So it's time to roll, and the GM has told you the Outcomes and their Effect, and you're your looking at your dice, and you Not A Fan of what might happnen.
Luckily, before you roll, you can change a lot of this, in basically four different ways. The summary, in order of difficulty/cost:
- Alter the Effects: The easiest thing is to try to knock the Effect of an Outcome up or down a level, whichever direction is best for you. (Although technically, nothing is stopping you from making things worse for yourself.) You can do that yourself with Aptitudes and Knowledges and certain Abilities, and other players can do it with a Setup Action. Remember Flashbacks exist, and that means another player can do the Setup Action in the past.
- Add Outcomes: You can try to have the GM add outcomes, which give you an additional dice for every outcome, and you can make sure the thing you really need to happen happens. Or the thing you really need not to happen doesn't happen.
- Add Dice: Another player can Assist on the roll, giving you an extra dice. This will require them taking one Stress. Alternately, they or you can spend an Edge and just get an extra dice, no questions asked. Again, remember Flashbacks exist.
- A Devil's Bargain, where you just ask the GM what they're willing to trade.
Note you can only change each Effect one level, and you can only add one dice, unless the second one is from an Ability.
Also, don't be too worried, failure isn't as bad as you think it is, see Pushing Yourself for how to fix things after you fail.
Aptitude and Knowledge
Check if you have an aptitude that applies. Honestly, you probably already did that, it's likely why your character is doing that job to start with.
Remember that they only apply to one Outcome, so if there's more than one Outcome, you need to say what it applies to before you roll.
Gameplay
Reuben: Okay, I'm going to pick the lock on the desk. Grasp, obviously.
GM: So two different outcomes, unlocking the desk and avoiding ticking segments on the already-running guard patrol clock.
Reuben: We really need to keep that guard from coming around. I have an aptiture in physical locks, so I'm going to prioritize speed over accuracy, and apply the aptitude to the clock outcome.
GM: Sounds good. The clock outcome is now Limited Effect. Roll them.
Reuben: And that is...two partial successes. I can live with that.
GM: Not your finest work. You get it open, but go so quickly that jam the lock open. It's not locking again. And I'm not tick anything off the clock.
A Setup Action by someone else
Assuming the situation isn't incredibly time critical, or they use a flashback, other players can do things to make what you're trying to do better, or what you're trying to avoid not as harsh. This is called a Setup Action, and it's an action roll also. You can't do a Setup Action to someone else's setup action, because at that point things are just getting silly.
Gameplay
Minerva: I want to fly a drone over the museum to look for information about possible added roof access.
GM: That airspace isn't monitored, so there's no consequence. Just roll me Locate to see if you locate anything interesting on the roof.
Minerva would look at her character sheet and sees one dot, and does the math.
| Locate, one dot, one outcome, one dice | |
| Locate interesting things on roof |
Minerva: I only have one dot in that. Can anyone help?
Lucas: Flashback: Yesterday I went and got the plans for the building from courthouse, and pulled up the satellite photos on the internet. By comparing the two, we can discover if there's anything changed. And then the drone will know exactly where to look.
GM: That is a really good idea, that takes no effort and is logical so you can have that flashback for no stress, roll me a Understand check to compare them.
Lucas: 1 dot in that, 1d. And I got a 2. Crap. Well, not fixing that.
GM: Anyone else?
You can see that Lucas just jumped into this, but that's because, if this failed, someone could just try something else. While nothing stops you from doing setup actions for setup actions, try not to keep stacking up actions to make a roll better, that slows down the game. As Lucas mentioned and you will see later, you can fix bad rolls, but it's Minerva who should be fixing her roll, not Lucas. The only point you should really stop everything and pull out all the stops is if someone is in life-threatening danger or the entire thing is about to fall.
Generally, only the first success will be applied, and it will only bump the Effect of an outcome up one, which it technically does by increasing the Potency. However, doing it multiple times works well for different outcomes, i.e, one person might make what you're doing more successfull, whereas another reduces some dangerous consequence you're trying to avoid.
The obvious question by you then arises, can do this for yourself? Can you do a Setup Action to make things easier for yourself?
The answer is no, because what you're saying there is 'I want to do this slower and more carefully'. In the circumstances where 'slower' matters, what you should do instead is ask additional consequences to your roll, such as 'Takes too long and guard get curious'.
And if 'slower' doesn't matter, it's assumed you're doing the best you can already.
Adding outcomes
While the GM might have you roll for multiple outcomes, or just a single one, you can suggest addition outcomes yourself. Each of which gives you an additional dice.
For example, if the GM has decided that you do not need to roll to accomplish what you're trying to do, you might still want to do it, if failure is better than the suggested outcome.
Gameplay
Reuben: I want pickpocket her phone. Grasp.
GM: You can do that easily without a roll, you saw her put it in her pocket earlier, but do roll me Grasp to see if that gets noticed, and if so, that's going to cause obvious problems.
| Grasp, one dot, one outcome, one dice | |
| Pickpocket |
Reuben: Um…I'd rather fail than have her notice me, can I roll for success on the pickpocketing?
GM: Sure. I'm assuming you want the improved Effect from your Aptitude in that for the 'not being noticed'?
| Grasp, one dot, two outcomes, two dice | |
| Pickpocket | |
| Not be noticed (Increased effect) |
Reuben: Perfect. Let's roll d3, and...rolled 1, 3, and 4. Whew. Good thing I did that. Let's do partial success in not being noticed, failure in taking the phone.
| Pickpocket (failure) | |
| Not be noticed (partial success) |
GM: Okay, you bump against her, but she turns right as you do that and you can't get to her pocket. Luckily, thanks to the improved effect, she seems to think it was her fault, and apologizes.
If Lucas hadn't added the Goal in, he would have automatically gotten the phone, but likely would not have a partial success to put into 'not being noticed', so would have been noticed. And without the improved Effect, the GM might have had her think Reuben was at fault.
Conversely, if you really need to succeed at something, you can add consequences. Because that means you can put a failure on the consequence and a success on the benefit.
Gameplay
Lucas: 1 dot in that, 1d. And I got a 2. Crap. Well, not fixing that.
GM: Anyone else?
Minerva: I think we really need to find something for our plan to work, and still worried with one dice. Can I fly the drone lower and run the risk of being seen?
GM: Yes, you can fly lower and slower. I was going to start a Security clock anyway, I'll do that now. Add the limited consequence 'Security hears about this'.
| Locate, one dot, two outcomes, two dice | |
| Locate interesting things on roof | |
| Security hears about this |
And now Minerva's rolling an additional die, for a total of two. She's twice as likely to find something, because if she gets a bad roll she can instead use that to increase a clock that could cause a problem later. Two ticks, which is the default, isn't going to do anything, but if the clock fills up, they will start getting a little paranoid and it could do all sorts of things.
You can suggest more consequences, or the GM may sometimes offer additional ones, but allow you to reject them.
Remember if you're going to suggest things, all Outcomes must succeed or fail independently, so they need to not impact each other.
Assisting a roll
One other player can take 1 Stress to give you an extra dice, assuming they can explain how.
If there are no time constraints and you're all in a safe situation, and there are no possible negative outcomes, assisting a gather information roll costs no stress.
Gameplay
GM: This is not a great situation, let's call it Desperate. He clearly think you're a Fed.
Greg: Hmm. I could try conning him? Anyone got any help here?
Minerva: Um, I could try distracting him with crashing the drone into the window the drone while you escape?
Greg: But then I blow my cover. I'd really like to con him.
Minervia: Okay, um, what if assist by pulling up everything we have on this buyer, feeding that in over your earpiece?
Greg: That might work. Yeah, I'm conning him.
GM: Okay, Greg, add a dice in there, and take a Stress, Sal.
You may be wondering if Sal has to roll anything there, and the answer is no, because what she's finding out is part of the roll that Greg is making. It is all, in the narrative sense, one thing being decided. And conceptually, whenever you pay a Stress, you won't have to also roll at that point, the Stress was the cost not to roll.
However, assist could have been done as a setup action instead. Minerva instead would roll Locate or something to find the information, and the result of that would alter the Effect of what Greg was doing, but not given him a dice. She also would not have taken a Stress. That wouldn't have been as helpful, though.
But there are some thing that only make sense as a Setup action. For example, crashing a drone into a building to distract someone is not the same action as escaping. Those are two completely independent things, and cannot be merged together into an Assist. She would need to roll to determine how distracting the drone crash is, and that would modify the Effect of the escape. Also, the drone crash might have additional effects, like causing the notice of people outside the building. It needs to be seperate.
There are also times where something can only be done as an Assist, mostly because both people are doing the exact same thing, and there isn't some distinct 'before' action that makes sense.
A Devil's Bargain
The GM can also 'help'. cue manical laughter
The GM can just give you an additional d6, or even outright remove a consequence or just have you succeed. And all it will cost you is immortal soul…or whatever they want to charge. The cost will be something you have to pay regardless of success or failure, and it could be anything from some level of Harm, to a financial or reputational cost, or it could be that some part of the plan is ruined. It can even be cost to other players, although they have to agree to that.
The time to ask for the Devil's Bargain is before you roll. Nothing stops you from asking after, but if you've already failed, you have a lot less leverage.
Note you don't have to restrict this to things that are difficult. Sometimes things might just feel tedious, even more tedious than the GM thought they would be, the GM might not even charge you anything to skip the rest of the scene and just meet up outsides.
Remember, TV show. We don't need to see the boring parts.