Tales from the Rocket House
PCs do all kinds of things, from simple tasks like jumping a fence to extended, complex actions like fighting, performing a ritual, or resisting poisons (I consider just having it reduce hit points to be a cop-out – poison is scary in the real world not only because of the chance of death, but because of the ugliness that it causes short of death and the suspense of whether the victim will survive), and the system needs to be able to handle them all. A system that spans several genres needs to be even more flexible, and to allow for the possibility of adding new sub-systems and mechanics to accommodate setting-specific issues.
While handling a wide range of event types requires a similarly wide range of subsystems, these mechanics can be drawn from a single, central mechanic. Performance Tests, Unopposed Tests, and Opposed Tests are all immediate, basic tests that give information on a single event. Lingering Effects Opposed Tests, a subset of Opposed Tests, do the same, but require a slightly more specific interpretation of the events (more on that later). Extended Tests use series of Opposed Tests to determine the effects of a longer process, such as an extended car chase, or the body fighting off plague or poison. Combat is essentially a series of Opposed Tests, but we'll look at it in our next column. But all of these Tests fit within the framework of the central mechanic, follow the probabilities laid out in last column's chart, and have the same odds no matter who rolls the dice.
Opposed and Unopposed Tests
Did you succeed in a questionable task? Ex – jumping a fence, climbing a tree without falling, shooting at an immobile or unaware target. For Unopposed Tests, the GM picks a difficulty (rated on the same scale as Traits, so Average is 10 and Hard is 13, for example). The player makes a standard test roll (Trait +1d10-1d10), and calculates her margin of success (Marginal, Basic, Special, or Exceptional) as we talked about above. Opposed Tests are mechanically identical to Unopposed Tests, except that another character's Trait serves as the difficulty number.
Terry, the star quarterback for the Millhaven High fighting Puffins, is trying to sneak into the rival team’s stadium and rearrange their mascot statue, a twice-life size bulldog, so that it appears to be mooning the home side of the grandstands.
His first obstacle is old Ron, the sixty-something security guard at Lakefield High. He waits until he’s pretty sure Ron’s asleep, and then tries to sneak over the fence. Before he even tries to climb the fence, though, the GM calls for an Opposed Test between Terry’s Awareness(Sneak/Hide) and Ron’s Awareness(Perception). The GM knows that Ron is sleepy and a little deaf on his left side, and assigns a –3 to the Difficulty Number to sneak by him. He doesn’t tell Terry’s player about this modifier, though.
Terry’s player has a Sneak/Hide specialization of 12, learned in the course of several such pranks. Ron has a Perception of 12, thanks to a lifetime working security (it would be higher, but most of the jobs have been easy like this one). Terry’s player rolls his positive d10, getting a 4 (abbreviated as +4), for a subtotal of 16, then rolls his negative d10, getting a 6 (abbreviated as -6), for a total of 10. Normally this would not beat the difficulty number (which would ordinarily be Ron’s Awareness(Perception) of 12), but the GM had lowered it by three to reflect Ron’s sleepiness. Terry beats the adjusted difficulty of 9, but just barely – enough for a Basic success.
Terry hears Ron start awake, as if he’d heard something. The quarterback freezes in place. A few minutes later, he hears soft snoring from the direction of the security guard, and starts climbing the fence as quietly as he can.
Now to tackle that eight-foot chain link fence. Terry has an Athleticism(Climbing) of 13, mostly due to his excellent physical condition. The GM rules that getting over quickly enough to avoid getting caught will be a Hard task, so Terry’s Performance Total will need to equal or exceed 13. Terry’s player rolls +6, for a subtotal of 19, and a -5, for a total of 14, just enough to get over the fence unnoticed.
Special Opposed Tests (Lingering Effects)
Seduction, Intimidation, Negotiations, and the like may require another level of complexity above just a simple Opposed Test. Such conflicts have lingering consequences, and may continue over the course of several Tests. The mechanic for these “Lingering Opposed Tests” is something like a cross between the combat mechanic (which we'll see next column) and Extended Tests, and a variant of this can actually be used as a simplified combat system.
Begin with an Opposed Test in which each character declares an intent. This could be “Seduce her” or “See through that jerk's game.” (I chose seduction in part because I want to make it clear that there are a lot of uses for that skill that don't involve trying to get an NPC into bed. Someone who's been seduced has been influenced, quite positively, and is being led around by one of his or her deepest biological imperatives. In fact, influence is often stronger while the desired end is withheld).
Roll an Opposed Test between the appropriate Traits for the two characters (in this case, Seduction for the seducer and either Read People or Willpower for the seducee, depending on way the character goes about resisting the attempt). The test continues until somebody gets an Exceptional Success (at which point that character gets total victory) or one of the characters walks away (assuming the test is something the character can walk away from).
A character who loses one of these tests gets a Temporary Trait that gives bonuses to do things that align with it and penalties to do things that conflict with it (the penalty also applies to any continuing tests in this encounter). For example, a successful Intimidate test gives the target the Basic Trait of “Scared,” which gives him or her -1 to fight (attacks, initiative, etc) you (or resist further intimidation) and +1 to run away (and probably to any Dodge rolls made while running away). Seducing someone would give a “Fascinated” Temporary Trait that would mostly serve to give a penalty to act against the seducer's wishes (as long as the seducer continues to act in a seductive manner, and doesn't get shrill or whiny or demanding). The GM might determine that a “Fascinated” Temporary Trait might give a small bonus to “fight for her honor” or such, but it would not give its full bonus (+5 to hit just from being seduced? That's way too much).
For Example, Bud, one of Terry's defensive linemen, decided to break the unwritten rule and hit on Terry's sister, Anne. Now Anne is a semi-intellectual high-school activist rock-chick, and (predictably) doesn't much like jocks. Despite the success he has with Cheerleaders, Bud's Seduction Trait is actually pretty mediocre (Average: 10): he's used to the +4 bonus he gets for being a “big man on campus football player” (only the quarterback gets the full +6).
However well the BMoCFP bonus works on cheerleaders and wannabes, it has quite the opposite effects on a girl like Anne. So he goes into the match with an effective Seduction of 6, worse than a lot of the nerds he usually stuffs into lockers. Anne's Read People is 11.
Anne's player will be doing the actual rolling of dice, since Anne is the PC in all this. Her first roll is awful: +1/-10, for a total of 11+1=12-10=2. That's a Special Success for Bud! Anne now gains the Trait “Very Fascinated,” and will have a -3 to act against Bud and a -3 to resist further seduction attempts. How did that happen?
The next “turn,” Bud keeps trying, and Anne's resisting at 8, instead of 11. On the other hand, she still had the advantage – and this time Anne's player rolls well: +5/-1, for a total of 8 (11 -3 for the Temporary Trait) +5 = 13, -1 =12. A Special Success for Anne. This gives Bud a “Very Rebuffed” Trait, and the -3 penalty that goes with it. The GM rules that instead of giving Bud the Trait, they'll instead cancel out Anne's “Very Fascinated” Trait – in other words, she started to fall for his game (he's somewhat handsome and somewhat smooth), then came to her senses a few seconds later.
Okay, round three: Bud keeps going, sensing that he's losing ground. He could just walk away, and not look so foolish, but he's not accustomed to admitting defeat. He hardly knows the meaning of the word “defeat” (or any of the other vocabulary words the faculty vainly tries to teach him). Anne's player rolls again, getting +8/-6, for a total of 11+8=19-6=13. That's 7 more than Bud's adjusted Seduction of 6, an Exceptional Success. Bud gets a “Totally Rebuffed” Temporary Trait, and his attempts at Seduction must end. I think Bud just learned a new word.
A note: PCs cannot be told what to do by Social Contests (unless magic or the like is involved), but they can have penalties to any action that goes against the result (so a successful seduction can’t make a PC do anything, but can make the PC have penalties to work against the seducer, due to strong emotions). If the Exceptional Result tells what the character does, the PC is not bound by that, but still gets the Temporary Traits, with their bonuses or penalties.
Performance Tests
Some things aren't a question of “can I do this?” but of “how well can I do this?” Performance Tests are designed to handle tasks like singing, cooking, making a potion, or forging a sword (the latter two would have minimum requirements for the potion or sword to be usable, but would still fall under this general category). For these tests, the character takes the appropriate Trait or Skill and rolls +1d10/-1d10. The result is on the same scale as abilities (a total of 16 would be “Very Good,” a total of 7 would be “Bad”).
Terry’s sister, Anne, couldn’t be any less like her prankster-jock brother. She’s more the artistic sort (and, surprisingly she’s actually pretty good at it). Though most of her school activities involve subverting her classes with poorly-thought out political theories, avoiding official functions, and making condescending remarks to her friends about the “sheeple” in her class, after school she works very hard on vocals and lyrics for her band (she’s the youngest one in it, and they actually have a few paying gigs now).
Tonight is a particularly important night: there’s an agent in the audience, one that could possibly pave the way for them to become professionals (in the sense of not having to have day jobs). But if the churning in her stomach is any indication, Anne probably wishes he weren’t there. She’s nervous, but she’s determined to get through it. When the set reaches its climax– a physically exhausting cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” that their loyal fans really seem to love – the GM calls for a Performance Test for Anne’s Singing skill, which is 12, and announces that he’ll roll the “negative” die secretly.
Anne’s player rolls +5, for a subtotal of 17, and frowns. The GM rolls the negative die, rolling only -1, for a total of 16. Maybe being nervous is a good thing after all: Anne’s practically never sung that well before in her life! But she’s so exhausted she can’t really tell. The GM tells Anne to roll an Awareness test (vs. Difficulty 10) to tell how she’s done – or just wait until she hears from the agent.
Extended Tests
The most complex test is the “Extended Test.” It’s used for handling poison, disease, and some setting-specific things like psychic combat. It consists of a number of Opposed Tests. In these tests, a Basic Success gives 1 Success, a Special Success gives 3 Successes, and an Exceptional Success gives 5 Successes. A total of 10 net successes is considered a decisive victory, but there are lesser effects at lower levels. The number of tests to be rolled and the length of time between tests is determined in advance. For poisons, it’s listed in the poison’s description, along with the poison’s potency, which opposes the affected character’s Toughness. For psychic combat, it may well be until one side successfully disengages or loses entirely.
Since Extended Tests are the most complicated single part of the system, let’s look at an example of one of the most common extended tests: resisting poison (The book Deadly Doses from Writer’s Digest was a great help in writing my poison descriptions, and I highly recommend it if you want realistic poison effects in your game). After coming home from a hard day’s work at the quarry, Fred sits down to dinner with his beloved wife, Wilma. Something in the food doesn’t quite taste right, and within a minute of finishing his first helping, Fred’s on the floor, shaking and vomiting. Unbeknownst to our hero, his scheming wife has laced his dinner with venin de crapaud (a poison created by feeding arsenic to toads, and then boiling down their bodies. It has similar properties to arsenic, but is fast-acting and harder to trace). Why did she do it? That’s one for the detectives. Maybe she wanted to run off with Fred’s cereal-stealing best friend and neighbor. Maybe she just got tired of Fred’s bad Jackie Gleason impersonation.
Fred’s a burly guy, and has a Strength(Toughness specialization) of 13. Unfortunately, Wilma used a large, pure dose, with a Potency of 15. Venin de crapaud is a fast-acting poison, so Fred will make his first test upon finishing his meal, and will make one more each minute for a total of 4 tests. If he’s not dead by the end of that, he’ll start to recover.
For the first test, Fred’s player rolls Toughness of 13 +1d10-1d10, getting +4 and -7. Uh-oh. That gives him a (13 + 4 – 7=) 10 total, a Special Success for the poison (The Potency of 15 – Fred’s result of 10 = 5, which is within the 4-6 range for a Special Success). The poison has 3 successes to Fred’s 0, giving it 3 Net Successes. Looking at the poison’s description, we see that Fred will suffer -1 to all actions (this does not include resistance rolls, just actions taken) for each net success, meaning -3, and will suffer abdominal pain, cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness, and falling blood pressure.
After one minute of suffering, Fred’s player rolls again (13 +1d10-1d10), getting +7 and -2, for a total of 18, or 3 higher than the poison’s Potency. That’s a Basic Success for Fred! All right, he gets 1 success, reducing the poison’s Net Successes to 2. Fred seems to rally a bit; he’s still in a lot of pain, but he gets a reprieve from the diarrhea and vomiting, and his penalty to actions is only -2.
One minute later (in game-time, that is), Fred’s player has to make another roll. This time he gets +3 and -10, for a total of (13+3-10=) 6. Ouch: that’s an Exceptional Success for the poison (Potency of 16-Fred’s total of 6 = 9, above the 7 needed for an Exceptional Success). That gives the poison 5 more successes, for a total of 8. The poison’s 8 successes minus Fred’s 1 success gives the poison 7 net successes. Fred’s symptoms worsen, his blood pressure drops dangerously low, and he falls unconscious.
The fourth and final test comes one minute later. Fred’s player blows on the dice for luck and makes another resistance test. It must have worked, because he rolls +10 and -4, for a total of (13 +10 -4=) 19, a Special Success! (Fred’s total of 19 – the Poison’s Potency of 15 = 4, within the 4-6 range for a Special Success). This gives Fred 3 more successes, and more importantly means he won’t die! The poison has 8 successes and Fred has 4, giving the poison 4 net successes. This means Fred wakes up, but is still suffering a -4 penalty to all actions and that nasty list of symptoms from the first test.
Venin de crapaud has a recovery rate of 1 net success per day, so it will take Fred four days to recover fully . . . Unless, of course, that wicked redhead he married decides to poison him again (if she does, the net successes that he still has from previous poisonings will apply to the new test – multiple consecutive doses of the same poison have done in a lot of people, historically). Ah, the joys of matrimony.
