Modifying and Interpreting Rolls

Actions vary in difficulty, and in Story Arc, there are several factors which influence how tough an action is. The most straightforward is the innate trickiness of the action. Other factors, though, are the amusement potential of the action and the dramatic potential of the action. This is because we're telling a story, here, not simulating real life, so we want to reward actions that improve story quality.

Difficulty is simulated by modifying Skills with a bonus or penalty (before the roll, obviously). An average action gets no modifier, an incredibly difficult action has a penalty of -14, and a really easy action (so easy that a lot of the time you probably shouldn’t bother rolling) has a bonus. If a Skill would drop to 1 as a result of modifiers, it stays at 0 and the leftover modifier spills over into affecting the Attribute. Imagine, for example, that Kutzgreezi Phlordertphast is attempting a very difficult leap that imparts a -8 penalty and that the old coot has a Strength of 4 and a Jumping Skill of 6. In this case, his Skill drops to 1 and the leftover penalty of -3 applies to his Strength, giving him only 1 die to roll. If he had been reduced to no dice, he would automatically fail.

No matter how high a character's Skill becomes as a result of modifiers or otherwise, a roll of 20 is never a degree.

Besides the overall difficulty of the action, the following modifiers might affect a character’s Skill when rolling:

If you're competing directly against another character or group of characters, either to do something faster or more efficiently than a competitor, or to resist, prevent, or otherwise cancel some unwanted action or effect being imposed by another, the roll is said to be contested. Trying to win a race, locate the place where your archnemesis has hidden the Sausage of the Apocalypse, or convince your sister that a vote for the Draconian party is a vote for slavery before she convinces you of the opposite are all contested actions. To resolve a contested action, have all involved characters compare their number of degrees to those of the other characters involved in the action. The more degrees a character scores than a given competitor, the better he does relative to her (you can consult the success chart above with the modified number of degrees just like you can for any other action). When competitors score the same number of degrees, they tie.

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