and just being
hand in their badge and gun, because they’re off the plain cool.
case! The game is designed to play like a cop show,
each session or two being an Episode with its own Smart – This is how smart you
enclosed story, but still part of broader series. are. It’s used for hacking into
mainframes, putting clues
Starting Up together, and generally just
To play Police Cops, there are a few things knowing what’s up.
you’ll need. Friends, scratch paper, and pencils and an
obnoxious amount of 6-sided dice.
Before you begin playing, there’s a few Players also have access to any gear that
conversations you need to have around the table. would be standard for their department.
Firstly, this is Police Cops; you need to have a premise
for the game. The more hackneyed and ridiculous the Playing the game
better. TV is rife with examples, just waiting to be When The Commish thinks that there’s a chance
plagiarised. Maybe you work on cold cases, by that a character may fail a given task, they call for a
investigating crime scenes, for a special victims unit check, rolling a number of dice and taking the highest.
brought in by the NCIS to look at bones. Choosing a The number of dice rolled is equal to Stat Dice + Ability
theme song helps with this step. Maybe something by Dice, with a minimum of 1D. If no Ability Dice apply,
The Who? then you just roll your Stat Dice.
Once that is done, each players needs to
discuss what kind of character they would like to play. Results
The point of this conversation is to make sure that A result of a 5 or 6 on a die is
there is not too much overlap in what people want to a success, with a 6 being a true
do. Having two hard-bitten, nothing to lose type guys is success.
less fun. Everyone needs to be unique enough and fill
a different role in the team. It doesn’t matter if the kind A result of a 3 or 4 is a mixed
of player you want to be wouldn’t traditionally be success.
involved with your particular area of law enforcement.
This isn’t GURPS, we’re not going for realism here. A result of a 1 or 2 is a
failure, with a 1 being a
Character Creation humiliating failure.
Character creation takes all of five minutes for
the entire group and attempts to facilitate the
Bonuses
uniqueness of each character emphasised above.
This is Police Cops. In Police Cops, you get
The player immediately to the left of the
bonuses for doing awesome, cliché cop things. Is that
Commish announces their character’s name and one
thing the player just did totally awesome? Then it
thing that their character is great at and writes it down.
deserves a bonus!
The next player on the left now announces that they
Bonuses are extra dice that are awarded, and
are terrible at the thing chosen by the previous player,
that can be kept in reserve to be added to rolls at any
and then they choose something that they themselves
time. A bonus can only be added before the dice are
are great at.
rolled. This allows you to potentially succeed at
Go around the table like this, until each player
difficulty 10 tasks. You can only have 3 bonus dice in
has 3 abilities, they are good at, and 3 that they are
reserve at any time. No hoarding Bonus Dice. You can
bad at. When that is done, players rate their chosen
spend bonus dice all at once, or one at a time.
abilities from best to worst, assigning the modifiers
+3D, +2D and +1D to their good abilities, and -1D, -2D
and -3D to their bad abilities. These are your Ability
Dice.
Opposing and Assisting Damage
If two characters are opposing each other, then Damage happens when you get attacked and fail
they must make opposing rolls. The winner of a to defend, or if you otherwise sustain an injury. NPCs
contest like this is the player who rolls the most and enemies will generally go down to one or two
successes. If it’s a draw, then the two characters are bullets, but PCs are made of tougher stuff: Main
locked in a stalemate until they can change the Character Armour. Damage follows a track, as follows.
situation significantly enough to require another roll. If
it is an obvious attacker and defender situation, then a Healthy – No problem at all
draw goes in favour of the defender.
If a player wishes to assist another player, they Just a scratch – The equivalent of
may only do so if they have an ability that is relevant to two bullet wounds in the arms
the situation. They add their ability dice to the roll of and legs. No big deal.
the player they are helping. Keep track of whose dice
roll what, perhaps by rolling them separately or using Ah, that hurt! – Actually, you’re
different colours, to see who performed well in the starting to lose a bit of blood
task. Perhaps the person helping did nothing, or after the third and fourth
fumbled. bullets. Use half the dice you
usually would for tasks.
Combat
Combat isn’t for just shooting a sucker or I’m Down – Unable to do anything
beating up some dude who’s not co-operating. Those except crawl a bit and bleed.
are just regular checks. Combat happens when there
are a number of people on opposing sides, kicking Cliffhanger – Removed from play
ass, or shooting each other up. for the Episode. Will they
survive? Find out next week.
Initiative
At the beginning of a combat, all players Dead – Damn. Contract expired.
involved must make an initiative roll. An initiative roll is Hire a new actor.
the total roll on your Fast dice. The round progresses
in initiative order, from highest number to lowest. Each -
character has a chance to act when their turn comes
around. When all characters have acted, that’s the end
of a round. Each round is about 10 seconds long.

Actions
There are three kinds of actions you can take in a
round. You may make any two of them, in any order.
Attack and Move may be made on your turn, Defend is
made on somebody else’s turn, if you haven’t already
taken two actions. If you Defend before your turn,
you’re left with only one action on your turn.
Combat rolls are the same as any other check,
and as such, can be modified by relevant Ability Dice.

Attack – You make a Strong roll

to shoot or hit, or otherwise
be violent against another
character.

Move – You make a Fast roll to

chase, jump, or any other
movement related action.

Defend – If you have an action

left when somebody attacks you,
you can defend by either
rolling Fast, to try and dodge
or take cover. If you’re not
defending from a bullet, you
may defend by rolling Strong.
You may choose not to defend.