1.1.2 Dice rolls

During play, there will often be situations that arise where a character's chance of success at an activity depends on his/her capabilities and the nature of the activity. For example:

• A character attacks an opponent - does the attack hit or miss? If it hits, how badly hurt is the opponent?
• A character tries to climb up the wall of a building and in through a window. Does he/she succeed?
• A character tries to cast a magical spell. Does he/she succeed, and, if so, how tired will he/she be at the end?
• A character is stranded in the forest and is trying to live rough. Can he/she find food and shelter?

To make the game as simple as possible, there is a single game system to handle all of these circumstances. Under all of the above examples, the referee would ask the player to "make a dice roll", and the results of this dice roll would determine the success or failure of the activity. Usually, the dice roll result is compared with the difficulty of the dice roll - if the result is greater than or equal to the difficulty, the activity succeeds.

All dice rolls are made using one skill and one characteristic score. When a character makes a dice roll, the referee will tell the player which skill and which characteristic are most relevant to the situation. The player then adds together the character's skill score (including relevant specialisms), characteristic score, and any bonuses or penalties, to give the dice roll basic value.

• Basic value = Skill + Characteristic + Bonuses/penalties.

The dice roll process involves converting this basic value into an dice roll result that shows how effective the character was at the activity. The dice roll result will always be less than or equal to the basic value, which represents the maximum that the character could ever achieve.

To determine the dice roll result, the player chooses how much risk the character wants to take:

• The player can play it safe, in which case the character gains one point of dice roll result for every point of basic value (i.e. the character can achieve a certain result equal to his/her basic value).
• Alternatively, the player can choose to risk as much of the basic value as he/she wants. For every three points of the basic value risked, the player rolls a single six-sided die (abbreviated as D) and counts the result of the dice roll in place of the risked points. A character who risks everything will achieve a dice roll result of between one-third of his/her basic value and twice his/her basic value.
• A character can always elect to risk two dice, no matter how low his/her basic value is. If he/she does not have enough points of basic value (i.e. less than 6), he/she takes a penalty of -1 per point of basic value shortfall. For example, a character with a basic value of 1 could choose to play it safe and have a certain result of 1, or could risk and have a result of one dice less two (D-2) or two dice less five (2D-5).

For example, in the middle of a bar-room brawl, Cogan the Barbarian attempts to punch another character:

• The referee tells Cogan's player that the Combat skill and Co-ordination characteristic are most relevant to whether the punch hits. Cogan's Combat score is 6 (and he has an additional 1 1/2 points of specialism in Brawling) and his CO score is +1/2. It is the end of a long day and Cogan is quite tired (which gives a -1 penalty).
• Basic value = (6 + 1 1/2) +1/2 -1 = 7.
• Cogan's player can choose to play safe and have a dice roll result of 7. Or, he/she could risk 6 points of the basic value to gain the roll of two six-sided dice plus one point for the remaining two points of basic value left over (i.e. 2D+1). Or he/she could choose the variant in-between (i.e D+4).
• In the end, the player decides to risk 6 points, giving 2D+1. The player rolls a 4 and a 5 (making 9 in total), giving a dice roll result of 10.

Usually, the dice roll result will be compared with a simple difficulty value, determined before-hand by the referee.

Sometimes, the extent of success will depend on the amount by which the character succeeds in the dice roll. For example, a character uses Trance skill to meditate and recover from tiredness quickly. The basic difficulty is 5 to regain one tiredness level in an hour, but for each additional 5 points the character recovers an extra tiredness level.

Sometimes, the degree of failure is important too. For example, a character has to make a dice roll every hour of activity to avoid becoming tired. The difficulty depends on the level of activity and degree of encumbrance. If the character fails the dice roll, he/she becomes more tired by one level per 5 points (or part thereof) by which he/she failed the dice roll.

A character with a talent for a particular skill receives a +2 bonus on all his/her dice rolls using that skill. A character with a limitation in a particular skill receives a -2 penalty on all his/her dice rolls using that skill.

Pushing dice rolls

A character may be in a situation where it is particularly important for him/her to succeed in a dice roll. Under such circumstances, he/she can expend exceptional effort to maximise his/her chance of success. In exchange for sacrificing one tiredness level, he/she gets a +3 bonus on the dice roll (which can of course be converted into an extra D). Only one tiredness level can be sacrificed on any dice roll. Note that the new tiredness penalty applies to the dice roll, so pushing becomes a bit less effective as characters become more tired.

Penalty for lack of knowledge

If a dice roll is knowledge-based and the character has no knowledge of that area (e.g. his/her skill score is zero), then the referee may apply a penalty of -3 to the dice roll. This represents the fact that knowledge-based skills are harder to "wing" using natural abilities.

Luck and unluck

A character with luck talent can choose to be lucky on a dice roll before the dice roll is rolled. This can be any dice roll affecting the character (i.e. could be one the character is making or one that is targeted at the character). There are two impacts of applying luck:

(a) the character can apply a modifier of +3 or -3 to the dice roll; and

(b) the dice roll is made twice and the player can choose the result which is best for the character out of the two results.

A character with unluck disadvantage can have the referee choose before a dice roll that the character is unlucky. Again, this can be any dice roll affecting the character, and the two impacts are the same:

(a) the referee can apply a modifier of +3 or -3 to the dice roll; and

(b) the dice roll is made twice and the referee can choose the result which is worst for the character out of the two results.