Character generation is by the book. Characters speak languages that are logical for them, ie an Italian-American character will have Italian as well as English. Languages are, however, unlikely to be important in play.

House rules

Hit Points are the total of Muscle plus Agility over ten, rounded up as per the book, but characters do not get to add +5 to that total.

Guns do the damage listed in the book plus 1d10.

Characters who have taken wounds equal to or greater than their Hit Points are unconscious or otherwise incapacitated and are dying. Characters who take equal to or greater than their Hit Points plus five are dead. A character who is dying can be saved by a character spending a short time with them and making a successful Observation roll to stem the immediate bleeding or by a character doing nothing but spending time with them until skilled medical help arrives (in both cases the wounded character remains incapacitated).

In hand to hand combat, a character can attempt to block/dodge/parry the incoming blow by rolling their Agility or less. If successful, the damage done by the successful attack is halved (fractions rounded down). For example, if Officer Lewis is punched by a thug for 3 points, but Officer Lewis rolls less than his Agility, Officer Lewis will only take 1 point (3 points halved, rounded down). Essentially, in a hand to hand fight successful blows will always do something (unless halved and rounded down takes you to zero) but a skilled fighter can roll with the punches and evade the worst of them so taking less damage than would otherwise be the case.