Chapter 2: Core Mechanics

Core Task Resolution

Referee Doesn't Roll

Any Risk or Threat or Challenge to the PC is the PC rolling against a Difficulty set by the Referee.

Damage Rolls: Damage is rolled by the PCs who are Affected. Players roll the damage that their PCs incur or inflict.

Dice Roll

Basic Mechanic: Roll 2d6 + Modifiers and Compare against the Difficulty.

Success: A Dice Roll equal to or greater than the Difficulty is a Success

Failure: Otherwise, it's a Failure

Terminology: Dice Roll is the action of rolling Dice plus Modifier; Dice Roll is also a noun which means the Value of the Dice plus Modifiers

Modifiers to Rolls

Modifiers include:

Advantage or Disadvantage
Competence Modifier (Characteristic Modifiers and Skills)
Equipment Modifiers
Conditions (neither Action nor Equipment)

Important Rules: Modifiers of the same kind do not stack - choose the more relevant or the most favorable; Example: Multiple scopes and sights do not stack; Some Modifiers are Temporary (e.g., Aim Modifier increases as minor actions are used); Anything that affects the Chances of the Player that is neither Action or Equipment falls under Conditions; Players need to keep track of their Actions and Equipment modifiers; Adversaries Modifiers are conditions that affect the difficulty of the roll

Characteristic Modifier (ChM)

This is the Modifier from a Characteristic. This is derived by taking the Characteristic, divide by 3, rounding down, and subtracting 2.

Skill Modifier (Skill)

This is the modifier granted by the character's skill.

Unskilled Penalty: Unskilled Characters have a -3 to such roll, if the Referee even allows it

Competence (Cmp)

This is the relevant Characteristic Modifier and Skill Modifier combined.

Difficulty

A check's Difficulty is a value defaulting at 8 set by the Referee.

Scope: Refers to the amount of work and complexity an action undertakes

Scale: Is the amount of stakeholders, benefits, and the quality and amount of Outcome, Product, or Results

Modification: The Referee can Modify Difficulty based on Conditions; Modifiers to Difficulty are also called difficulty; Conditions modify difficulty

Stakes

No Stakes: If there are no stakes, no need to roll. Tasks and Actions may just take up time and attention.

With Stakes: If there are stakes then a roll has something to:

Gain
Lose
A Loss to manage

Difficulty Number Table

This assumes no modifiers:

Difficulty	Odds	Description
3	97.22%
4	91.67%	Easy
5	83.33%
6	72.22%	Routine
7	58.33%
8	41.67%	Challenging
9	27.78%
10	16.67%	Difficult
11	8.33%
12	2.78%	Very Difficult
13	N/A
14	N/A	Formidable
15	N/A
16	N/A

Effect

This is the Dice Roll minus the Difficulty. The effect measures the Degree of Success or Failure of a roll. The Effect is used to prevent a lot of die rolls in the game.

Calculation: To determine the Effect, simply subtract the Difficulty from Dice Roll rolled and its modifiers; Effect = 2d6 + Modifiers - Difficulty

Importance of Effects

Because the Referee doesn't roll, the negative outcomes of rolls, Fail Effects, is how to determine if Adversaries successfully Attack and make Damage Rolls against the PC.

Key Uses: Multiple Attacks by Adversaries and PCs are resolved through Effects; Skill level reduces the Amount of Harm or negative effects of Failure

Fail Effect

When the Effect is less than the Difficulty, the Check results in a Fail Effect. The degree of the Fail Effect is equal to the Difficulty minus the Effect.

Example: If the Difficulty is 8 and the Dice Roll is 5, the degree of the Fail Effect is 3; The greater the degree of the Fail Effect, the worse it will be for the PC

Ordinary Failure

Ordinary Failure is when a failure doesn't cause the PC to suffer any harm, incur any injury, or be exposed to any sort of attack.

Result: The only thing lost by the failure is the opportunity that was spent; Synonymous to Ordinary Failure is a minor setback, or harmless failure

Mitigating Factors

The player may use Mitigating Factors (DMs) to reduce the degree of the Fail Effect. When the degree of the Fail Effect is reduced to zero or less, the Fail Effect becomes an Ordinary Failure.

Priority Order

First Priority: Conditions like Concealment, Range Size Move Modifiers are first applied to reduce the Fail Effect
Second Priority: Cover - invoked to reduce the degree of Fail Effect only after First Priority DMs have been applied
Third Priority: Skills - invoked to reduce the degree of Fail Effect only after First and Second Priority DMs have been applied

Example: The PC rolls to attack with 2d6+4 against a 13 Difficulty; The PC has: Conditions: 3, Cover: 2, Skills: 2; If the PC rolls a 6, that would give them a Fail Effect with a degree of 7; First Priority DMs (Conditions 3) reduce degree to 4; Second Priority (Cover 2) reduces degree to 2; Third Priority (Skills 2) reduces degree to 0 = Ordinary Failure

Fail Effect and Damage to Protection

In Combat, reduce the Fail Effect by the PC's Skill when determining Damage rolls made against the PC.

Take note of any Cover or Protection that modifies the Difficulty - that reduces the Fail Effect, that Cover or Protection takes the Damage.

Example: Assume a PC who got a Fail Effect with a degree of 3 is taking cover behind a Shield or a stack of Cinder Blocks; This means that the 3 damage rolls that should have been applied to the PC are applied instead to the Shield or Cinder Blocks; If the Shield has a Difficulty of only 2, the Shield would take two attacks while the PC incurs one attack

Important: This rule also applies to Adversaries

Costly Failure

Costly Failure costs the PC more Time, Materials, Resources, and Opportunities. The Referee determines how high the cost is and what it entails based on the degree of the Fail Effect.

Player Agency: The PC can try to determine if certain Actions lead to Costly Failures

Success Effect

When the Dice Roll is equal to or greater than the Difficulty, the Check results in a Success Effect. The degree of the Success Effect is equal to the Dice Roll minus the Difficulty.

Combat Application: In Combat the degree of the Success Effect determines the Number of Damage Rolls

Costly Success

Ask the Referee if it's possible for this Action and Option.

Mechanic: A Costly Success Happens when there is a Failure, but the Character Choose to pay any price for success; Double the Effect of Failure and add 3, and gain a Success Effect of 0

Example: This is common in Melee Combat, where a Character may fail by a margin of -2, missing, but decides to Hit the other character regardless of the cost; Suffering a -2 x 2 + 3 or -7 Fail Effect; This Option makes sense if there is not much left to lose

Referee Discretion: The Referee may disallow this if they judge these as not applicable or irrelevant; See Also: Reckless Action

Advantage and Disadvantage

The Referee may rule that a PC has an Advantage or Disadvantage to their roll. Advantage and Disadvantage rolls cancel each other out on a one to one basis.

Advantage Roll

Roll 3d6 and keep the two highest results, then add modifiers.

Disadvantage Roll

Roll 3d6 and keep the two lowest results, then add modifiers.

Time and Checks

Assume the Median Action Duration roll, and use the Success or Fail effect to multiply its smallest Unit, rolling the lowest duration unit, the reduction of time in a Success or the added time on a Failure.

Example - 1d6 second action: On a Success Effect of 0: 3 seconds (median); On a Success Effect of 1: 2 seconds; On a Fail effect of -1: 4 seconds; On a Fail effect of three: 6 seconds

Skill Checks

Skills add to Characteristic Modifiers to Roll.

Combat Skills: In combat, Skills are the last Defense Modifier if they are Relevant; Adversary Skills are part of Conditions that Modify Difficulty (a more skilled Adversary)

Stealth Rolls

Stealth rolls can be made with Recon or Streetwise Skill.

Alternative: The Referee can allow dedicated Stealth skill by allowing swapping out Recon or Streetwise with Stealth; Stealth also covers concealing and evading detection

Combined Difficulties

Combined Difficulties are conditions where two or more skills are factored to success or failure. When this is the case, increase the difficulty by the additional number of skills the character doesn't have.

Example - Athletic Attack: Either Jumping attack, charging attack, or retreating attack; If the Character has ChM 1, Athletics 0, and Attack Skill 0 and there are no other conditions: Difficulty 8; If the Character doesn't have athletics: Difficulty increases by 1 to 9; The character rolls at a Competency of 1 against Difficulty 8+1

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