The Odds Look Bad
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 are Not A Fan of what might happen.
Luckily, before you roll, you can change a lot.
You can easily make things better by…
These first two are simplest, they keep the roll exactly the same, and don’t cost anything. (Except possibly if you use a flashback.) All they do is make sure that good things are more impactful, or bad things less impactful.
And remember, a partial success is based off the Effect. So if you increase the Effect, a partial success might be as good as a success would have been without doing that.
The Effect of any Outcome can only be increased by one. However, if you’re rolling multiple Outcomes at once, you can increase multiple ones in the same roll.
…having aptitude or knowledge
Aptitudes and Knowledge are how skilled you are, specifically, at some specific thing, as opposed to a general Action.
So the first thing to do to make any possible Effects better is to check for the completely free option and see if you have an Aptitude that applies. And if it’s gather information, check for Knowledge also. You probably already did that, you know what your character is good at already, it’s likely why your character is doing that thing to start with.
Remember that those each only apply to one Outcome, so if there’s more than one Outcome, you need to say what it applies to before you roll. If you don’t say which you want, the GM will generally apply it to the ‘good’ Outcome, the one you’re are trying to accomplish, not the one you are trying to avoid.
Gameplay
Greg 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.
As the Effect is unstated, the default Effect (Assuming default peril) is 2, so it would be two segments.
Greg We really need to keep that guard from coming around. I have an aptitude 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.
Limited Effect, aka, 1 segment.
Greg: 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 without work. And I’m not ticking anything off the clock.
The GM can’t reduce the effect for opening the desk, it’s either open or not, so adds a minor consequence. The clock was only one segment on failure, so is zero on partial success.
However, if you have multiple Aptitudes or Knowledges that overlap, you can indeed apply different ones to different outcomes. This is fairly unlikely.
Also don’t forget to check for abilities that might help, like You have a tell and I just read an article about that. For balance reasons, these usually are limited to gathering information.
…someone else doing a Setup Action to change Potency
The Potency of a situation is a measure of the situation, not of the character doing the Action. And assuming the situation isn’t incredibly time critical, or they use a flashback, other players can do things to change that situation.. This is called a Setup Action, and it’s an action roll also.
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. You have an Aptitude in that, so increased effect.
Minerva I only have one dot in that. Can anyone help?
Greg Flashback: Yesterday I went and got the plans for the building from courthouse, and also 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.
Flashbacks cost by how much effort they take to do what is described, and how narratively reasonable it is for you to know to do them.
Greg 1 dot in that, 1d. And I got a 2. Crap. Well, I am not helpful.
GM Anyone else got anything for the drone?
Setup actions almost always have rolls, but are unlikely to have any consequences to failing. It just didn’t help anything.
If Greg had succeeded, it would have increased something called the Effect, which is a measure of the unique situation, unlike Aptitudes and Knowledge, which are character traits.
And generally this only would increase one Effect, whatever it seem applicable towards. However, doing it multiple times works for different Outcomes, i.e, one person might make what you’re doing more successful, whereas another reduces some dangerous consequence you’re trying to avoid.
Also, the GM might have already taken Potency into account when setting Effect originally, which means they might say ‘You can’t actually make this situation any better, it’s already ideal’. You can, however, attempt to move it back towards the middle if the situation is uniquely bad.
Self-setup?
Can you do a Setup Action to make things easier?
The answer is no, but only because that wouldn’t qualify as a setup action. If you want to do something before the thing you’re doing, to make something easier, just do that thing first?
If there’s no easy options, you can make things better by…
Here’s the choices that can actually make things worse for you or someone else, while they make this specific roll better
…adding possible outcomes
While the GM might have you roll for multiple outcomes, or just a single one, you can suggest additional 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.
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’?
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.
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 Rueben hadn’t added the Goal in, he would have automatically gotten the phone, but possibly would not have a partial success to put into ‘not being noticed’, so would have been noticed.
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
GM Anyone else got anything for the drone?
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 eventually, I’ll do that now. Add the limited consequence ‘Security hears about this’. You want the aptitude on that, or for the scan itself?
Minerva I will leave my drone-y aptitude in the scan.
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 put that bad roll into increasing a clock that could cause a problem later.
You can suggest more consequences, or the GM may sometimes offer additional ones, but allow you to reject them.
If you’re going to come up with more consequences, remember that all Outcomes must succeed or fail independently, so they need to not impact each other.
…having other people Assist you
One other player can take 1 Stress to give you an extra dice, assuming they can explain how that works narratively.
They can use an Edge to do this even if they can’t explain how that works narratively.
Gameplay
GM This is not a good situation, you’re in Great Peril. He clearly think you’re a Fed. Because you said that earlier in front of him.
Reuben File that under ‘things that seem like a good idea at the time’. I could try conning him again? Or…unconning the previous con and conning the new con in. Anyone got any help here?
Greg Well, he’s not going to listen to me.
Minerva Um, I could try distracting him with crashing the drone into the window while you escape?
Reuben But then I blow my cover. We don’t want that.
Minerva Okay, um, what if I assist by pulling up everything we have on this buyer, feeding that in over your earpiece?
Reuben That might work. Yeah, I’m conning him. Into the original cover thing.
GM Okay, Reuben, add a dice in there, and have a Stress, Minerva.
Reuben Good, now I have…one dice.
You may be wondering if Minerva 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.
Attention
If you’re in Lesser or even No Peril, there are likely no possible negative outcomes. If there is no negative outcomes, assisting a gather information roll costs no stress.
This only applies to gathering information, and only when nothing bad can happen as a result.
You can’t assist yourself.
Except you can do it anyway with an Edge. You do not need to explain how you did it, you just turned the Effort you were giving up to 110%.
…asking the GM for a Devil’s Bargain
Yeah, a Devil’s Bargain is basically what it sounds like. You basically just ask the GM ‘What is it going to cost for me to succeed at this?’ and they tell you.
The best time to ask for it is before you roll and fail, because the price is going to go way up if you have already failed. It’s not going to be that high before, one stress for a guaranteed Partial Success is vaguely reasonable.