[2.2] Stat checks
The standard stat check first takes a number that is based upon a character's skills or attributes. This is explained more in-depth below, in the Attribute Checks and Skill Checks sections. Then certain modifiers may be applied to that number, depending upon various situational variables and the difficulty of the task being attempted. The Attribute/Skill ratings with the situational modifiers applied is known as the Base Score, or just Base. Finally, 2d10 is subtracted from the Base, giving the final value, the Success Level. If the Success Level is greater than or equal to 1, the attempt succeeded. The higher the Success Level, the more impressive the success. Some actions provide special benefits when a Success Level is high enough.
On the other hand, if the Success Level is zero or less, the attempt failed. How badly the attempt failed depends on the Success Level. A Success Level that exactly equals zero means that the character just barely didn't make it. In most cases, a Success Level of 0 indicates that the character can try again without any problems. Lower negative numbers indicate more and more spectacular failures.
There are also special cases considered Automatic and Critical
successes and failures. When the two dice rolled are both 1's, it is either
an Automatic or Critical Success, explained below in
section 2.2.7. If both dice roll 0's, it is an Automatic
or Critical Failure, which is explained further in section 2.2.8.
Occasionally a situation will arise where a character needs to attempt an
action that is too general to fit under any one skill. For a person attempting
to lift a heavy load, the most logical conclusion would be to base it only
upon their Strength rating, and so on for the rest of a character's attributes.
Attribute Checks take the applicable Attribute score, double it,
apply any situational modifiers, then subtract 2d10 for the final result. Keep
in mind that Attribute Checks are fairly uncommon; the skills are designed to be
general enough to cover a variety of situations.
Example:
Most stat checks in the game will be Skill Checks. Skills checks
are used when the action a character is attempting can be correlated directly
to one of their skills. For example, firing a revolver would use the
Combat: Handgun skill, and trying to evaluate the worth of an antique
vase would depend upon their Appraisal skill.
To calculate the Base Score for a Skill Check, the player takes the character's
rating in the skill being used, and adds to it the skill's parent Attribute.
Many skills have only a single parent attribute; it is the physical or mental
characteristic most closely tied to the skill in question. However, some
skills may have a main parent attribute, with other attributes to be used in
special situations. The Astronomy skills relies entirely on Intellect,
since it is mainly memorization of figures and procedures. A field such as
Neurology depends heavily upon Intellect for the remembering and
diagnosing of various disorders, but when performing brain surgery, the
Neurology skill would depend upon Agility for steady hands. The Pick
Lock skill is generally Agility-based, but may call for Intellect when
trying to open an electronic lock.
Each skill description lists its primary parent attribute, and those with
special cases will also specify what alternate parent should be used in any
particular circumstances.
Example:
Daniela Taylor is trying her damnedest to follow the trail left behind by
a group of three men that passed through the woods several hours ago.
Daniela's Tracking skill is a 4, and in its parent attribute, Intuition, she
has a rating of 6.
The Game Master decides that the tracks, though an hour old, are not
too difficult to follow, because of the number of people in the group, and
the moist forest ground was fairly receptive to footprints. He rules that
the difficulty of this attempt is a +2, which is moderately difficult. Daniela
has a Base Score of 12, and rolls her two d10's. She gets a 1 and a 7, giving
her a Success Level of 4 for this attempt. She follows the trail of trampled
ground and broken underbrush fairly easily.
After several minutes, the GM decides Daniela has to make another skill check
to continue tracking. She has the same Base, but this time rolls a 4 and a 9
on her ten-sideds, giving her a Success Level of -1. She has lost the trail of
the men for now. The Game Master reasons that she can search the area and
gives another attempt after one in-game minute has passed.
Sometimes a person's attempt to perform an action is being directly opposed
by somebody else. Examples of this would be arm wrestling, tug-of-war,
playing poker, a stare-down contest, and many others. Resisted Actions
are any situations where two (or more) people's skills/attributes are put into
direct and opposing competition.
For a resisted action, all parties involved make a standard skill or attribute
check. The person with the highest Success Level is considered the "winner".
Their Success Level is then modified by subtracting the second-highest result,
giving an all-new Success Level. This final rating can now be used to determine
just how successful the attempt was, if applicable. In a resisted action,
even a negative Success Level can indicate a success, as long as everyone else
involved got even lower rolls.
If two or more people tie for the highest Success Level, then usually
the struggle will continue on, but everyone who didn't tie for highest will
be left out of the next attempt. If five football players are struggling for a
fumbled football and two of them tie for highest rolls, those two continue
grabbing for the ball in another roll, while the three that didn't make it
have lost sight of the ball or are no longer able to reach it.
Examples:
Johnny, Franky, and Richard are all playing 5-card draw. Rather than
actually playing out a hand, their players opt to instead use their characters'
Gambling skills. All three of them calculate their base scores and subtract
the roll of 2d10. Johnny ends up with a -3, Franky with a 1, and Richard with
a -2. Franky wins, since his Success Level was the highest. He then subtracts
Richard's (the next highest) score, ending up with a new Success Level of 3
(1 - -2 = 3). In a poker hand, it's not important by how much a person won
by, so the new Success Level of 3 doesn't really mean anything.
Having played several hands of cards, both Franky and Johnny reach at the
same time for the last beer in the cooler. Both try desperately to pull the
can out of the other's hands. The two each make Strength checks, Franky's a
-5, Johnny's a -1. Even though they both got negative scores, Johnny's was
higher, so he manages to wrench the can out of Franky's fingers. He makes a
mocking gesture as he downs the drink. His new Success Level of 4 (-1 - -5) is
unimportant in this context.
Undeniably, some actions are harder to perform than others. It is much
easier to, say, shoot a non-moving target from a steady stance than it is to
hit a running man with a quickly snapped off shot. Keeping your balance while
walking along the curb is simpler than crossing a wet tightrope suspended in
high winds.
Every action attempted has some Difficulty Modifier attached to it,
even if the modifier is +0. Modifiers are assigned by a Game Master or judge
depending upon the inherent difficulty of the task at hand. This isn't always
an easy thing to do, deciding upon an appropriate modifier, so many example
modifiers are provided for specific actions throughout the text of this manual.
Difficulty modifiers are cumulative; in other words, if there are two distinct
and separate characteristics of the situation at hand that make it harder or
easier, they are added together. In the tightrope example above, the two
qualifiers are: the tightrope is wet, making it more slippery, and there is a
lot of strong wind, making it more difficult to keep one's balance.
Individually they make the task harder. Together, crossing that rope is even
more difficult still.
A very general list of difficulty modifiers here. For the most part,
modifiers range between +20 for exceedingly, child-like simple tasks, to -20
for the most ridiculously outrageous attempts. An over-all modifier of +0
indicates that the action is fairly difficult to attempt. A skilled person
would, on the average, have a 50/50 chance of success. At -9, the most skilled
and celebrated grandmaster of the field has a 50/50 chance of succeeding. That
should hopefully give you some indication of how to relate the difficulty
modifiers to the desired chance of success or failure.
As was mentioned above, the higher the Success Level, the more successful the
attempt was. In contrast, the lower the Success Level, the more spectacular
failure.
There aren't any penalties to a Success Level of 1. You did the deed, you got
the job done. In many cases, a Success Level of 1 is just as good as any higher
number (i.e. when jumping a ravine, as long as you make it over, everyone's
happy). A lot of the time, though, a higher success indicates much improved
results. When repairing something, a high success roll could indicate it's
been fixed to near mint condition. On an attack, a higher Success Level might
produce more damage because a vital area was struck. With successes, a 1 is
acceptable, a 5 is good, a 10 is impressive, a 15 is spectacular, and anything
above is miraculous. Of course, it's up to the GM or Judge to decide on the
actually game play results of a successful roll. Most skills will specify if
a higher success roll will provide increased benefits to a character.
The Success Level value of 0 can be a strange nebulous place to be. For an
attack, a 0 is a miss. A close miss, but you failed to hit the target. When
jumping a ravine, though, a 0 could very well indicate you didn't quite make
it, your chest hitting the top edge of the other side, fingers desperately
digging into the rocky ground to keep from falling to your death. For a
surgeon, a 0 means that they didn't improve matters any, but at least they
didn't make the patient worse. A zero Success Level can usually be followed
immediately by another attempt (see Second Tries).
For negative Success Level, the situation is even worse. Even a -1 to a ravine
jumper means that they've missed the far edge of the chasm completely. It was
just beyond the reach of their fingertips as they crashed into the rock wall.
Attacks with negative Success Levels are clear misses. Area of effect weapons,
like grenades, hit even further away. Lower negative numbers can indicate
drastic failure. Not only has the surgeon failed to close a wound with a
Success Level of -6, but a slipped scalpel has just cut a major artery by
mistake. As much as I hate to leave Game Masters in a gray area, the effects
of failure really very much depend upon the situation and the initial difficulty
of the action. With a very very difficult action, you have to expect failure,
while failing a simple action can be a so much more spectacular a screw up,
because the task was so simple they'd have to really mess up to fail.
It is not always necessary to actually make the roll. For any action the
Game Master concludes there is no reasonable chance of failure, he can rule
that the character succeeds without effort. Or, any time a Base Score is over
15, the die roll can be skipped and it can be assumed that the character
performed the action without problem.
The downside to this "assumed success" is that the ensuing Success Level
is only a "1". So, for those actions where a higher Level indicates more
impressive success, an assumed success indicates only a mediocre outcome. So
the circumstances in which assumed successes are used are: when the outcome
of the situation does not really rely upon how high the Success Level is, and
when the character does not want to face the 1 in 100 chance of getting an
Automatic or Critical Failure.
Rolling double 1's on your stat check is a special case. Not only is it the
best roll you can get in a stat check (it only subtracts 2 from your Base),
but it also has one of two important effects by itself, depending upon the
character's Base Score.
Normally, if a person's Base is 2 or less, there is no way they can
succeed at an action. Even the lowest possible roll on a 2d10, 2, will result
in a 0, a failure. However, even if normal success is impossible, a roll of
double 1's results in an Automatic Success! Thus, it is possible for even
the most unlikely person to succeed through sheer luck. The Success Level for
such a roll is considered a "1" for purposes of determining just how successful
the attempt was.
If, though, the character's Base is greater than 2 and double-1's are rolled
on the 2d10, it is considered a Critical Success, meaning not only did they
manage to complete the action, but they did a superior job of it. Their Success
Level is increased by 5.
While double-1's indicates an automatic or critical success, double-0's (which
are really double-10's) causes the opposite effect.
Rarely does a character need to make a Stat Check where their Base is over
20, because of the ability to forgo the stat check. But
there are times when a character requires a very high Success Level, so they
roll the dice anyway. Even though the Success Level is greater than 0, if the
dice come up double-0's (double-10's), it is an Automatic Failure.
The Success Level now becomes a 0, indicating that the character just barely
missed achieving their goal. It is up to the GM whether or not to allow a
second attempt.
The situation is even worse when a player gets a roll of double-0's that
results in a Success Levels less than 1. Not only did they fail their attempt
(which is indicated by their Success Level value), but they suffer a Critical
Failure, also known as a Fumble or Critical Fumble.
Fumbles can give a GM or Judge the chance to introduce extreme chaos into a
situation. In combat, a fumble may result in a simply jammed weapon, or could
involve the hitting of a friendly target, or a catastrophic failure in the
weapon itself, resulting in an explosion. The section on
Combat has several tables on possible
combat-related fumbles. Fumbles that occur in other situations are generally
left up to GM to determine what could be the worst possible thing that could
happen. An appraiser might mistake a cheap knock-off to be a priceless Monet,
a negotiator might make an unknowingly offensive remark to a person's heritage,
or a surgeon may end up removing the wrong piece of anatomy.
There are times when a person needs to accomplish something that is not
really a one-shot deal. The process may involve continual effort to produce
a desired outcome. These are referred to as Sustained Actions, and
can be used at the discretion of the Game Master or Judges. Some examples of
sustained actions are arm-wrestling, pushing a heavy cart up a steep incline, or
perhaps hacking into a system through a long, complicated procedure. The
whole point of the Sustained Action concept is to provide a sense of prolonged
suspense or tension in the game. If desired, it can left out entirely in favor
of a single stat check.
The first thing that needs to be established in a sustained action is the
Goal Total. The Goal Total, or Goal, is a number that the player
attempts to achieve. For a sustained action, the player continues to make Stat
Checks until the sum of all Success Levels for those checks, called the
Success Pool, equals or surpasses the Goal. As each stat check in a
sustained action takes a particular amount of time (decided by the GM or
Judge), the Goal Total is tailored to indicate about how long the action will
take, based upon the expected Success Level per check and the length of time
each check will take. When a stat check is successful, above 0, the Success
Pool increases. When the check is not successful, a 0 or negative number, the
Pool decreases by 1, or the GM/Judge can opt not to have the Pool decrement
at all. In the case of a Critical Failure, where two
10's are rolled for the stat check, the character is considered to have
completely failed the sustained action in some way. This is also the case if
the Success Pool falls below the negative value of the Goal Total.
Choosing an appropriate Goal Total and difficulty for sustained actions
is important. For instance, let's look at the example of pushing a heavy
cart up a steep incline. This Strength-based action has several key variables
to it: how heavy is the load, how steep is the incline, how firm is the footing,
and how far is the distance to the top. When deciding on a difficulty, the
most important consideration is the possibility of losing ground. In this
example, the footing on the incline and its steepness determine the likelihood
of slipping and sliding backwards. If we think it is unlikely that the
character will slip at all, we can give a difficulty modifier in the range of
+10. If the ground is very muddy or covered with unstable rocks, or the
incline is at a very high angle, we could assign a modifier +0, or -5 if it
was both slippery and steep.
To decide on a Goal Total for this action, we decide how long we think it
might take the average person to complete it. In this case, judging by the
height of the incline, the weight of the rocks, the sureness of the footing, we
say that an average man could push the cart to the top in about ten minutes.
Next, we determine the average Success Level per stat check for the average
Joe. For Strength, an average Base is 11 plus any modifiers. In our example,
the incline is steep, but not slippery, so we assign a difficulty modifier of
+1. The average Base is
Okay, now decide how many checks should fit within that average time. Should
we pick 10 checks, each check will take 1 minute. If we prefer 5 checks, then
each check will take 2 minutes for this example.
The rule for Second Tries applies specifically to any action that checks
your skill against a task with unchanging parameters. Combat, for instance,
does not fall under this definition, since the events are very fluid and
always evolving. Some examples of tasks that do fall within this category
are writing a program, hacking into a system, repairing a device or machine,
picking a lock, lifting a heavy weight, searching an area for a specific
target, or solving a puzzle.
The first thing that the Game Master must decide is how long the first
attempt took. This, of course, is wildly variable and depends upon the
circumstances in question as well as the Success Level of the failed previous
stat check. While the GM may rule that little time passes between the first,
failed attempt to pick a lock and the next try, it may take several hours after
a roll to fix a complex system (such as a car engine) before another stat check
can be made. ("Well, I disassembled the motor and replaced a few parts, but
the damn thing keeps stalling. There goes a few good hours down the drain.")
In general, the most vital contribution between the time lapse is the
complexity of the system in question, with only a minor nod to the Success
Level of the previous attempt.
If there is still time for a second try, the GM may now apply additional
modifiers to the task. The factor that has the biggest affect on additional
modifiers is the previous attempt's Success Level. If the first try failed
abysmally, it may have adversely affected the situation; made it worse. ("Uh
oh, I think I broke something...") On the other hand, if the previous stat
check produced a relatively high Success Level (like -1 or 0), the GM may rule
that the character failed to resolve the situation, but gained new insight the
problem. ("Oh, wait, I think I know what the problem is now...") Additional
modifiers may range from -5 (for a really bad screw up) to +5 (for a near
success), but this is completely up to the GM.
The phrase "second tries" does not really limit characters to only two
attempts at resolving any problem. The GM can grant as many attempts as he or
she sees fit.
Difficulty Description +20 No way to fail +18 Nearly impossible to screw up +15 Only an idiot has the slightest possibility of blowing it +12 Very simple +10 Simple +8 Fairly easy +6 Moderately easy +4 Somewhat difficult +2 Moderately hard +0 Difficult -2 Tricky -4 Rather tricky -6 Very difficult -8 Exceedingly hard or complex -10 Frighteningly difficult -15 Nearly impossible -18 Impossible -20 Beyond impossible
[2.3] Time
