Elements of a Key 1

 I've been working on a soon-to-be-announced hexcrawl project with a few other people, and it's gotten me thinking about key design--more specifically what elements are valuable to include in a key that you're prepping and/or preparing to release for others to use. I figured I'd do a breakdown of all the information that a key (explicitly or implicitly) contains.

Key, in this context, just means any block of information describing a piece of a situation meant for play. Room keys and hex keys, but also to a lesser extent descriptions of monsters, NPCs, and general setting elements.

This list is meant to be as exhaustive as possible--what are all of the things that a key might need in order to be played out? Importantly, I'm not making a distinction (yet) between information that is decided by the key writer, the GM during prep, or the GM during play. Thinking through which types of key elements are best left to which stages (writing/prep/play) is the ultimate point of me writing this up, but this is long enough I need to save that for a future post.

General Information

The basics of a key. What do you tell to the players and when?

Immediate Sensory Impression

What is the immediate sensory impression received upon entering? Or, to put it more directly, what does the GM describe to the players upon first encountering the key?

"You enter a 30'x30' square room with a goblin in it, sitting atop a stained carpet."

Uncoverable Details

What is present in the key that requires some amount of exploration on the players' part to discover? Or, to put it more directly, what does the GM not describe to the players upon first entering the key? This contains both information likely to be relevant to play, and the answers to even the most inane questions the players might ask about the key.

"The stained carpet conceals a closed hatch leading downwards."

"The goblin's pockets contain 3 copper pieces."

"The goblin's name is Skronk Jr."

"The walls of the room appear to be carved limestone."

See Also: Hidden descriptions, via Landmark, Hidden, Secret

Immediate Response to Players

Similar to Immediate Sensory Impression, what happens the moment the players encounter the key? Does the presence of the players kick off some series of events?

"The goblin snarls, 'You've ruined your own lands, you'll not ruin mine!' and attacks."

Conditional Response to Players

Once the players start poking at things, what happens? Like Immediate Response to Players, but events that occur only if the players (or other forces) take certain actions.

"If the hatch is opened, the trap activates."

"If the players show a Worm Badge, the goblin lets them pass."

General Concept

What's the general deal with this key? If details need to get filled in about the key that weren't prepped, what basic concept should the GM visualize when improvising new details?

"The room is the lair of a goblin, tasked with defending the secret entrance to the goblin mines."

A Quick Aside

I hope that some of why I find this all interesting is already coming through. Once the players discover a key, all of these elements are needed to play it out--the scene opens with a sensory impression followed by an immediate response to players, as they players move through the key they uncover more details and trigger conditional responses, and as they prod at the key from unexpected angles the GM falls back on the general concept to improvise additional details.

Does that mean that a well-prepped key should explicitly contain all of these elements?

Almost certainly not.

Most of these can be inferred from each other. A good General Concept can imply everything else/a good Immediate Sensory Impression can imply the general concept/and so on. The GM needs to be able to do all of these during play, but it's overkill to include all in prep and/or writing. I'm doing this dissection largely to help me think through which of these elements are best come up with during which stages, and which elements are best stated directly vs. implied.

The Situation

Keyed descriptions exist within a moment in time. How does the hex describe how it might be on repeat visits?

The Temporary Situation

What in the key is happening just as the players first experience it? What won't be happening the next time they arrive?

"A child cries for help, surrounded by four hungry wolves."

"Six pilgrims pass through, on their way to visit the oracle to the south."

The Indefinite Situation

What in the key will be there every time the players arrive (or at least until they disrupt it)? What is 'business as usual' for the key?

"The shop sells basic adventuring supplies at a 50% markup."

The Possible Situation

What in the key may or may not be there when the players visit?

"There is a 1-in-6 chance per night of being attacked by 1d8 wolves."

The Reactive Situation

What in the key may happen in the future? Either based on player action or the natural progression of time, what will this key look like upon later visits?

"If the goblins are wiped out, a colony of kobolds move in to take their place."

"If not rescued within a week, the stranded sailors die of dehydration and exposure."

NPC Descriptions

The NPCs within a hex are some of its most unpredictable elements. In theory, each one is a full-fledged person. What information does the hex provide to describe them?

NPCs Present

What NPCs are in the key? How many of them are there? What's their general concept? What do they look like? All 'General Information' questions apply.

"There are three goblins."

NPC Motivation

What does the NPC want? What motivates the the actions they'll take? Both in the short-term (what they want out of their first encounter with the players) and in the long-term (what they want out of life).

"The goblin wants the players to leave."

"The goblin hates the ogre who lives next door."

"The goblin wants power, praise, and wealth."

NPC Abilities/Instincts

How does the NPC pursue their wants? What skills/abilities/powers do they have? What are their go-to strategies and instincts on how they behave? May or may not be mechanical.

"The goblin has +5 to stealth and can backstab an unsuspecting foe for double damage."

"The goblin throws themselves on the ground and begs pitifully for mercy when met with strong foes, blaming everything on the ogre."

"The goblin lies compulsively, and doubles down on the truth of those lies no matter how obvious the lie or costly the facade becomes."

NPC Backstory

Who is the NPC? What was their life like before the players met them? What's their lore? What was their relationship like with their parents? The types of information that won't come out in default play, but that a player might always ask the NPC about on a whim. It's a running joke that one of the cruelest things a player can do to their GM is to ask an NPC "What's your name?"

"The goblin is named Skronk Jr."

"The goblin has a pet rat-dog."

"The goblin used to be a bartender on Main Street until they were fired for embezzlement."

Misc Information

Here are a few more types of information that may come up about a hex in play that didn't fit with any other category. Not all of them are strictly necessary to run a key, but still may impact the way play occurs if included. There's overlap between some of them, but I find it helpful to take a step back and look at a key via each lens separately.

Lore & Backstory

What's the history of this key? What events occurred in the past to bring the key to the state it's in today? What's the explanation for why the key is the way that it is? Like NPC Backstory, encompasses info that's unlikely to be relevant to actual play.

"Here's the genealogy of the king, going back 500 years."

"The polymorph trap was installed by a long-dead wizard who liked to turn their foes into chickens and then dine upon them."

Relations to Other Keys

What other keys do you need to know about to run this key? How does this key combine with other keys to create something larger than the sum of their parts? May be explicit or implicit connections.

"Loud noises alert the ogre next door."

"The key opens the door to the king's chambers."

"The assassin knows the names of the three other conspirators." 

"This goblin liquor is exactly the type of gift that would you get on the Sherriff's good side."

Authorial Intent

Why did the author include this key? What part does it play in the module's design?

"This goblin encounter was included because I felt the dungeon didn't have enough NPCs the players could talk to."

"The kidnapped children were included because I found players didn't have a strong motivation to go into the dungeon without a quest."

"This dungeon is my meditation on the five stages of grief. The goblin represents 'bargaining'."

Kickers & Quests

What should happen next? What in this key helps drive the action of the game forward and keep play from stalling out? What solicits the players to action and fills them with desire to keep playing?

"The innkeeper tells visitors of the quest to slay the dragon."

"The goblin attacks if not presented with the password within 30 seconds."

Potential Player Actions

The core element of roleplaying is the actions the players take. How does the key give the players fuel to come up with cool actions without dictating what those actions should be? This typically isn't something written directly, but it does inform how all the other listed elements get written.

"These unattended barrels are about to be brought into the impenetrable castle that the players want to sneak into."

"The ogre guard is a well-known alcoholic, unable to turn down a drink. In a nearby location there's a keg of double-strength rum--strong enough to knock out even an ogre."

Unanswered Questions

What elements of the key are unstable situations teetering on the edge of two or more possibilities? What powder-kegs exist? What are the Hegelian contradictions inherent in the current status quo? What are the parts of the setting where the players can have a meaningful impact on the world?

"The mercenary has been hired by the cruel king, but their last two payments were skipped. Do they stay loyal or betray their employer for better opportunities?"

"The ailing king believes in order, duty, and justice, but their heir is a hedonistic and irresponsible sociopath. Do they pass their crown along to them, as tradition demands?"

"The cult leader preaches a better world of love and peace but callously throws away their follower’s lives."

Mechanical Details

What stats do the elements in this key have? What are the monster statblocks, trap damages, and various difficulty ratings?

"Disarming the trap has a DC of 15, triggering it on a failure. Those within 20' must make a Dex Save at DC 13 or take 3d6 damage."

"Goblin: HD1 AC2 M7. 1d6 rusty blade."

Exciting Possibilities

What cool or evocative things might happen when the players encounter the hex? In some ways this is just "Conditional Responses", but the emphasis is on getting the GM excited to run the key more than on actual helpful info.

"If the players destroy the hedge, an army of undead awaken and overrun the world."

"There is a 1-in-100 chance that this opens a portal to hell, sucking everyone present through."

Cool Words

What are some exciting ways to describe what's in the room? When the GM runs the key, what are some words that they can read straight from the key to enhance their description? Or simply words to get them excited about running the key? Contains both the much-reviled box-text and the much-beloved purple prose of OSR darlings.

[insert any box-text from a 90's module you can think of here]

"They judder and fall like an old man escaping from a crashed car, but fast, like skipping low-res recordings. It leaps but has forgotten how to stand. The shaking steps collapse."

The Script

How will the scene of the key play out? What actions does the GM need to make sure the players take? This element is, thankfully, out of fashion and generally should not be included in any stage of prep. It is included here only because it is a common element found in many written modules.

"After the players agree to accept the quest, they exit the city via the west gate and have the following exchange with the gate guards: ..."

IRL Props

What solid objects or digital images can you actually give or show your players to help them visualize the key?

Art of the monster that lives in the room.

A fake newspaper handout, which contains clues relevant to the mystery.

An actual fake medal that the players get presented with at the same time it is presented to their character by the king.

Background music to set the tone.

Conclusion

Every one of these elements is something that may need to be invented by somebody at some point in play--either by the author as they write the module, the GM as they prep it before play, or the GM as they improvise it mid-play. The questions are: for a published module, which elements are best explicitly provided within the module's text itself and which should be left to the GM? What are some trade-offs being made when deciding which elements to provide and how to provide them? What are some useful ways of thinking about these elements as you choose which to include?

I'll be wrestling with those questions in my next post!

Puppeteer (GLOG Class)

A mage class for GLOG-compatible games. Initially made for Odd Goblin (which I'll be posting once the current draft is done), but adapted to be slightly more mainline-GLOG compatible. Posted to join in on today's puppet bandwagon. 

Class: Puppeteer

A mage who grants the semblance of life to magical dolls.

Equipment: Whittling-knife, oversized suitcase, 100' thread, portable painting kit.

Class Features

A: Spell Dice (1d6), +1 Spell, Lesser Puppetry

B: Spell Dice (2d6), +2 Spells

C: Spell Dice (3d6), +2 Spells

D: Spell Dice (4d6), +1 Spells, True Puppetry

Spell Dice: At each level, you gain one additional Spell Die with which to cast spells.

Spells: Roll on the list of spells below when you gain a spell, rerolling results already learned. Cantrips are spells that may be cast without the use of Spell Dice.

Lesser Puppetry (Cantrip)

R: 30’; T: 1 object; D: concentration

Thin silvery threads emerge from the caster’s fingertips, attaching to the target object. The caster may move and operate the object with the force and dexterity of a puppeteer operating a puppet via strings.

Spell List (1d6)

1. Trumpeter Doll

R: [sum] miles; T: a creature whose face you know; D: indefinite

The caster produces a doll with the appearance of a trumpet-wielding messenger. The doll animates and runs in the direction of the target, moving 80’/round. Upon reaching its destination, it blows the trumpet and announces a message of the caster’s choice. Optionally, it can wait for a response before returning and repeating it to the caster.

2. Clown Doll

R: n/a; T: 1 creature or group of creatures ; D:[sum] minutes

 The caster produces a doll with the appearance of a harlequin clown. The doll animates and runs off in search of their target. Upon finding them, the doll antagonizes them with mocking gestures and acts of small mischief. Pursuers must succeed at a Move check (-4 penalty) to catch the doll.

3. Angel Doll

R: n/a; T: n/a; D:[10 minutes/1 hour/8 hours/1 day]

The caster produces a doll with the appearance of a winged angel. The doll animates and flies [20’/40’/120’/400’] per minute in the direction of safety--the closest exit to a dungeon or the closest friendly settlement in the wilderness. Unlocked and secret doors fly open in its path.

4. Devil Doll

R: n/a; T: n/a; D: concentration

The caster produces a doll with the appearance of a pitchfork-wielding goateed red devil. The doll animates and runs into the closest and greatest source of danger, attempting to trigger it and destroy itself in the process.

5. Murder Doll

R: n/a; T: n/a; D: 10 minutes

The caster produces a doll with the appearance of a dead-eyed porcelain child holding a butcher’s knife. The doll animates and attacks any character ordered to by the caster. The doll has [dice x 4] hp, 10+[dice x 2] defense, and deals 1d8+[dice] damage with its attacks.

6. Curse Doll

R: sight; T: 1 creature; D: 1 day

The caster produces a doll in the likeness of the target. The target feels the sensations of any action taken upon the doll--stabbing pain from needles, drowning from immersion in water, etc. This inflicts no damage, but the distraction allows all attacks against the target to have their damage upscaled. The doll breaks after [dice] rounds of abuse. Range becomes infinite if the caster holds a personal effect of the target.

True Puppetry

R: 60’; T: 1 object or incapacitated creature; D: concentration

The target, no larger than a [goblin/human/bear/giant], animates and moves under the caster’s control. The caster can see from both themselves and their target, but can take no action other than control the target without ending the spell. The target acts with the caster’s full skill and agility, and otherwise immobile objects can move 40’/round up to 1 mile from the caster. The combat abilities of the target depend on its form and materials, but generally should not go above [dice x 4] hp, 10+[dice x 2] defense, and 1d8+[dice] damage.

Scale Dice (On A Scale From 1-10 Dice)

On a scale from one to ten, how well does this all play out?

Sterling Hundley - Sleeping Prophet

For Prismatic Wasteland's 'make a resolution system' challenge. This is the current state of a mechanic I've been circling around for a while. I started working on this in January, but only managed to finish it now.

I'm breaking this post into three parts--a quick summary of the system, a discussion of the design constraints I'm giving myself while designing a core resolution system, and then a more in depth look at the system and how it's meant to be used. The meat of the post is probably that middle segment--this whole challenge is really an excuse for me to think through all the subtle jobs that a good mechanic needs to fill.

The System

The core of the system sits close the core of all dice-rolling: when something happens with an unsure outcome you roll a d10--on a 1, the worst reasonable outcome happens. On a 10, the best reasonable outcome happens. On a 5, about what you'd expect happens, and so on.

Or, to restate it with a little more detail: Characters have a list of skills, each rated from 0-5. Whenever a player attempts an action where result is unclear, the GM may tell them to roll for outcome, declaring which skill is relevant. The player rolls a number of d10 equal to their character's skill rating--the result of the roll is the highest rolled number. If they have 0 in a skill, they roll two dice and take the lowest result. They then tell the result to the GM who uses that number to decide on the action's outcome--the higher the number the more favorable the outcome.

What Makes For A Good System?

Okay, so what's the significance of this system? How did I come to it? What am I trying to accomplish with it?

To answer this, let's talk a bit about what resolution systems do in a RPG. There's a whole bunch of functions they need to perform in play, and a whole bunch of pitfalls they need to avoid. Let's look at the design constraints I'm thinking about when I work on a system, noting systems that succeed or fail at these functions in notable ways.

Obviously different designers and players are going to value different of constraints to different degrees (and some may even disagree with them entirely). Pretty much every constraint on the list is in direct conflict with at least a few of the others; system design is an art of trade-offs, not something where you can ever hope to find the one ultimate design that fits all constraints perfectly.

I'm strongly influenced by the claim in Goblin Punch's post on base resolution mechanics (https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2023/03/critical-glog-base-resolution-mechanics.html) that resolution mechanics tend to just be fancy ways of generating a % chance of a pass/fail result. That whole post in general is solid foundation to how I'm thinking about systems.

Anyway, a good system should. . .

Draw A Distinction ⅂

This is the core job a resolution system fills--it draws a distinction between actions that succeed as intended and ones that go wrong in some way. This one's pretty straightforward: the system should have a way of declaring success/failure on an action.

Example: In D&D 5e you roll a d20+skill bonus against a difficulty set by the DM. If you hit or beat the difficulty, you succeed. Otherwise you fail.

Be Easy To Teach

This one's also a bit of a no-brainer--a good system is one that's quick and easy to teach to new players. It's also one of the more painful constraints; every additional mechanic you add to a system makes it more complex and more obnoxious to learn, so you have to be extremely stingy with the number of additional mechanics you tack onto a game.

Example: Lasers & Feelings fits its rules entirely on one page. It's simple enough you can run a one-shot and teach the game's rules without meaningfully cutting into your play-time.

Have A Non-Fussy Process

A game's core resolution method is going to be done over and over and over again, so it should feel good and be quick to do. Even a tiny bit of friction here is going to generate outsized problems, simply because it'll be popping up constantly throughout play. No part of the core mechanic should feel annoying.

Example: THAC0 in older D&D editions forces players to perform subtraction in their heads, which has worse brain-feel than addition.

Example: Exalted regularly has you throw a dozen+ dice and then hunt through them to count successes, taking a non-trivial amount of time and slowing down play. However, throwing a giant fist full of dice also feels pleasurable.

Allow For Quick Rolls

Sometimes moments crop up in play where you want to generate some uncertainty in outcome, but you also don't want to slow down play that much. You should be able to call for,  perform, and interpret a roll quick enough that it doesn't meaningfully interrupt the flow of conversation.

Example: Setting position and effect for every roll in Blades in the Dark gives a slightly elevated floor on minimum roll speed, but also lets the GM preview possible consequences very concisely.

Example: In any system that lets players write their own skills, a step gets added where the player needs to ask the GM if the skill they want to use is applicable, turning a three-step (call for, roll, interpret) process into a five-step one (call for, propose skill, approve skill, roll, interpret).

Support Negotiation

A lot of the fun in RPGs comes from the players jockeying for advantages. For more consequential rolls, the player should be able to have a back and forth with the GM where they can come up with clever plans, expend resources, make arguments, and so on in order to improve their odds. This is a dynamic pretty core to RPGs, so most systems have this unless they actively move to restrict it.

Example: PbtA moves have strict rules on what dice to rolls and constrained lists of possible outcomes, limiting the amount of jockeying players can do (although there's still room for that in arguing which move applies and on hard move outcomes).

Example: The D&D 5e advantage system is a quick way to reward good player positioning in a situation (although it being an all-or-nothing bonus can be slightly limiting).

Create Hype-Moments

The outcome of a check should sometimes produce memorable moments. The dice should occasionally (but not constantly) derail expectations and force a re-evaluation of the situation as something wild happens.

Example: Rolling a natural 20 (or natural 1) in D&D on an important check.

Have Transparent Outcomes

The player should have a reasonable idea of what's at stake when they roll, both in terms of mechanics and within the fiction.

Example: In old World of Darkness dice pool games, it was pretty painful trying to calculate probabilities on the fly. What are the odds that 6d10 generate at least two successes with a difficulty of 7?

Example: Blades in the Dark's position and effect mechanics are amazing at letting the GM communicate narrative consequences and outcomes quickly and without needing to pause play to think up exact consequences pre-roll.

Support Non-Binary Outcomes

Aka partial successes. Can the system generate outcomes that aren't pure success or pure failure? Doing this well feels like a little bit of a white whale for RPG designers (see Don't Be Creatively Exhausting).

Example: PbtA, BitD, and lots of storygame systems all have partial success systems baked into their core systems.

Example: Sometimes in D&D 5e the DM forgets to set a DC and then the player rolls middling and then the DM narrates a result that's effectively a partial success.

Encourage Creativity

This is tightly related to the above entry, but a good system should encourage creativity and the creation of unexpected outcomes in play. Open-ended abilities for the players, creative prompts, unexpected results, etc.

Example: Partial success systems all do this--a partial success is basically always more interesting than a pure success or a pure failure. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. . .

Example: The Quiet Year explicitly hits players with writing prompt questions they need to answer through play.

Example: Rolling on random tables can inject unexpected twists in gameplay, taking the session in directions not anticipated by the GM or players.

Don't Be Creatively Exhausting

This is what makes partial successes so hard to pull off well. Success and failure are usually effortless to visualize, but if the system is constantly forcing the GM to come up with semi-successes it can get draining surprisingly quickly. Similarly, any system that gives big creative prompts without much structure can be overwhelming if that's not exactly what you're there for.

Example: The core mechanic of Fiasco is just "tell a story", which would be a bit exhausting if it didn't go so hard in giving you prompts and relationships before the game started to build off of.

Example: PbtA games have strictly listed possible outcomes to moves that are picked from, massively cutting down the drain of adjudicating results.

Example: The fact that BitD sets position and effect from a list prevents the need for GMs to be creative before the roll, but the fact that partial success is the most common outcome of a roll can definitely lead to some fatigue.

Have Non-Intimidating Character Creation

This is a subset of the game being easy to learn, but you should be able to make a character for the system quickly if you want to be able to have pick up play.

Example: D&D 5e effectively requires characters to be made at home and/or holding a session zero to work. There are a ton of character options, characters have builds that can be pre-planned-out, and there's a generally large amount of bookkeeping/derived stats/etc to jot down before you can play.

Example: I've lost enough characters in B/X D&D I can probably roll up a new character in sub-5-minutes at this point. Roll stats, pick a class, starting gear, maybe roll some spells, come up with a dumb joke name you'll regret later, and you're done.

Subtly Teach Play Procedures

As a player looks at a rules summary, or more commonly their character sheet, it should ground them in what play will actually look like. Skills are probably the most common form of this--my hot take is that skills have an overall negative effect on actual play (they tend to turn characters into minmaxed hammers in search of nails), but that they're so useful at presenting the expectations of play that they're still generally worth it.

Example: Skill lists in D&D 5e, Blades in the Dark, etc give a pretty good preview of the types of situations that crop up in play. If you don't know what to do at any given moment, you can always look at your skill list as a list of possible verbs to try out.

Example: Your torch going out as an entry on an overloaded encounter die makes it clear you'll be going into dark places where light sources are important.

Give Play Prompts

A player, especially a new player, should be given some roleplay prompts to lean on as they get comfortable filling out their character in play.

Example: Rolling for stats creates the framework for a story the player has to respond to. Figuring out what someone with 16 INT and 4 WIS is a fun starting point for goofy roleplaying, especially if you'd never allocate stats like that by hand.

Example: PbtA playbook details you choose from (name, appearance, etc) are great for starting to get a player thinking about their character.

Example: Into the Odd's starting item kits tend to have a lot of personality, which is important because the rest of the game is streamlined enough that it doesn't help much visualizing your character as a character. Electric Bastionland jobs also do a good job of getting players started.

Cultivate Desire To Play

This may be wandering out of 'core resolution mechanic' territory, but a system should solicit desire to play as it teaches itself/as players create characters. One reason character special abilities, crunchy rules, derived stats, tons of options, and so on are all so common is that they get players hyped to try the game--you see the mechanic and you fantasize about using it.

Example: Devising charop builds in D&D 3.5 required significant scholarship, with books and books of options to pour over for game breaking build combos. You could spend days lost inside the game without ever actually playing it.

Example: When you make an elf in B/X D&D you get a randomly rolled spell you start knowing, and immediately you can start fantasizing about how you might use it in the upcoming session.

Cultivate Desire To Keep Playing

Similar to the above, but for after the first session is over. A non-one-shot game should give players something to fantasize about achieving in the future. A lot of that comes from the game's premise/narrative, but ideally the system should help as well.

Example: A wizard in D&D sees 'Fireball' in the list of 3rd tier spells and fantasizes about reaching level 5.

Example: A player whose character's 'build' really comes together at level 7 will fantasize about reaching level 7.

Not Fall Apart Over Time

This is often in painful opposition to the above, but a good system shouldn't get less fun as player characters progress mechanically. If the game feels different as you level or or achieve your goals, it should probably feel different in a good way.

Example: D&D has basically always gotten less fun as you pass level 10 or so.

Break Functionally

Players are going to play differently that RAW, sometimes by mistake and sometimes by design. The game should still be fun when that happens.

Example: When the Adventure Zone played BitD I think they just completely stopped using injury penalties altogether. I couldn't tell if they just forgot or if they thought it was too punishing otherwise.

Example: Torchbearer is a beautiful rube goldberg device of a game, but it feels like if you run even a single rule wrong the whole machine will collapse and send the party into a death spiral.

In Depth Scale Dice Description

Now that we've gone over what qualities I find important in a system I'm designing, let's take another look at the Scale Dice resolution system and ways you can use it. I'll restate it, with a little more detail this time.

Character Creation

When a player creates a character they do a few steps not relevant to this post (pick a class, etc), then eventually come to picking their skills. There are three skill categories, each of which have five skills:

Skill: Research, Stealth, Tinkering, Medicine

Body: Strength, Finesse, Footwork, Endurance

Instinct: Perception, Presence, Empathy, Willpower

Skills are ranked in level from 0 to 5.

The player picks one category to be their good one, and marks all associated skills at level 2. They then pick one category to be their average one, and mark all associated skills at level 1. The remaining category is their bad one, with all skills starting at level 0.

The player may then distribute another 4 levels among any skills they choose.

Player-Facing Resolution

When a player attempts an action where result is unclear, the GM may tell them to roll for outcome, declaring which skill is relevant. The player rolls a number of d10 equal to their character's skill rating--the result of the roll is the highest rolled number. If they have 0 in a skill, they roll two dice and take the lowest result. They then tell the result to the GM who uses that number to decide on the action's outcome.

Higher rolls are better than low rolls. If the outcome is a 1, the worst reasonable outcome occurs. If the outcome is a 10, the best reasonable outcome occurs. And so on.

The process by which the GM turns the die roll result into an outcome is intentionally left slightly ambiguous. The baseline is simple, and all the player need to understand to be able to play, but there are a bunch of twists the GM can apply to a roll to match the needs of the situation.

Vanilla Rolls

This refers to unmodified rolls--the GM simply asks the player to roll a skill, gets told a number, and then uses the vibe of that number to decide on what happens. This style of rolling is best when you want to be either fast or flexible.

If a roll isn't meant to have a lot of narrative weight, just make it a vanilla roll. "You look the merchant up and down, roll Empathy to get a read on them."

Vanilla rolls are also good when a check can have a wide range of possible outcomes. How does the king respond to the player's joke? You can probably think of a dozen reasonable responses, so you just roll for it and try to match your response to how well the player rolled.

Difficulty Ratings

A problem with vanilla rolls is that they lack weight. If you want to ratchet up the drama of a roll, or if the action has a binary pass/fail state you can tell the player a number they need to beat before they roll.

"You try to talk the bandits into sparing your life. You'll succeed if you can roll at least a 6."--this works a lot like a vanilla roll, but you get a nice moment of suspense before the roll, with a clear moment of release (or terror) when the dice come to a stop.

"You try to pick the lock before the guard arrives. You only have a few seconds, so this is difficulty 8."--there's a clear pass/fail here, so you should give a concrete number to beat.

You can also get fancy if you're feeling inspired and give multiple DCs. "The king will believe your story if you can roll above an 8, will ask for more proof before he's willing to act if you get at least a 4, and will become enraged if you get a 3 or less."

Some Good Difficulty Numbers

Easy: 4 (50% chance of success at Skill 0)

Moderate: 6 (50% at Skill 1)

Difficult: 8 (50% at Skill 2)

Impossible: 10 (40% at Skill 5)

Player Negotiations

The vanilla roll is meant to be, above all other things, quick to resolve. However, if a player is invested in a roll enough to ask questions about the roll you should answer and be as transparent as possible. If they ask what they need to roll to get a certain outcome, tell them. If they ask what will happen if they roll badly, decide. If the player wants to try to improve their chances, either by changing their tactics or arguing that there was something you hadn't considered, you're encouraged to go back and forth with them, up until the point where you're going in circles or other players get bored and/or annoyed, at which point you can always put your foot down.

If the player takes action to increase their odds, there's no need to give them extra dice or change their roll. Simply lower the difficulty/interpret the roll more charitably. A rolled 3 on a character climbing a tall cliff without safety equipment may be them falling, while a rolled 3 on a character with equipment is probably just a sprained ankle.

If an outcome ever has the chance to be catastrophic, you should always broadcast that. Instant death or being thrown in jail for life should never come as a surprise.

Opposed Checks

If two characters are in direct opposition to each other, you can call for an opposed check. In this case they both roll as normal, and whoever rolls the higher result wins. If one character is a NPC you can just give them a reasonable skill rating, where 0 is incompetent, 2 is professional, and 5 is world-class.

Complex Challenges

Some situations are complex enough that a single roll doesn't feel weighty enough to handle them. In this case you can use complex challenges--jot down the name of the problem the player's trying to overcome on a piece of note paper and give it a hit-point rating underneath.

The player then rolls their skill check as normal, against a difficulty rating you provide. For each point they beat the difficulty by, remove 1hp from the problem. If this is enough to reduce the problem to 0hp, the player succeeds at whatever they were attempting.

If they fail to reach the difficulty or if the problem still has 1 or more hp, a complication occurs. This can be almost anything, but will generally be some form of harm or concession ("the out of control fire burns you for 1d6hp as you try to put it out" or "the guard will let you by, but they want a bribe first"), an escalation in stakes or the problem getting worse ("you lose your balance on the narrow path, and are now hanging onto the edge of the cliff by your fingers"), or the arrival of a new problem ("the commotion attracts the ogre in the room next door").

If the player wants to keep attempting to overcome the problem and the problem's still relevant, they can then roll again. If they defeat the problem, they succeed (minus any concessions given), and if they fail another complication occurs and the process repeats itself.

Other Mods

As you play, I'm sure you can think of other situations where twists on the vanilla die roll method seem appropriate. Go ahead and use them--the system is meant to be flexible. The system's explicitly made to slot in well with a 'rulings not rules' playstyle.