Talents & Bits

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Printable cards Talent Cards 17 Bit Cards 33

Two Systems: Talents and Bits

Ink & Mayhem uses two parallel ability systems.

Talents work the way they work in every other Exodus NDS setting. A character begins with a small number of talents, selected from the general catalog plus the setting-specific additions in this chapter. Talents are typically passive or low-cost enhancements; they shape how your character approaches rolls over the long term. New talents are purchased with XP per the Core Rules.

Bits are the cartoon-specific subsystem. Each Bit is a named, activated move, a cartoon gag your character knows how to perform on camera. Every character begins with three filled Bit slots (Chapter Three) and can expand up to six over the course of a campaign. Additional Bit slots cost 10 XP; learning a Bit for an empty slot or replacing a known Bit costs 5 XP.

Talents and Bits do not share a budget. A character with four talents can also have six Bits. XP is spent in one pool or the other per the Core XP rules, but buying a Bit slot, learning a Bit, and buying a talent are distinct purchases.

The Bit Repertoire

The thirty-three Bits below form the core menu of cartoon moves. Additional Bits may be created by the GM or imported from future supplements. All Bits share a common format:

• Activation — Action, Maneuver, Quick Action, Triggered, or Passive. A Triggered Bit requires a specific event before it can be used; its entry states whether using it is an Action, Maneuver, Quick Action, reaction, or other timing.
• Limit — how often per scene, session, or check the Bit may fire.
• Cost — any resource required beyond the limit (usually a Gag Token, sometimes a Chaos Point to the GM).
• Effect — the mechanical result.

Master Bit Index

All catalog Bits, alphabetical, with their parent Shtick and a quick activation/limit summary. Use it as a shopping list at character creation or when buying into a new Bit slot (slot rules and costs at the start of this chapter and in Chapter Three).

Self-Sabotaging Genius, Bits

Elaborate Trap

Last-Second Monologue

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene Before resolving a check that would end a scene or conflict in your favor, deliver a gloating monologue. You gain 1 automatic Success on the check. However, the opposing character, if they have a valid check available, may interrupt with it before yours resolves, gaining +1 Boon die on their interrupt.

Gadget That Only Works Once

Activation: Action · Limit: once per session Produce a custom-built gadget tailored to the problem at hand, a grapple-net, a pocket hovercraft, a rival-dissolver ray. On any action using the gadget, remove all Trial and Crisis dice from the pool. After the action resolves, the gadget breaks, explodes, vanishes into a puff of ink, or gently implodes. It is gone for the rest of the session, and in the fiction, for good.

Hindsight Tantrum

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene Immediately after one of your checks fails badly (a Calamity result or a failure by 3+), throw a screaming, stamping, ink-flinging tantrum. Recover 2 Strain and gain +1 Boon die on your next check this scene. The GM gains +1 Chaos Point.

Unflappable Straight Man, Bits

Deadpan Reaction

The Explanation

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Take a moment to patiently explain the current situation to one other PC or NPC. That character gains +1 Boon die on their next check this scene. You recover 1 Strain. The explanation need not be short, but the scene does not pause for it, enemies may still act.

Quiet Disapproval

Activation: Quick Action · Limit: once per scene When a character near you does something foolish, glare silently at them. Until they acknowledge the glare (in-fiction) or make a successful Charisma check against you to shake it off, they add 1 Bane die to any check this scene.

Unbreakable Composure

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on You are immune to mechanical penalties from fear, intimidation, startle, surprise, spectacle, or any source that would add Trial or Crisis dice to your pool based on emotional reaction. You still feel these things; you just never visibly show them.

Chaos Magnet, Bits

Anvil Magnet

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on When the GM rolls or declares that an anvil, piano, safe, or similarly heavy object falls in your scene, it aims for you by default, regardless of who provoked it. You take the full damage (usually 4–6 Elasticity), but the Wiped Out condition does not trigger from falling-object damage. If the damage would reduce you to 0 Elasticity, you remain at 1 Elasticity instead. After impact, recover 1 Gag Token.

Disaster Survival

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per session When a scene-wide catastrophic event occurs, explosion, flood, collapse, ship sinking, acme-brand tornado, declare you are unaffected. The disaster passes through you or around you without cost. Everyone else is on their own.

Wait What Just Happened

Activation: Quick Action · Limit: once per scene At any point in a scene, ask the GM to recap what just happened. The recap reveals one plot detail you would not have known otherwise, as if you had been paying attention the whole time. The GM chooses which detail.

The Unfortunate Nap

Activation: Maneuver · Limit: once per session Fall asleep on the spot. You cannot be moved easily, injured by most means, or directly targeted by effects that require your participation while napping. You wake when the scene ends, when directly slapsticked (the classic bucket of water), or when another PC spends a maneuver to shake you awake.

Scheming Little One, Bits

The Dawdle

Activation: Quick Action · Limit: once per scene When being pursued by a larger opponent, stop, taunt, wiggle, and resume running before they reach you. Your pursuer’s next check to catch you has one Trial die upgraded to Crisis .

Fast Talk

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Deliver a rapid-fire, circular, comically confusing monologue at a target. Make an Average Charisma check; on success, the target is Staggered for one round and loses their next action untangling what you said.

Improvised Booby Trap

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Construct a booby trap on the spot from whatever is in the scene, string, a bucket, a loose plank, a banana peel. No equipment required. The trap triggers when a named target next moves; on activation, they suffer an appropriate slapstick consequence and upgrade their next check’s Trial die to Crisis .

Size Does Not Matter

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on Any opponent physically larger than you, at least one full Scale size larger, adds 1 Bane die to social and combat checks against you while you are openly defiant. The audience loves an underdog, and loves a visibly frustrated big toon even more.

Imperturbable Professional, Bits

Expert Testimony

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Deliver a formal declaration of your professional credentials. Gain +2 Successes on a skill check related to your profession, and one NPC in the scene treats you as the authority on the topic for the rest of the scene (they defer to your conclusions in-fiction, subject to the GM’s judgment on plausibility).

Full Regalia

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on You arrive in every scene in full, context-appropriate professional attire, no matter how implausible. Deep-sea diving gear in a library; full judge’s robes at a circus; surgical scrubs on a battlefield. When your outfit is contextually absurd, you gain +1 Boon die on any check that depends on others taking you seriously.

Professional Courtesy

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene When you face a named professional rival, exchange formal greetings (bow, handshake, tip of the hat). Both of you recover 2 Strain. Neither of you may attack the other for one round. Civility resumes in the second round, at which point the pants-kicking may commence.

The Monologue Is the Point

Activation: Action · Limit: once per session Deliver an uninterrupted speech on your craft. You gain Breakthrough on a single check this scene, even if no Mastery die is in the pool. Other PCs may each spend 1 Gag Token after your monologue ends to gain +1 Boon die on any one check made later in the scene.

Spotlight Thief, Bits

Sudden Musical Number

Activation: Action · Limit: once per session Burst into song. All other characters in the scene must spend a full round listening unless they succeed at a Hard Readiness check to ignore you. At the end of the number, you gain +1 Gag Token and +1 Boon die on your next check. If the song is genuinely enjoyed by the table, the GM may grant a second Gag Token.

Steal the Scene

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene When another character’s check would produce a Breakthrough, upstage them: the Breakthrough credit transfers to you. Their check still resolves mechanically as if they had produced it, but the audience and the in-fiction onlookers credit the moment to you.

Ham It Up

Activation: Quick Action · Limit: once per scene Take a moment to mug for the audience, a pose, a wink, a twirl. Gain +1 Boon die on your next check this scene. The GM gains +1 Chaos Point.

To the Camera

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Address the audience directly for one sentence or gesture. This is a full Fourth-Wall interaction (see Chapter Eight). You become Fourth-Wall Aware for the rest of the scene. On a successful Easy Fourth-Wall check, the next check made in your favor by any PC gains +1 Boon die .

Audience Eyes

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on You are permanently Fourth-Wall Aware (Chapter Eight). You can see the audience at all times, whether your character is in a performance scene or not. Once per scene, your first Bit or talent that is a Fourth-Wall action does not count against that Bit or talent’s own listed limit. This does not bypass the Fourth Wall subsystem’s global limits: only one Addressing may be done per scene, and Walking Through remains once per session unless another rule specifically increases it.

Loose Cannon, Bits

Pocket Dynamite

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Produce a stick of dynamite (or a grenade, or a rocket-propelled anvil, or a tiny red bomb with a lit fuse) from the air and throw it. Roll a ranged combat check; on any success, the target’s location explodes for standard ranged-weapon damage. The GM then rolls 1 Bane die , every symbol result on that die is an unintended secondary effect (knocked scenery, property destruction, attracted attention).

Crash the Scene

Activation: Action · Limit: once per session Arrive mid-scene through a wall, a window, a ceiling, or the floor, regardless of how you got there or whether the scene had been sealed. The scene pauses for your entrance. Gain +1 Boon die on your first check this scene. The wall, window, ceiling, or floor is now damaged.

No Brakes

Activation: Passive · Limit: always on When you make any Might or Agility check involving forward movement, you never stop short. You always overshoot, burst through, or blow past the intended stopping point. This lets you break through barriers no other character could, thin walls, locked doors, chain-link fences, security cordons, as a side effect of simply moving. GMs should adjudicate collateral damage generously in your favor.

Collateral Damage

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene When one of your actions results in significant property damage, take a moment to admire the wreckage. You gain +1 Boon die on your next check. The ENDS Prop Department adds the cost to your tab (see Chapter Six).

Lovable Dope, Bits

Sincere Question

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Ask one sincere, earnest question of an NPC. The NPC must answer truthfully, even if it compromises their goals. The GM may refuse only if the NPC is a professional deceiver (active spy, career politician, a lawyer in session); the default answer is yes.

Accidental Genius

Activation: Quick Action (triggered) · Limit: once per scene When you fail a check at Hard or higher difficulty, declare yourself the Lovable Dope. The check succeeds at minimum margin, the wrong thing you were doing turns out to have been the right thing. The table should describe, in one sentence, how the misunderstanding happened to work.

Big Hug

Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Attempt to hug another character. If they accept (voluntarily), or if they fail a Readiness check to resist, both of you recover 3 Strain and your Bond with each other shifts +1 (to a maximum of +3; see Chapter Eight). Hostile characters may resist the hug, but the offer itself may shift Bonds.

The Wrong Thing That Works

Activation: Passive (declared) · Limit: once per session Once per session, when you fail a check, you may declare the failure actually worked, provided the table can collectively describe how the wrong answer turned out to be correct. The GM is the final arbiter of “describes a wrong thing that actually worked.” When accepted, the check succeeds at the same margin it failed by.

Talents

Talents expand and modify your character’s baseline mechanics. They carry no Shtick-affinity tags; the only gate is the Tier prerequisite listed in each entry.

Fourth Wall Talents

Every talent in this section extends a subsystem introduced in Chapter Eight: Universe Rules (The Fourth Wall).

Aside to the Audience

Tier: 1 · Activation: Action Once per scene, address the audience with a one-liner, eyebrow-raise, or exasperated look. This is a full Fourth-Wall interaction; see Chapter Eight. On a successful Easy Fourth-Wall check, gain +1 Boon die on your next check this scene and recover 1 Strain. Requires Fourth-Wall Awareness.

Walk Through the Screen

Tier: 2 · Activation: Action · Prerequisite: permanent Fourth-Wall Awareness Your Walking Through ability (Chapter Eight) may be used twice per session instead of once. In addition, when you return from walking through, you return where you want to return rather than at the GM’s discretion.

Narrative Override

Tier: 3 · Activation: Action · Cost: 1 Gag Token · Prerequisite: permanent Fourth-Wall Awareness Once per session, address the narrator (or the invisible typewriter of fate, or the author’s ghost). Rewrite one small, recent detail of the scene, a door that was locked is now unlocked, an item you said you had is now in your hand, a Bane die the GM added to your pool is now gone. The detail must be recent (this scene) and small (GM discretion).

Shtick Talents

These talents build on your Shtick, locked at creation (Chapters Three and Eight).

In Character

Tier: 1 · Activation: Passive Expand your In-Shtick bonus. When you are playing In-Shtick (Chapter Eight), you gain +2 Boon dice instead of the standard +1.

Committed to the Bit

Tier: 2 · Activation: Passive Once per session, ignore the Against-Shtick penalty (Trial upgraded to Crisis ) on a single check. You may take an action that violates your Shtick this one time without mechanical cost, but the narrative cost remains (GMs should lean into it).

Bit Virtuoso

Tier: 2 · Activation: Passive Your fourth, fifth, and sixth Bit slots cost 5 XP each instead of 10 XP each. The 5 XP cost to learn or replace a Bit (see the start of this chapter) is unchanged, and this talent does not refund XP spent on Bit slots before it was taken.

Shtick Hero

Tier: 3 · Activation: Passive When you end a session having played In-Shtick for every meaningful scene, you gain +3 XP instead of the standard +2. The GM is the final arbiter of “every meaningful scene.”

Cartoon Physics Talents

Each talent here modifies one of the Cartoon Physics rules in Chapter Eight.

Hammerspace Expert

Tier: 1 · Activation: Passive You may use Hammerspace twice per scene without cost (instead of once). Additional uses beyond the second still cost a Gag Token or Hard Intellect check using Gag-Craft per Chapter Eight.

Disguise Master

Tier: 1 · Activation: Passive Disguises you wear are one difficulty step harder to see through than the current Disguises Work rule in Chapter Eight. In the default rules, this means observers make a Severe Savvy check using Perception instead of a Hard check. You may additionally impose one extra Bane die beyond that rule’s normal penalty.

Sign Painter

Tier: 2 · Activation: Action · Limit: once per scene Paint, scrawl, or hold up a sign (TRAP, DO NOT ENTER, FREE BIRDSEED, etc.). The sign becomes physically real for the scene and behaves as labeled. A sign labeled TRAP creates a real trap; a sign labeled DOOR can be opened; a sign labeled FREE BIRDSEED attracts any hungry bird in the scene. GM discretion applies to signs describing impossible things.

Gravity Is Optional

Tier: 3 · Activation: Passive · Limit: once per scene Once per scene, you may ignore a single falling effect entirely. You do not fall. You hang in the air, walk back to the cliff, or float gently down with a parasol. The choice of ignore or fall is yours and may be made after the fall has been declared.

General Talents

Character Voice

Tier: 1 · Activation: Passive The first time each scene that you speak in-character with a distinctive voice (player’s choice, committed to by the player at the table), recover 1 Strain. The voice must be consistent across scenes.

Comic Timing

Tier: 1 · Activation: Quick Action · Limit: once per round Before your action, pause dramatically for a beat, a full breath, an eyebrow raise, a held silence. Gain +1 Boon die on the following check. This talent may be used at most once per round.

Unbreakable

Tier: 2 · Activation: Passive Your maximum Elasticity increases by 3. Recalculate starting Elasticity accordingly.

Second Wind

Tier: 2 · Activation: Action · Limit: once per session As an action on your turn, recover 5 Strain and 5 Elasticity. Your character takes a deep breath, shakes off the damage like water off a duck, and is ready for more.

Contract Renegotiation

Tier: 2 · Activation: Passive You have renegotiated your contract. Your starting Gag Tokens for each session increase by 1.

Star Power

Tier: 3 · Activation: Passive · Limit: once per scene Once per scene, when you spend a Breakthrough on a check, resolve one additional Breakthrough-scale narrative effect appropriate to the scene. This does not add another Success, does not count as another Breakthrough for Perfect Cartoon Moments, and does not duplicate any specific effect that has already been purchased from the same roll.