# Underface: The Secret Script RPG tags: #game/rpg/underface **Underface: The Secret Script RPG** is a Korean tabletop game that runs a sturdy d100 engine but points it squarely at something that engine usually ignores: secrets, hidden motives, and the exact moment the truth leaks. Byeol Bureumi's design builds on the [[Basic Role Playing|Basic Roleplaying]] System Reference Document — the roll-under percentile chassis behind half of Chaosium's catalog — and then lays a distinctly un-BRP premise on top of it. Every character arrives holding a secret the other players haven't been told, every scenario is literally a script the Game Master is holding back, and the whole reason the game exists is the moment those two things collide. Underface calls that collision a *secret-script*: you play not to roll well but to find out what's written on the back of everyone's handout. ## The Secret-Script The Game Master is the **Scripter**; the players are **Actors**. Each scenario assigns every character a **Handout (HO)** — the role and secrets the scenario hands them — and a handout always has two faces. The **Surface** is the public side: the character's identity and background, their openly pursued **surface motive**, and their skill list, all shown to everyone. The **Reverse** is the hidden side, known only to the Actor holding it: the character's true **reverse motive** and whatever deeper secret they're keeping. Handouts don't sit still. What you first receive is a **Draft**, but as events unfold a handout may be updated into a **Revised Draft** — secrets are added, beliefs you held turn out false, and a character's hidden truth shifts. When any secret changes, the mere fact that something shifted is announced to every Actor even if its contents stay secret; the tension of sensing a change you can't see is exactly what Underface is courting. At the table's center sits the **golden rule**: what the **Actor** knows and what the **character** knows are different. A secret revealed to the players is not knowledge the fictional character may act on, and the whole scenario's carefully built suspense collapses the moment anyone leaks that distinction. Meanwhile the Scripter holds the plot's own truth — the secrets woven into the script behind every event — so a session is a slow, deliberate unravelling toward an ending whose truth none of the characters, and barely any of the players, fully saw coming. ## Mechanics ### The BRP Core Underface runs the **Basic Roleplaying** engine straight and clean. Actions resolve on a **D100** percentile roll, **succeeding when the result is equal to or below the target**. It uses the familiar eight characteristics — Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Education, Power, Dexterity, Appearance — with derived **Move** and **Hit Points**, and skills that live on a 00–100% chance-of-success scale. The Scripter sets difficulty on a ladder: **Automatic** (no roll), **Ordinary** (normal target), **Difficult** (halve the target, rounding up), and **Impossible** (no roll, just failure). A **special** — any roll within one-tenth of the target — is a notably better success, while a result of **00 is always a fumble** no matter the target. Opposed rolls between an initiator and a defender are decided first by who succeeds, then by **margin of success** (target − roll) when both beat the number. Growth uses a cleverly inverted **experience roll**: you succeed at it when you roll *above* your skill, then add 1D6 to improve — the better you already are, the harder it gets to improve. ### Handout Play Character creation orbits the handout rather than a list of classes. Each handout names the **3–5 skills** that define how that role operates in the story, and you spend your points across them — a character with few skills is a sharp, high-value specialist; one with many is a wide but shallow utility player. You're invited to read the character off that skill list ("how has a person with these skills lived?") and, crucially, to **play two motives at once**: performing the surface motive while sheathing the reverse one is the heart of handout play. Characteristics are rolled (3D6×5, with Size and Intelligence at 2D6×5+30) or set freely, and the Scripter may rein in an all-high or all-low spread to keep the story from getting dull. ### Combat Combat is brisk, BRP-framed. Time runs in **rounds** of about twelve seconds and individual **turns**, ordered by highest Dexterity (firearms edge out melee on ties). A turn proceeds through **intent declaration → movement → action**, one action a turn, and you may **wait** — dropping to the back of the round in exchange for the flexibility of acting later. Defensive moves like blocking and dodging happen as reactions off your own turn, independent of the order, so the fight stays reactive even as initiative stays strict. ## Editions - **Underface: The Secret Script RPG** — a Korean-tabletop "secret-script RPG" by **Byeol Bureumi**, built on the **Basic Roleplaying** SRD 1.0 under the **BRP Open Game License**. *In the library.* ## References - [BRP — System Reference Document (Chaosium)](https://www.chaosium.com/brp-system-reference-document/) - [Basic Roleplaying — Game Rules (Online SRD, Chaosium)](https://brp.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying/)